One of the Guardian newspaper's headlines today is 'The Remainers won these elections and they'd win a second Brexit referendum'.
Nigel Farage's Brexit Party has won the most MEP seats in the European Parliamentary elections. The Brexit Party is a political party that wishes the country to follow the original referendum result and leave the EU. The Guardian newspaper wishes for a second referendum because the sum total of the other MEP political parties, with the Conservatives and Labour divided up how they think it would be, would tally up to more Remainers than Leavers. We have a First Past The Post system for most of our elections. That sort of system means that the Brexit party would be an all out winner as they had the majority of votes. If we had a General Election and they had received the most votes, they would become the ruling party in Parliament. But, and it's a big but, you have to have an overall majority above those of the remaining parties because otherwise other political parties can overrule what you want to do. As a result a political party will often have a 'coalition' which is made up of a couple of political parties (trying) to get together and run the government. I haven't a clue who the Brexit Party would enter in to a coalition with as they are a new political party. It could be very interesting if it ever happened.
The Guardian newspaper says that if you add up all the MEP results you will see that there are overall more Remainers than Leavers, but it's close. It was close in the original referendum too, but you cannot keep choosing to have more voting on the same thing over and over again until you get the result you want. The Guardian is a pro EU newspaper so they want another vote. But we have already had a vote! People will come out in their millions to vote on something like that again, and again it will be a close result I am sure. So would we end up in the position of a reversal of winners, the Remainers, if we had another vote? Probably. But then what could happen is the Leavers could turn round and say 'hang on' it was a close result, people don't really understand and so we better have another vote to check and see what people really want. Then we could have a third referendum and the result could be different again. You cannot keep going on and on. How many votes should you have on a subject? A lot of people didn't like the result of the original EU referendum. I was shocked too. I didn't realise how strongly people felt. The EU was shocked. But the decision was clear, if by a small majority. People wanted to leave, and so we have been trying to do that for the last couple of years.
Anyway the Guardian Newspaper has been rather derogatory about the people who voted to leave and I just get very fed up with all the disrespect happening everywhere. It's happened over the last couple of days after the MEP results, too. The vileness and bitterness on Social Media is perplexing to me. I hold my hand up and say I voted to leave originally, and would do the same again. I object to it being suggested that most of the people who did that were 'ill informed', 'lied to' and 'didn't understand what they were voting for'. Other descriptions have been used, many seriously derogatory, about the sensibility of anyone that voted that way, and particularly their age. Believe me, I did a lot of research before I chose the direction of my vote. I am sure a lot of people did. Why would just the people who voted Remain check out the information? Why couldn't the Leavers have done the same? To suggest that somehow anyone who voted to leave is 'mentally impaired', 'stupid', 'crass', 'old' and so on, is an affront to anyone. There has been nastiness on both sides. Some who voted to leave have called anyone voting to stay that they are 'under an illusion', 'unpatriotic' and 'ill informed'. Equally bitter and vile words have been used. It has got incredibly unpleasant, and leaves a nasty taste in my mouth. I can honestly say that had the result been that we should remain in the EU I would have been sad because that was not how I voted, but I would have accepted it and got on with things. I would not have shouted out that as the result was so close we should vote again, just incase the result was different. I certainly would not have been so rude and obnoxious to those that voted differently to me. In fact, while I would have been irritated, I would have got on with trying to make this country the place I know it can be. A united place, where anyone and everyone can live, freely, and that can happen whether we leave or stay.
I have my reasons for why I voted, as does every one. I do not have to justify why I voted the way I did. All I and many other people wish for, is that we get on with it. Move forward instead of stalemating. The MPs in Parliament stalled and argued amongst themselves instead of doing that. We relied on them to honour a vote result, as they have in the past. It hasn't happened and that is why I am looking very carefully at what is happening around this country right now. We are so in danger of becoming what we hate in other countries. A directorship, (not dictatorship), where you are told what is going to happen, however you voted.We have a democratic system, and as such it should be followed through.
I implore people to calm down. We need to agree to disagree in a respectful way. We need to be nice to each other! We can argue until the cows come home, but you cannot expect to sway people if they have made their minds up, and most of us have. The other people are simply fed up with it all and have stepped back. Maybe we should watch out for those people, because they are the ones in the background who may just creep up on us all while we are bickering with each other?
https://www.nriol.com/uk-visitors/politics-in-uk.asp
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting
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