There is also a lot of hypocrisy in all the rebellion. The Democrats didn’ t seem to care so much when their own president, Barack Obama, bombed Syria. But when Trump launched a military operation against Al- Qaeda in the Yemen( unfortunately one that went tragically wrong), there was a huge outcry from the Democrats, even though the Yemen was another country that Obama bombed when he was president.
Here in the UK, there is uproar over President Trump’ s state visit. Apparently, this may now have to be moved from London to Birmingham because of worries about mass demonstrations and security risks. If this were to happen, it would be one of Britain’ s greatest ever national embarrassments. Donald Trump is the democratically-elected president of what is the world’ s greatest superpower and Britain’ s most important ally. Whatever we think of Trump, we should welcome him as the leader of that country. Anything else would be an insult to the American nation.
We witnessed the same disrespect for democracy last summer, after the Brexit vote. More than four million people signed a petition calling for a re-run of the EU referendum, because they didn’ t like the result. This petition stated:‘ We the undersigned call upon HM Government to implement a rule that if the Remain or Leave vote is less than 60 % based on a turnout of less than 75 % there should be another referendum’. This was probably the most ridiculous petition of modern times. It was like trying to change the result of a football match after it has been played. It made me wonder whether I should have started a petition when Manchester United won the FA Cup last season, to try to force a replay because they won only by a single goal.
On 1 February, the House of Commons voted to invoke Article 50 and to start the Brexit process. Many of the MPs who voted in favour of this were Remainers, but they realised their duty was to follow the will of the people expressed in the referendum – and that anything else would be undemocratic. What is incredible is that 114 MPs actually voted against it. This was the ultimate act of political arrogance. Imagine what would have happened if MPs had actually overturned the result of the referendum. Civil war?
Recently Tony Blair, the former Prime Minister made an extraordinary statement. He called on the British people to‘ rise up’ and fight against Brexit, because the decision to leave was based on‘ imperfect information’. This was the man who took Britain into the Iraq war, against the will of the British people, based on a dodgy dossier of lies. Tony Blair was happy to accept the will of the people in the General Election, when it put him in power and gave him his job. But apparently he doesn’ t want to accept it now. It is the ultimate in hypocrisy. He might as well call on the British people to‘ rise up’ and fight against democracy. In Scotland, the SNP are now also talking about holding a second referendum on Scottish independence because, they say, the situation is different now that Britain has voted to leave the EU. I think what they actually mean is that we should keep on holding referendums until we eventually get the result the SNP wants, and then stop. That is not how democracy works.
What all this shows is how much politicians have become out of touch with reality. They are not listening to the people they are supposed to represent. And this is exactly why mavericks like‘ The Donald’, his new best friend Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn have attracted so many supporters – because they are all independent, free-spirited, loud and a bit mad. In other words the opposite of most politicians. By voting for them, people are casting‘ protest votes’ against politicians in general, against Old Etonians in the Houses of Parliament telling them what to do, against people in power not listening to their concerns. The same thing may be about to happen in France, where there is a chance that Marine le Pen, the leader of the National Front and a more extreme, female version of Nigel Farage, may be elected president. And if the protest voting continues in the other European elections, it could eventually lead to the breakup of the EU altogether.
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