It's been a while since I've had a rant. And now here's one on a topic I really wanted to avoid as much as possible- Brexit. Specifically, the topic of a second referendum.
The first referendum was akin to someone holding out two clenched hands and asking you to pick one. The left hand definitely contains a £10 note. The right one may contain a £50 note, a £5 note, a pebble, or nothing at all. Do you choose the left hand, knowing you'll definitely get a tenner out of it, or do you gamble on the lucky-dip that is the right hand, hoping to come out better off but risking ending up with nothing?
Or was it? As it currently stands it looks more like being asked which fruit you would prefer- apples or oranges- only for the apple-voting contingent to find out after winning the vote that there aren't in fact any apples on offer, but they can have a banana instead. A lot of people, myself included, don't like bananas; if the vote had been between bananas and oranges from the off, they might have chosen oranges instead.
One far-too-regular contributor to one of the UK's news programmes, a potato-faced muppet and poster-boy for gammon by the name of Brendan something-or-other, can regularly be seen getting very irate at any suggestion of a second referendum, huffing and puffing in red-faced fury that it would be undemocratic.
Sorry? Giving people a vote is undemocratic?
If the electorate were asked to vote on this matter every single week, while it could be called many things the one thing it wouldn't be is undemocratic.
This brings to mind the adage "if you've got nothing to hide....". Those who shout loudest that "the people have spoken!" are the same ones that protest the most about letting the people vote again. It seems strange to me that one could be so certain about the outcome of something yet so rejective of the chance to validate it. Personally I would relish the opportunity to prove my point once and for all and silence the naysayers, or "Remoaners" as they are affectionately referred to in this case.
Of course, while Mr Potato Head and others crow the default pro-Brexit response of "17.4 million people", the figure conveniently forgotten is the 13 million-or-so people who were too apathetic to vote at all, which somewhat dilutes "the people have spoken" stance. 17.4 out of a possible 46.5 million doesn't sound quite as convincing somehow.
Who knows what the outcome would have been if there'd been a 100% turnout? Who knows, two-and-a-half years down the line, how people's opinions might have changed, or how those now old enough to vote may cast their ballot?
We could ask the question, but apparently that would be undemocratic.
