There is nobody in the Western world who doesn’t realise the mess that the English have made with Brexit: our economy has gone down the pan in order to satisfy the xenophobia of the English extreme right.
Brexit was an abuse of democracy BUT bit wasn’t totally in vain if it it serves as a warning to other countries who boast of their pluralism, tolerance and liberty.
If some time, for example in Spain, Catalunya or Scotland, you find yourselves tempted to a referendum and you want to avoid falling into the trap into which we have fallen, I beg you, with all my heart, that you insist upon an indisputable majority because it is a disgrace that a plebiscite on the sovereignty of a state should be binding when it is won by only 37.4% of the voters registered in the country.
On the 23rd of June 2016 the British electorate was 46,501,241. On that day 17,410,742 of us voted to leave the EU. That is to say, only some 37.4% of the electorate voted in favour of Brexit (less than 4 out of 10 people registered to vote). However, this small percentage of the electorate obtained a simple majority and, according to the rules of the game, this was enough for the Brexiteers to get their own way; to have the right to change the economic and political direction of the entire nation and to initiate the process of withdrawal from one of the world’s most important and prosperous economic blocks.
If we allow such a small percentage of the British electorate to enjoy such power over the rest of us, we are making a mockery of democracy. It is a reductio ad absurdum of our democracy and an abuse of the political tolerance of which we are so proud in the United Kingdom.
I know, I know. I’m just a bad loser who wants to change the rules of the game because my side lost the vote. Instead, I should accept the result because it represents the will of the people. The Brexiteers won with a simple majority and that’s it, full stop. If many people didn’t vote, that’s their problem. They can whistle.
Well, I’m not convinced. It might be that this result and this level of participation would be acceptable in the context of an ordinary, common-or-garden election in which people only have to choose between Conservative and Labour, the blues and the reds. For much of the last hundred years we have practised swapping between the two parties. We usually throw out the governing party every ten years when it has become so corrupt that we no longer have any faith in it. That’s to say, we don’t vote to change the system, we just punish the party in power. Many of the elections are of little importance: we prefer this party because it promises us lower taxes or that party because it says it will increase pensions etc. etc.
This is why I believe that we should demand a firmer commitment of the electorate when we ask it to make such an important decision whether or not to change our systems of government and economy. In a plebiscite on a matter of such importance as our continued membership of the EU we should ask the electorate to produce a strong agreement or a firm rejection. If a question is of such an importance that it needs a plebiscite to resolve it, it is reasonable that we should insist that the vote produces a result which is capable of resisting the wobbles and uncertainties endemic in public opinion. I suggest that at least 50% of the whole electorate must demonstrate that it is convinced of the merits of a change in the system of government before the government takes the result seriously.
The lesson for Spain, another nation that is under siege from demands for a referendum on Catalunya, is obvious. We know full well that at the moment referendums on independence for the regions of Spain are forbidden by the Spanish Constitution. But nothing stays the same for ever and if, in the future, you, the Spanish people, were to amend the Constitution to allow referendums, I beg you to impose realistic limits; that you insist on an emphatic majority; that you raise the bar sufficiently high; that you use sensible parameters. When the people vote for something, take care that there is no room for doubt about the result.
Please learn from the great mistake that we have made.
Ingleses 