28 June 2016

More referendum talk

I know, it's a bit uncharacteristic to blog so much about politics and so little about going underground, but this is what occupies my mind these days. I am looking on in bewilderment. That the majority of the electorate voted "leave" is shocking enough, but what followed made things worse. Many "leave" voters seem to have voted as if the question was "do you like foreigners?" and seem to think that the vox populi now has proclaimed all foreigners must go. The prime minister who got the country into this mess has resigned, and both th Tories and Labour are too busy fighting among themselves to provide any leadership in this time of rapid change. The "leave" campaigners are now exhausting themselves saying there really is no need to invoke article 50 anytime soon. It is such a shambles!

I do hope the UK electorate will now have realised it is a bad idea to be used as pawns by a bunch of over-entitled, privately educated, millionaire straight white middle-aged men. Cameron did not want to leave the EU; he was just trying to take the wind out of Farage's sails. Johnson doesn't seem keen do do any actual leaving of the EU; he probably just wants to become PM. Has the electorate won anything? No. Will it make a more informed choice next time? I do hope so. Do I expect it? Well, I'm not sure. So far it seems to work fine to just blame foreigners if you are a senior Tory and you screw the country over. Aren't these lovely times to be alive...

1 comment:

Henco said...

It's sad what's happening in the UK I think. Maybe it's strange to say, but as a non-UK-citizen this is a reason I'm backing the 'leave'-camp. Not because I agree with their reasoning, but I think the only way for the EU to move ahead is without being taken hostage every couple of years by this type of fuzz the UK. I think from a continental perspective the UK is only a big obstable towards necessary reforms that are the only chance of ever getting a democratic well-functioning EU. The last thing de EU can use is a member state which only input in the discussion so far is making threats about referenda, and demanding selfish exceptions in exchange for that.
Joris Luyendijk has written it nice in these articles in the Guardian I think:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/11/europe-turn-tables-bullying-britain-david-cameron-eu
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/28/brexit-great-news-eu-britain-sovereignty