I was once one of those
folks who would berate anyone who didn’t vote.
“What’s wrong
with you?” I’d say.
“How can you
complain if you don’t vote? You don’t have a say if you don’t
vote!”
Well. Times change.
For an individual
voter the actual physical and financial value of voting is, and always has been,
just about as near nil as you could get.
Even at the parish council
level, where the turnout is often just a couple of hundred voters, the
number of elections where a single vote has changed the outcome is
vanishingly small.
For an individual,
voting as a process is valueless. The best you will ever get is a
warm glow of satisfaction that you have done your democratic duty.
But your one vote in many millions is all but irrelevant.
“But… If people
don’t vote then democracy fails!” I hear you say. Which is true.
But democracy can
sometimes fail (or be killed) even when people actually do vote. The “wrong”
result can be either ignored or overturned by unscrupulous means.
A classic example is
the current shambles surrounding the 2016 Brexit referendum vote where a clear
(though highly unexpected) vote to leave the EU occurred. To date it has been
systematically undermined, stone-walled and delayed.
So what happens when you vote for a particular outcome, find yourself on the winning side and then the result is reneged on?
The only gain from
your voting, that warm glow of democratic participation, evaporates.
To be replaced by the feeling of being taken for a sucker.
There are many
millions of people across the UK today who feel exactly that.
The losing side in the 2016 referendum have
decided that the “wrong” answer should be cancelled.
The Liberal
Democrats (what a parody of a name!) state that the 2016 referendum result should be ignored. Even though one former LibDem leader described it as a "Once in a Generation Vote" (Here) and another eulogised over how the result should be respected at all costs (Here)
To be fair at the time they made these speeches they both thought remain would win.
Others somewhat more squeamish about being so clearly identified as being anti-democratic, have another tactic.
They want what is laughably called a "Confirmatory" referendum.
If this enforced second referendum were to get successfully flushed through
this cesspit of a parliament then I would hope Johnson and others
would call for it to be boycotted.
But if the consensus
among the Leave camp is to vote, I will grudgingly and reluctantly
vote in what I would regard as little better than Hitlers enforced
snap 1934 referendum.
Even so, I suspect
that many people who voted leave in the 2016 referendum will not
bother again.
Once bitten, twice shy.
The turnout will fall and with
it (I am sure this is the game plan) remain will sneak a win. Brexit
will be cancelled.
Democracy in the UK
will be not only dead but the corpse will be reeking with the stench of privilege and
entitlement.
Voting is above all
else an altruistic act. It is selfless and without tangible reward.
It is something that those seeking office should be cherish and
promote. Not cynically exploit.
If this Hitler style
second referendum is forced through and then used to cancel Brexit then personally, I’ll be done with this cadaver of UK democracy.
I will never vote
again.
