Thursday 9 June 2016

THE MORNING AFTER THE NIGHT BEFORE.





Ok.
So you wake-up on June 24th and you haven’t won.
You’ve put your money and your ballot paper on the losers.
The complete opposite of what you wanted to happen has happened.
What do you do?

Do you accept graciously that the other team won fair & square?
It was a referendum.
Everyone that was eligible to vote was offered the vote.
There was a choice, and it was quite a simple one.
It wasn’t a complicated question like ‘Which one of these five candidates do you want to win?’.
It wasn’t complicated like asking you to put five candidates in order of preference.
It wasn’t asking you to decide which government you’d like to run the UK?
(It’s June 24th 2016 – The Tory ‘majority’ is still very much in charge).
And it wasn’t asking you to ‘presidentially’ decide on the bad guy or the less bad woman.

It was a two-horse race, and more people put their money on the other horse.
Fair.
And square.

Or…….

Do you cry helplessly?  
Then move-on, as you did the week before, when England’s football team brexited early from the European Finals?

“There’s more to life than politics.
They're all pretty much the same anyway, and Wimbledon’s on the telly now.
C’mon Tim!
(And can we record Big Brother please?)”


Or……

Do you get angry?
Really fuckin’ angry!
You clearly live in a country populated by _________ (insert winner) idiots, that have no idea what they’ve voted for!

“And now we’re stuck with this decision/government/Tory party leader, and I’m going to change everyone’s way of thinking to mine, if it’s the last thing I do!
Grrrrrr!
This is criminal!
Where were the real choices anyway?
That was a referendum run on fear, not policy!
(And can we record Versailles please?)”


There was of course a ‘Third Option’.
It wasn’t ideal.
If anything, it said more about our so-called ‘democracy’ than it did our stance in or out of Europe.
But it was the only way we had of telling those that pledged this referendum that we as a people, required more information, more choices and properly elected politicians to make these complex decisions for us.

“Get the electoral system right – make it fairer, and more proportionally representative, and we’ll feel happier about you making those decisions on our behalf.
In the meantime, all we can do is register our disappointment at the way you have conducted this exercise.
But please don’t tell us your grandfather fought & died for our right to take part in this.
He fought & died for democracy.
For us to have viable choices.

Some of us were there in 2011 – Where were you?
(And can we turn the telly off now please?)"