by Jo Morgan
Britain is in a state of chaos. Those who led the Brexit
campaign have deserted us. Our Prime Minister, who warned us of the danger of
Brexit has abandoned us too. As the economy flounders and racism erupts, the sickening
reality of Brexit is setting in.
On Saturday I marched with 50,000 others to urge the
government to stop this madness.
Those who voted remain have had their worst fears
realised. Many who voted leave are now in a state of 'Bregrexit', urging the
government to reconsider as the lies on which they based their vote are
exposed.
We marched not to undermine democracy but to restore it.
The referendum was advisory and not legally binding. It is time for our
politicians to forget their differences and to come together to fix this mess
they've got us in.
Since the day of the referendum, Brexiteers have stood by the claim that the referendum was democratic. Now, whether you can argue that the voters were lied to or not is actually irrelevant.
ReplyDeleteWhat matters is that foreign nationals (specifically EU ones) living in this country could not vote while distant members of the Commonwealth could. In other words, around 4.76 million UK citizens (7.7% of the UK population) were automatically disqualified from voting. For those that argue this wouldn't make a difference, remember that the referendum was only won by a minority of 1.2 million votes.
By comparison, the US population in 1890 when the Jim Crow Laws were at their height was around 62 million (similar to ours nowadays). At the time of Jim Crow, the black US population made up only 4.4 million (7.1% of the US population). Therefore, the proportion of UK citizens coming from the EU which were disenfranchised actually made up a larger portion of the population than the black population did during segregation days. Obviously, the effects of black-white segregation were far worse than the plight of EU nationals. However, considering the size of this ignored group, it is impossible to truly call the referendum democratic.
Additionally, there was the repeated injustice that 16-17 year olds could not vote. This is an issue which spans every modern election as the youth are becoming more politically aware due to internet exposure. Considering the future impacts this referendum would have in contrast to the reset of a general election, this would have been the perfect time to extend the vote to an increasingly younger audience who will face the results of the occasion.