the brilliantly leaping gazelle

Yesterday after the polling stations closed, I suggested that the closer one was to being able to vote for the first time, the greater value of that vote. My reasoning benefited from – in my opinion at least –  both simple clarity and irrefutable logic. Namely, the younger one is, the longer one has to live with the consequences. So therefore, older people with less life expectancy, will have less time to regret their misguided actions.

Because I think it’s a mistake. For one simple reason: the environment.

Both sides have issued dire warnings about what or won’t happen to trade, how much better or worse off we’ll be, both as individuals and as a country. It’s all a bit shallow. I mean, I understand that this is important, but is being  better or worse off really be uppermost in the mind when flood waters are streaming through one house, after days of torrential rain. Really?

Pollution, global warming, rising sea levels, water shortages, all these things and many more don’t respect national boundaries. Equally, when these become major problems most of us will be dead. We won’t care.

But the young will. And their children even moreso. And it will only get worse. Yes it will!

As the website Politico reports;

British voters were heavily split based on age and location in Thursday’s EU referendum, with those aged 49 and under favouring Remain, polling indicates.

Youths strongly favored Remain, with 75 percent of Brits 24 and younger reporting they voted for Britain to stay in the European Union, according to a YouGov poll.

A majority of people age 25-49 also backed Remain, on 56 percent, while older voters preferred Leave, the poll shows.

(However, polls have been wrong. Spectacularly so at the 2015 General Electiont)

Isn’t democracy great?  Makes one glad to be British doesn’t it?