Someone asked me in the Comment section of a political website, What is liberal and democratic about this type of politics?
He was referring to the poisonous stalemate, the 'circus' as some call it, the divisions to the point of madness that Brexit has brought to Great Britain. I replied:
I think the answer to your question is that what you see happening, with all its twists and turns, backstabbing, backsliding and blatant hypocrisies, is liberal democracy. This is how it works, this is it in action. What you get is what you see. But you have to cast off illusions and wishful thinking and look straight at realities.
Someone else asks in a comment addressed to me, What was the purpose of the referendum? To me, it was quite clearly to solve the Tory party's internal and electoral problems: its intractable Euro-sceptic wing that existed before Britain even joined the Common Market, coupled with the alarming rise for the Tory party of the far right UKIP.
We can argue about this, all of us, about the meaning of 'right' and 'left', about how the other side is wrong on each and every issue as it crops up and continue arguing as long as we like. But if there's any such thing as the truth, that is the truth: the referendum was called to solve the Tory party's problems as the leadership of that party saw them in governing under the British party system.
The ramifications of that decision are proving enormous, splitting the parties and country and threatening the traditional workings of the constitution, one of the oldest representative democracies.
That is liberal democracy, or at least liberal democracy going through one of its crises. It isn't the first and won't be the last.
Those who don't like it need to consider the alternatives.
So if Boris Johnson takes the UK out of the EU on 31 October 2019, you will endorse the decision as liberal and democratic?
If Mr Johnson manages to take the UK out, I will never endorse that decision, but I do not think we should overthrow the system or start a war. And because there are millions like me, the argument will continue.
So if Boris Johnson takes the UK out of the EU on 31 October 2019, you will endorse the decision as liberal and democratic?
If Mr Johnson manages to take the UK out, I will never endorse that decision, but I do not think we should overthrow the system or start a war. And because there are millions like me, the argument will continue.
