A referendum on something with such huge implications as EU membership is utterly inappropriate. No-one in the general population, save a few scholars, can possibly have studied the political, social and economic effects of such a decision in enough detail from enough perspectives to make such a call.
Your average Joe in the UK is being set up as the fall guy. The general public will be blamed for their decision of “in” or “out” whichever way it goes. Joe’s decision is being made on the basis of political campaigning – which we know is screwed up because at present the conservatives are currently being investigated for electoral fraud in 33 constituencies.
So we have a well funded #Brexit campaign which includes a few notorious well known outspoken larger than life characters – notably Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage. That just reeks of the Trump campaign in the US – bad hair and rascism are all the rage.
Then on the “in” side – there’s no hashtag slogan to capture folks imagination we have Cameron and Corbyn who hate each other having to somehow work together despite the fact that they won’t campaign together.
At the end of the referendum whichever side “wins” society loses. The UK have lost the respect of other nations through their arrogance. It’s all very well to “defend your borders” when you are an island but in mainland europe it stands to reason that open borders make sense. It’s not a case of in or out it’s a matter of working to make policies that make sense for all members.
We will see Cameron take a dive at the end of this – he should have taken a dive at pig-gate or in regards to his father’s tax avoidance which paid for his privileged education. Whatever the result, we are going to see the rise of some awful traditionalist Tory to lead the conservatives. I hope that somehow the NHS can survive.
