My Final Say on Brexit

Well, we finally did it. David Cameron loaded the gun, and Theresa May has pulled the trigger. Article 50 was delivered to the European Union yesterday (well, a couple of days ago; I did write this the day after, but I was a slacker and didn’t post it until the first of April) and now we are beginning the job of extricating ourselves from the EU. A process that promises to be the most exhaustive and expensive divorce in history.

For people like me, there is nothing left to do but get on with it. Like it or not Brexit is going forward and all we can do is deal with the consequences. However, there is one thing about this whole Brexit deal I would like to get off my chest once and for all. And, hopefully, once I do, I can stop shouting at the telly every time it comes up (it really startles my wife).

To recap: Two posh boys got into a pissing match and one told the other that he didn’t have the cajones to call a referendum. So he called a referendum. And when he lost, he took his ball and ran away.

His unelected successor is determined to see this through, despite the fact that it was merely an Advisory Referendum and the outcome did not have to be implemented. It merely needed to be discussed and voted on in Parliament. She is within her rights to do this, but she wanted to do it all – issue Article 50, negotiate and implement any deals – without any involvement of parliament, and the courts had to step in to remind her she is not a dictator.

She clings to her decision because it is THE WILL OF THE BRITISH PEOPLE, and when Parliament was allowed to debate and vote on it, she warned them not the thwart THE WILL OF THE BRITISH PEOPLE. She has a moral duty to make Brexit happen because it is THE WILL OF THE BRITISH PEOPLE.

I call bullshit.

Yes, the referendum was passed by a slim margin, and yes, that legally entitles the government to enact Brixit, but please stop telling me you’re doing it because everyone wants you to. Because that is patently not true.

Official Chart -- not one I made up

The British people were asked if they wanted to leave the EU, and the British people pretty much said, “Um, we’re not sure.” The 52% of the people who voted Leave weren’t even sure. Some admittedly voted the way they did, not because they wanted to leave the EU, but because they didn’t want to vote for anything David Cameron supported, while others claimed they voted Leave but didn’t know that it meant to leave the EU. I’m not sure how that is even possible, but let’s for the sake of argument, say that all the people who voted Leave were adamantly in favor of it. You still do not have THE VOICE OF THE BRITISH PEOPLE.

You wouldn’t even have THE VOICE OF THE BRITISH PEOPLE if 52% of the entire population voted that way, which, in fact, they did not.

The Leave voters represent only 52% of the electorate who voted. And the electorate represents only a percentage of the population. In total, the people who voted Leave amount to only 27% of the British people.

Therefore: Dear Ms May, you do not have a mandate—THE VOICE OF THE BRITISH PEOPLE is not screaming for you to save us from the EU—so stop saying you do. You’re doing this because…well, I don’t have a faintest idea why you are, but you are, and you have every right to do so, and you are apparently determined to do it, so just get on with it and stop pissing down my back and telling me it’s raining.

And while you’re at it, lay off the Remainers. They have every right to be ticked off, and every right to shout about it. Tell me, if Remain had won by so slim a margin, would the Leave crowd have quietly gone back to their lives and put all this behind them? Would they hell. They’d be screaming blue murder and demanding another referendum.

So just get on with it. If you’ve got the cajones to take us out of the EU, then you’ve got the cajones to stop pretending you’re doing it because everyone wants you to. Admit that you’re doing it because you bloody well want to and don’t care a wit that you are dragging the other 67% of the British people who either voted Remain or didn’t get to vote at all with you.

There. Now maybe I can watch the 6 o’clock news in peace, and not have to scream at the telly every five minutes.