the brilliantly leaping gazelle

I knew I wasn’t in an especially good mood the other morning and therefore, on reflection, I shouldn’t have risen to the bait. But it was impossible not to. Marge had repeated her often-heard refrain that the result of the Brexit referendum vote was null and void because, according to her, people voted Leave in part because of lies and misinformation. Now any sentient adult would be forced to conclude that every election that has taken place anywhere in the world has suffered from those two drawbacks. Even something as inconsequential as an election to become a member of a schools Parent Teacher Association is prone to them. Perhaps moreso.

Anyway, in this information age, when information is available on the Internet, if one isn’t informed, then whose fault is that? This argument fell on deaf ears. Or at the very least, ears that didn’t want to hear it.  My problem with any election is that if people don’t lack the most basic curiosity needed to acquaint themselves with easily findable facts, but despite this, still feel entitled to vote nonetheless, then who is at fault?  The day after the referendum result, the most googled question in the UK was ‘what is the EU?’/

I really wish I’d made that last sentence up. But I haven’t.

The irony is that I voted to Remain. But sharing a house with two Remoaners who are not shy in declaring the result somehow  undemocratic has had the effect of making me even more resolute in my opinion that the democratic will of the people should be respected. That’s what democracy is. Regardless of whether or not there should have been a referendum in the first place, regardless of how the question was framed, regardless of who spent what and where the money came from, the important thing to bear in mind is that more people voted to Leave than to Remain. It’s a fact that seems to bother a lot of people.

As I’ve noted on this blog before, one can imagine the chaos that Remoaners would wreck at a school sports day. If they came second in the parents’ race, Remoaners might insist that it was run again until such time as they won. It does strike me as ironic that they very people who are gesticulating about Donald Trump’s refusal to accept the outcome of the US election are the very same people who find no difficulty in seeking to negate the democratic will here.

I suppose there is a difference between the Remoaners and the way the tyrant Robert Mugabe carried on when he was the president of Zimbabwe after an election as he refused to accept the result of. You know, involving the courts – as the Remoaners did – and claiming that voters were influenced by foreign actors interfering n events – as the Remoaners did – and calling into question where the oppositions funding came from – again, as the Remoaners did.

I suppose it is different at home. Of course of there are loads of different circumstances. None of them leap to mind at the moment, but I’m sure there are.