Not valid, apparently

I do generally like to think of myself as an advocate of democracy, but this referendum has left me at a bit of a crossroads in my reasoning. Yes I’m concerned that the future of the country is being determined by a large, unelected, faceless body of people who think they understand what is best for this nation; but who are the so-called Great British Public™!? Who are these people that tell us that we need to take our country back? Or the ones telling us that we’re stronger in Europe for that matter? I barely recognise a face. I’d say, that out of the 46.5 million people that could decide the fate of our Beloved Country™ on Thursday, I know…what? About 87? And not even those people listen to what I have to say on the matter! (see what I did there? I’m going to do it some more in the next bit!)

Why have they been left to decide all of this? They’re clearly not the experts themselves, since they keep deferring to other figures for their evidence and facts; figures like David Cameron and Boris Johnson, who have always seemed averse to such things in the past. Why do they do it? Well a lot of people of Britain identify with Boris Johnson because in spite of his fortune, his privileged background and apparent lack of any concrete morals or principals whatsoever, he still looks like he just woke up in the gutter: the natural habitat of the Great British Working Class™. He says things that are easy to understand, distilling all of the worldly knowledge he has accumulated about the EU over the years into pithy little catchphrases like “Where’s our bananas?! Tell me!” and “Oiks oiks oiks! Out out out!” Pity poor David Cameron, who after spending much of his premiership talking up the strain immigration was placing our welfare system and local services under, has now had to play down that very strain in his argument for remaining in Europe. The ‘swarms’ of migrants he was warning the public of a matter of months ago are now largely absent from much of his on-screen begging, replaced by sweats and erratic arm movements.

Adding to the confusion, former Tory adviser Steve Hilton has told the press that while David Cameron the Prime Minister is backing Remain, David Cameron the man would be behind Leave. All very well, but what about David Cameron the two-dimensional image? Or David Cameron the digital transmission? Or David Cameron the shape-shifting reptilian humanoid? What does he/it think? Funnily enough, this question has yet to be asked by any one of the 46.5 million people that might vote today. Huh! Yeah – what a surprise! WAKE UP SHEEPLE! PUPPETS THE LOT OF YOU!

The truth is, is that not one member of the Great, Great, Great British Public™ truly knows what will happen if Great Britain leaves the EU, because that information is in the future, which hasn’t happened yet. Warnings that doing so would be like ‘setting a bomb off’ under the economy could be inaccurate – it might only be like dousing the economy with a can petrol and flicking a lit fag into it – and even then, some might argue, there’s no way of knowing for certain if it would catch fire, even if so called ‘experts’ tell you it will! Keeping hold of the money currently handed over for EU membership might mean more investment in the NHS, or it might just get tossed into Osborne’s big, black pit of nothingness under the pretence of ‘balancing our books’. Hey, a year’s membership is about 4% of what the 2008 bank rescue package was – so we better start saving, right?

But in spite of no-one knowing what will happen, both sides aggressively insist that they do, only in slightly different ways. Many on the Leave side say things like ‘it’s plain and simple’ or ‘it’s obvious that it needs to be done’, whilst many on the Remain side say things like ‘it’s actually a lot more complicated than that’ and ‘please don’t fuck this up for all of us you smelly, racist plebs’ (or at least that’s what they’re thinking, munching their morning muesli as they grumble over that day’s Guardian – come on, it’s not as though they ever actually speak to the everyday, working people they otherwise claim to champion!)

It’s probably fair to say that there’s a fair amount of distrust in both camps, but a relatively small number of people have felt such a snobbish distrust of the rest of the Great People That Make Up The British Public™ that they’ve taken to signing a petition calling for the referendum to be cancelled. The creators of the petition cite the fact that an overwhelming majority of MPs back Remain, and that this is good enough reason to prise the decision-making process out of the hands of the public and put it back in the hands of the government that they don’t trust and probably didn’t vote for. Just to clarify, that’s a bunch of people using democratic means with which to stop a democratic process that determines the shape of our democratic system in the future. Unfortunately, my own petition to ‘Stop lefties from petitioning against anything that makes them feel a bit uneasy’ was rejected for failing to meet supposed ‘standards’ –  but then in some respects, I suppose that’s exactly what I want – isn’t it?

Seemed fine to me.

But the Great-British-Public™-gawd-bless-‘em-all are generally smarter than they are given credit for, which is why the utopias being peddled by voices for both Remain and Brexit have largely been met with derision. If there’s one thing that unites the Great Bloody British Public™ it’s the inherent suspicion of any suggestion that anything can get any better, ever. At a base level, the aspirations of regular people are not really that high in either camp; Remainers admit the EU’s problems but want things to stay as they are, while many Leavers just ‘want their country back’ – which much like asking for the return of a 20 year old, blunt lawnmower off a neighbour, won’t necessarily improve their day-to-day existence, but might feel like a matter of principle fulfilled.

If the polls are correct, today’s referendum will be a close one, meaning at least half of the country will feel miserable tomorrow and conclude that the other half are clueless idiots, selfishly dragging the country towards a terrible, doomed future. Also, no matter what – with Boris on one side and Cameron on the other – Conservatives will win. Again. Still, it’s great to have some certainties in these unpredictable times.

If things are more or less split down the middle though, it will mean that your average member of the Great British Etc Etc will only be 50% satisfied either way. Which does leave a question hanging over the need for a referendum in the first place, if the result for the average Brit is disappointment regardless. I put this to a friend, who pointed out that the average Brit in my construct was fictitious – i.e. someone who doesn’t actually exist. My view is that he or she is a member of Great British Society® regardless, and that someone should be speaking for them. My friend then complimented me, saying that with that line of thinking I’d make an excellent MP, perhaps for UKIP. All I can say is, I speak my mind – what’s in my heart.

The question, for those who can’t read between the lines of the ramblings hastily cobbled together above, is how will I, Marc Sweeney actually vote in this referendum today? Well, the short answer to that is ‘Remain’. The long answer is ‘Obviously Remain, I’m not a reckless fucking idiot with their ignorant head in the clouds chasing imagined notions of patriotism and sovereignty in direct opposition to the absolute deluge of sensible, balanced, evidence-based opinions that have been proffered to me!’ But as a democrat, as a liberal, I am completely open to those that might choose the opposite path. I may not have chosen the Great British Public™ to decide what’s best for this country, but I’m totally behind their being able to do so – well, around 50% of them anyway…