Thursday was a great day for Britain and a great day for democracy. Over 17 million people (a clear majority of those who voted) defied the warnings of the entire British establishment, foreign governments and international institutions like the IMF, to vote out of the failing EU.
The response to this fantastic exercise in democracy has been an unprecedented wave of tears and tantrums from large numbers of those who voted the other way. At the time of writing, over 2.5 million people have signed a petition calling for a second referendum (so we can vote correctly this time presumably). My Facebook timelines has been quite a toxic place since Friday. I’ve seen a number of arguments put forward by friends and others I respect, that I found particularly insulting. There was the one that said older people had secured the leave victory at the expense of the younger generation. Implication – old people shouldn’t be allowed to vote as they’ll be dead soon. There was another that said Brexit was down to uneducated, poor voters being taken in by the lies of the leave campaign. Implication – only people with good degrees should be allowed a vote.
“Shame on you” for voting leave has been a very common comment I’ve seen, but, no it’s you who should be ashamed of yourselves. You lost a democratic vote and now you need to come to terms with the decision and help us achieve Brexit in the best way we can. Owen Jones gets it:
Sadly, some MPs and some Oxford professors, don’t.
alittleecon 