Thursday 17-02-02 Farage and Democracy

https://twitter.com/Nigel_Farage/status/826914009056161796

 

Farage is a tit, in my opinion. These MPs are not "enemies of democracy". Less than 40% of the voting public voted for Brexit, so it is only right that some MPs vote against triggering Article 50. MPs are representatives, not delegates. Indeed, most MPs, if it were down to them, would not have voted to trigger Article 50.

But MPs have carried out the will of the people, just as Cameron promised in the introduction to his referendum: "This is your decision. The government will implement what you decide."

And that is why referendums are infrequent in British politics. We elect MPs to represent us in Parliament, and decisions get taken there. We don't instruct our MPs how to vote, they are not delegates. We can petition them, and ask them to vote a certain way during a certain vote, but they are under no obligation to take our views into account when making their decision. I asked my local tory MP to vote for the renationalisation of the railways: I knew he wouldn't, but I wanted him to know that some of us actually agree with that particular proposal. We actually had a good chat about it.

In UK politics the plebiscite (that's you and me) are directly consulted very infrequently, i.e., we don't do referendums. We let the MPs decide on our behalf. I have heard that if we had a referendum on whether hanging should be brought back as a punishment, it would overwhelmingly be approved, and that is part of the reason why we don't have a referendum on it. MPs are protecting us from ourselves - but that is why we vote them in and out of power.

Unfortunately on this occasion, despite the fact that the Brexit vote will lead to a massive constitutional change, Cameron put in no safeguards or thresholds over voting levels or participation. If only one person had voted, we would have had to follow that individual's wishes. That is how ridiculous the Brexit referendum was.

In my opinion, the 114 MPs who voted against the bill should be applauded. They carried out their job, as the representative of their electorate, to the best of their abilities and as their consciences dictated (especially those Labour MPs who voted against the whip). They knew that they wouldn't stop the bill being passed, they knew that they were making a futile gesture, but they went ahead and voted as they did anyway.

They might lose their jobs at the next election, or other considerations might sway the electorate. But by voting as they did, the 114 MPs showed that we were living in a democracy and not a dictatorship, which is probably what Farage would prefer - as long as he was wearing the leather trousers.

TTFN.