Get Brexit Done

GET BREXIT DONE

 

Boris Johnson’s outstanding victory.

in BBC News at www.bbc.com/news

The Conservative Party won a crushing majority in yesterday’s election. The Labour Party went back to 1935 figures. Unlike Theresa May, Boris Johnson took a risk and was abundantly rewarded with the election of 364/65 Tory MPs, the largest Westminster majority since Margaret Thatcher’s 1987 victory.

Finally, one sees the light at the end of the Brexit tunnel. It is really incredible the dragging of this vital issue which was formally set off on 30^th March 2017, over 30 months ago. Hopefully, Boris Johnson will wrap up this annoying issue asap, enabling the United Kingdom and all the rest to move forward.

A final word to the sore losers of the Brexit referendum. They got their cherished second referendum and…they lost again and they lost it big time. Hopefully they will finally get over it, too.

Hubris and Intolerance

HUBRIS AND INTOLERANCE

There is a significant segment of people (including groups, parties and media) in Europe and North America who seem to be convinced that they are the guardians of truth in political and social life. According to these people, Democracy is fine as long as their views, policies and candidates prevail. The rub is when they do not. When they do not, all hell breaks loose.

The recent referendum in the United Kingdom and the United States’ presidential election, as well as, EU-related referenda in the past quarter-century, are the starkest examples of these displays of anti-democratic hubris and intolerance.

The arguments presented are mostly stupid, or futile. Here are some examples.

1- The electoral system is a major culprit in the USA, because Hillary Clinton got more votes and yet she lost the election to Donald Trump. However, the American electoral system has been well established for 200 years and everyone knows (or at least they should) that what matters in these elections are the electoral votes garnered in each of the 50 states. You win when you reach the 270 vote threshold, regardless of your name or party. Obviously, anyone can dislike the system, but you cannot contest it after the deed is done.

2- In the UK, some people in Scotland and Northern Ireland claimed they were not bound by the referendum’s results because in those regions the majority voted “Remain”, whereas in the country as a whole the “Leave” vote prevailed. However, the referendum was a countrywide vote and so was the outcome, which is valid and binding to everyone, from the Shetlands to Dover. If things actually worked in this absurd way, countries would split their way out of existence after a few elections and referenda.

3- The winning candidate/party/policies/ideas are bad; we do not like them, so they cannot win. Well, tough. Welcome to Democracy.

The bottom line is that the people who are looking for tricks, schemes and pretexts, or are resorting to violence to subvert the electoral outcomes in the UK and in the US are, first and foremost, intolerant, arrogant, hypocritical and they just cannot stand the idea of losing an important election/referendum.

I have been through many elections, some of them as a candidate and I have been unhappy with the results many times, especially at the local level, but I have never questioned the legitimacy of the winners, much less have I tried to subvert the elections outcome. In Democracy there are no winners by design.

It is highly ironic that people who portray themselves as tolerant and enlightened are neither. They just act as if they were only to the extent that their views prevail. When they do not, the thin veneer cracks and their true selves emerge: arrogant, intolerant, sore losers, full of rage, in one word, non-democratic.

These self-entitled holders of the truth are the ones who, above anyone else, subvert Democracy with totalitarian thoughts and actions.

Establishment Fatigue and Rejection

ESTABLISHMENT FATIGUE

AND REJECTION

 

Voting “NO” to the establishment is becoming increasingly popular.

The media have spent the better part of the past few years feeling puzzled, shocked and outraged. And the same goes for the political establishment.

They are befuddled by politicians like Marine Le Pen (France), Nigel Farage and Jeremy Corbyn (United Kingdom), Jaroslaw Kaczynski and Beata Szydlo (Poland), Viktor Orban (Hungary) Gert Wilders (The Netherlands), Kristian Thulesen Dahl (Denmark), Jimmie Akesson (Sweden) Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders (USA), Alexis Tsipras (Greece), Catarina Martins (Portugal), Beppe Grillo (Italy), Pablo Iglesias (Spain), Norbert Hoffer and Alexander Van Der Bellen (Austria) winning elections, faring well in the polls, or having some significant degree of success, following or impact.

If these people/parties who are comfortably established in power for decades could just bother to step down from the pedestal for some time and actually see, understand and internalise people’s problems, difficulties, hardships, complaints, fears, ambitions, creeds, goals, maybe they would figure out why the electorate is leaving them them in droves.

If these people/parties could come to terms with the fact that Democracy is NOT about choosing between two different persons/parties with a single platform, but that it is about REALLY choosing between different platforms, policies, paths.

If these people would stop trying to sell the Stalinist idea that there is only one way forward: their own.

If these people would understand that there are millions who cannot stand them, or their parties, or their policies, or their minions anymore.

If these people in the media would stop from sheepishly caving in to the one way, one thought, one policy creed.

If these people and the media would stop being intolerant to those who do not toe the line, their line.

Then maybe, just maybe, they would not be so shocked with, so surprised with, so contemptuous of the reality that is unfolding before their eyes.

Then maybe, just maybe, they would understand that if people do not like the political platform X, they will not vote for it. And if both Mr. Smith and Mr. Jones present X to the electorate, it is only natural and obvious that many people will shun both Mr. Jones and Mr. Smith.

At this point, people have basically four options:

1- They abstain.

2- They return blank ballots.

3- They rebel and overthrow the regime.

4- They vote for an alternative, any alternative which is an actual alternative.

Option 1 is by far the most popular one. Millions of people shun the vote, the elections and the candidates. And their members are generally growing.

Hundreds of thousands, like me, choose option 2 and they are also increasing. It is a more proactive version of option 1.

Option 3 is mostly not a realistic one. At least not yet.

Option 4 is an increasingly popular one. People are growing angrier and more disappointed at the establishment which they view as an undeserving, unbecoming, corrupt elite with obnoxious privileges.

People are aware that Jones & Smith will not introduce any changes. People are fed up, they are mad, they are afraid and many just cannot put up with Jones & Smith anymore.

That voters are even willing to vote for a nutcase instead of the usual parties, speaks volumes of the disgust that mainstream politicians have incurred in much of the electorate. Real change is in order.