Some choice pars from Janet Albrechtsen’s column in today’s Australian
“..The common thread of the Brexit vote is profound disillusionment with elites who will say anything to get power and to keep it. The Eurocrats’ rule of thumb: tell voters to trust us because we know better, but don’t trust the voters. The June 23 vote confirms the growing political divide about how politics should be practised, who should participate and for whom political structures exist.
In a world of strife we must look, learn, vote with care
It was, after all, Jean Claude Juncker, now President of the European Commission, who in July 2007 described the effect on Britain of the Lisbon Treaty signed in December that year: “Of course there will be transfers of sovereignty. But would I be intelligent to draw the attention of public opinion to this fact?”
Juncker isn’t an outlier. The entire EU project has been built on a edifice of tricking voters, treating them as too stupid to know what’s good for them and, when votes don’t go the way of the European project, to seek 1another vote until the lumpen proletariats get it right.
For a nation that over hundreds of years fought off invaders, ruled large swaths of the world, took power away from its monarchs and delivered parliamentary sovereignty, the suggestion that Britain uncuffed from Eurocrats in Brussels cannot prosper is, frankly, a slur against Britain’s history and its future.
Disbelief in the Remain camp at the Brexit vote turned into the same toxic brew of elite snootiness and cluelessness that led to the Brexit result. First, malign the voters as stupid, old and racist and, second, demand a new vote. The BBC led the way analysing the Brexit vote as Little Englanders hankering for lost customs and heritage.
Not a mention of people reclaiming democracy and sovereignty. Overcome with scorn, CNN’s Christiane Amanpour has been desperate to depict the result as a vote for UKIP’s Nigel Farage. Never mind that Farage won only 12.7 per cent of the vote at the last British election, yet 52 per cent of voters said no to the EU.
Befuddlement overcame many at our ABC, with News Radio’s Paul Quinn suggesting that many who voted to leave the EU didn’t know what they were voting for or didn’t think it would happen. News Radio’s Sandy Aloisi seemed certain it had repercussions for peace in Ireland and was keen to explore Bregret, the sense that many now regret their vote.
Again, no analysis or intellectual curiosity about Brits wanting to bolster their democracy.