17 September 2018
I'm back. Older, inevitably; wiser, indubitably; grumpier, naturally but where to start. Almost five months have passed since I last put grumps to paper, or screen to be precise and so much has happened to annoy me. At first I thought I would regale you with some of those things but then I decided what is past is past and so I would start afresh, grumpying away as and when the fancy takes me.
Sadly, it is an old subject that is annoying me most at the moment; Brexit, now just over six months away. Maybe. Perhaps, Possibly. Well.........no.
For those of you who followed me through those halcyon days in the spring of 2016, you will know my thoughts on the whole referendum thing. For those that didn't and can't be bothered to go back, here is a précis.
The referendum was a farce, the one question stupid, David Cameron was an arrogant idiot and the only good thing to come out of it all was that Nigel Farage became inconsequential and David Cameron resigned. Sadly, in my view, he has been replaced by an even bigger idiot. At the last election she promised that her leadership was “strong and stable” and nowadays she likes quoting a phrase Kenneth Clarke used about her when he described as “bloody difficult”. Both are true. She has found it bloody difficult, some might say impossible, to provide strong and stable leadership.
Her party is split between Brexiteers and Remainers but she presses on with the attitude of do it my way or not at all. She has ended, in her chequered proposal, with neither black nor white but the thing that really annoys me is her comment, and I think I am right in attributing to her, as well as others, that a new referendum would be undemocratic. In other words, peasants, you made a choice and you cannot change your mind however much more you may now know. Once you voted, that's it. Rules are rules and democracy on any one subject is a once in a lifetime decision.
This I find hard to comprehend. Surely, in a true democracy, you can ask the people as often as you need. With our unwritten constitution saying, through the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, that the interval between general elections is five years, why did we have one, called by Teresa May, after two. She could actually do this because a provision says that an election can be called if a motion is agreed by two thirds of the total number of seats in the Commons including vacant seats (currently 434 out of 650). Is that democratic? The 434 MPs may not have had their constituents interests at heart when voting. There is, however, no Act specifying when a referendum can be held so it would not be undemocratic to call one. In my mind, many have changed their minds but In my mind, way back in 2016, the actual question was downright stupid. We were just asked if we wanted to leave or stay. Now, democratically, we should be asked on what terms we want to leave.
24 September 2018
This is really getting boring but as it annoys me so much, I need to be grumpy about it.
We, the people, voted in June 2016 to leave the EU. That was a democratic vote. We were not asked on which terms we wished to leave. To carry out our first wish without giving us the chance to decide how it is carried out would be totally and utterly undemocratic. Fullstop. Fact. No argument.
If we had voted to stay and not then been asked on what terms we wished to stay that, too, would have been totally undemocratic. If all those who say a second referendum is not democracy would now shut up, I would very much appreciate it.
This all came about because the Conservative government back in 2016 were so incompetent that they asked such a stupid question. Their behaviour since has shown that the same level of incompetence still exists although it is now channelled into a different area with a different leader. Full stop. Fact. No argument.
Our young people do not deserve to be led in such a way.