UPDATE BELOW: At the 2016 referendum in Britain, established opinion did not get the rubber stamp it was looking for, and felt it was entitled to. And they're mightily pissed off about it. Their ugly, anti-democratic colours are now shining through
the commentator
On 26 June 2016 11:16
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With more than 3 million people having signed a petition for a repeat referendum on Britain's membership of the European Union, and 100,000, bizarrely enough, calling on London to make a unilateral declaration of independence -- and then to become dependent again as a city state member of the EU -- the fog of war has now lifted to reveal a very ugly truth about the real battle lines in the recent campaign.
It was, at core, a division between those who are fundamentally committed to democracy (the Brexit camp), and those (the Remain camp) who either oppose democracy or at least feel unsure about whether and to what extent it should be respected as a first order political priority.
We at The Commentator have been pointing this out for years. It's just that the Remain camp's sheer lack of graciousness in defeat has opened up this reality for all to see.
Clearly, the petition is a signed confession of implacable hostility to democratic rule. Without exception, every single signatory is a bigot. But just look at how many of them there are.
We have Labour MP David Lammy, backed by tens of thousands on social media, calling for the result of the referendum to be ignored by parliament.
The Guardian (see this editorial) and its laughably confused columnists (see Nick Cohen's angry and incoherent rant here) are mostly not calling for a repeat referendum, at least not yet, but they are right on the edge of questioning this referendum's legitimacy.
Of course, we have long known that many in the Remain camp were ambivalent about democracy. They have a track record of sneering at the common man and woman.
Elections for them, as for the European Commission and Europeanists more broadly, are now considered little more than rubber stamps for policy platforms that they agree with.
We've seen this a hundred times, not least with the repeat referendums in Ireland (Nice and Lisbon), and the referendums on the ill-fated European Constitution whose results were ignored in France and the Netherlands.
At the 2016 referendum in Britain, established opinion did not get the rubber stamp it was looking for, and felt it was entitled to. And they're mightily pissed off about it.
As the most democratic country in Europe, the neo-authoritarians will be hard pushed to overturn this result in Britain.
But as they scream and wail about it, their true, anti-democratic colours are shining through.
UPDATE: There are now moves -- from the US and Germany -- to overturn the decision. In addition, the UK establishment is working day and night to smash the democratic will. Welcome boys and girls to the neo-authoritarian future..
http://www.thecommentator.com/article/6353/anti_democratic_hysteria_gripping_failed_remain_campAlso:
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