Hope you all had a Happy Independence Day? I imagine about 52% of Britain did…To be honest I’ve not been feeling overly patriotic this week – my country of birth appears to have lost the plot and my present home country is rapidly heading towards the same fate, especially if Trump really does become our next president (which seems an ever-increasing reality). I would suggest that we implement the Australian law of compulsory voting, however after their election result last weekend and the possibility of a hung parliament I’m not quite so sure it does what it says on the tin!
Winston Churchill famously said, ‘The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.’ And sadly that still seems rather fitting 70 years on, in spite of how much easier it is to access information nowadays. It is obviously vital for the voter to be able to make an educated decision before they hit the ballot box – the misinformation and hysteria fed to us by Westminster during the run up to the EU referendum is a case in point. Cameron and his cronies were truly at fault for allowing the referendum to go ahead in the first place and I think he should be ashamed to have helped send the nation into widespread panic with threats of WW3 etc – those extreme tactics well and truly backfired. Or maybe he thought ruining the country would stop his legacy being all about #PigGate.
I’m not quite sure anyone really understood (or understands today) what they were voting for or against. Just like when the West decided to go to war in Iraq (which UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan declared an illegal act) the public were fed lies and misled to the tune of thousands of soldiers and civilians lives left shattered. This time lives are being destroyed by racially-motivated attacks that I believe stem from the media and politicians, including Trump, Farage and Cameron, who are all guilty of encouraging and inciting various incidents with their ill-chosen words. I am not giving the racists a free pass by any means, but if they are stupid enough to think that way, they are certainly capable of now thinking that they have license to behave that way.
We, the people need to stop allowing ourselves to be the pawns in these political power struggles. I touched on the subject a while back regarding the sneaky strategy to ‘divide and conquer’ but it appears to have morphed into ‘divide and destroy’.
People who should be allies have been pitted against each other – Clinton vs Sanders supporters, young people accusing older people of robbing them of their future, urbanites disgusted at the way the ‘peasants’ voted, even some of my own friends aggressively questioning whether I should be entitled to an opinion on the politics of a country I don’t currently live in.
Nicola Sturgeon, who appears to have similar aspirations to the Pied Piper (although I think a few other politicians could be tarred with that brush), is not helping the situation at all with her threats to abandon the UK. She already knows that Spain will probably veto a separatist country joining the EU, (although admittedly there are other options Scotland could explore), but more importantly why lead the country into further uncertainty when this should be a time to unite and repair the damage together? She seems to forget (or just doesn’t care) that half of England didn’t want it either, not to mention Northern Ireland. In this tumultuous time the last thing we need are ship jumpers, especially not from the very people who led us in to this messy situation. Except extreme right winger Nigel Farage, whose quitting is more than welcome in my book!
It seems Chris Evans leaving Top Gear was greeted by cheers around the globe too.
Lets all make sure to take action instead of constantly reacting. You can start by registering to vote, then using that privilege in your local elections, as we are never going to have decent people representing us at the top if they can’t get in at the bottom.
Hopefully next time you hear from me there will be more harmony and less discord in the world. And apologies to those of you who are sick of hearing about it – I promise I will do my best to make this the final word from me!
However be warned, as I hear Sandro Monetti will be using the Brexit topic to his advantage at our bi-monthly Pub Quiz on Tuesday and has dedicated a whole round to it! So if you feel up to it please come along. All details can be found on Facebook@BritsinLA and then click our events tab. Get there for 7.40pm if you need him to find you a team to join.
Feel free to email us at britsinla@gmail.com with any questions or comments as we always love to hear from you.
Cheers!
Eileen
