Lies and Deceit

The current situation in national politics is enough to drive anyone to despair. Two years ago, we had a referendum which by and large everyone now believes was a bad idea. That the politicians who were in charge of that referendum have now faded into obscurity tells of how little the situation was thought through. It’s difficult not to see the whole situation as a last ditch attempt to avoid the new EU tax evasion legislation; however, this is just needlessly cynical.

Some points which need to be made:

• The referendum was always advisory. We don't actually have mechanisms to have legally binding referendums under British law due to the overriding sovereignty of parliament. It's by design. We elect people who represent our views so that parliament represents the will of people, but also the members of parliament have the overarching power in the land. Given the rhetoric about taking back control from Brussels and regaining our sovereignty, this is all very funny.
• The 48/52 split from the referendum is hardly a 'clear mandate'. Turnout was not high enough, and 2% isn't enough to make a major decision anyway. It shows that something must be done. Just because this is something, does not mean that we must do it. When the result either way changes when you draw the error bars, don't do the damn silly thing.
• As Stevyn Colgan put it, _Brexit_ itself is a neologism. It doesn't actually mean anything, and is not well defined. Arglefoob means Arglefoob, after all.
• The hateful 'Brexiteer' and 'Remoaner' language helps nobody. Surprisingly enough, insulting people for their beliefs tends to put them on the defensive.
• I have yet to see a good reason for us leaving the EU. I recognise this is somewhat due to my internal bias towards believing one should fight to change something from the inside for the betterment of everyone than selfishly flouncing out when it becomes clear something is wrong. There are so many issues with the way the EU, the European Council, the Council of Europe, etc. are built bureaucratically. What we're supposed to do about it when we willingly renounce our presidency (which happened in 2016), I have no idea.
• The new copyright directive coming through the EU is a nightmare waiting to cause havoc.
• The EU fares far better in terms of representative democracy than Westminster. It uses proportional representation across supranational parties, and every single citizen in the union votes for MEPs. If Farage and his party actually ever turned up to their jobs instead of 'protesting', we could see a real golden age of supranational cooperation.
• Scottish independence is not, even now, just a matter of time. It's a lot more likely though, since the Scottish act after the first referendum was toothless, the rift in Anglo-Scottish politics is widening and Westminster treats the views of Scotland as something which can be widely ignored. Going from one independence referendum to an 'independence' referendum, those of us north of the wall are somewhat perplexed as to what is going on south of the Watford Gap.
• All policies in current European law have been taken into British law. The fisheries policies are definitely not going anywhere, as much as the government likes to claim that they'll be the first to go. Protecting fish stocks is a vital ecological policy for protection of future food supply.

Sir Humphrey: Bernard, if the right people don’t have power, do you know what happens? The wrong people get it: politicians, councillors, ordinary voters!
Bernard: But aren’t they supposed to, in a democracy?
Sir Humphrey: This is a British democracy, Bernard!

‘Yes, Prime Minister’ --- ‘Power to the People’

Beyond anything else, we do not know where we will be in March of next year. If the People’s Vote happens, we’re in for a very bumpy ride, as even if that does come back with a clear mandate either way, it’s not going to come back with a result in favour of the Withdrawal Agreement. It’s either we crash out, and suffer, or we send the Prime Minister to Brussels/Strasbourg to grovel to let us go back to the way we were.