The issue of the Brexit referendum still confuses and upsets me.
Political Science 101: Government representatives in a democracy are elected to make determinations on behalf of the population. In fact, the very raison d'être of parliamentarians is to make decisions for their citizenry on difficult-to-understand, multi-layered issues. So why, I ask, would David Cameron so irresponsibly put such a complex issue to a public referendum, an issue that would have far reaching implications for the financial markets, the value of the pound sterling, British access to EU free trade markets and and the future of Great Britain?
As with most referenda, the campaign was exceedingly divisive playing on Islamophobia, racism and xenophobia, simple issues carrying a huge emotional punch. Make no mistake, a large proportion of Leave voters had little to no understanding of potential damaging economic repercussions; their vote was solely based on anti-immigration sentiment. Witness the massive number of Google searches by British citizens on the day following the narrow Brexit win.....
....or the number of post Brexit-vote interviews in which the now distressed voters whined that they had only wanted to make a point. Dear God! A little late, don't you think?
It is not the final Leave vote that perplexes me. I sadly understand how that happened. What baffles me is that Prime Minister Cameron, in an effort to keep the peace between the anti- and pro-European wings duking it out within the Tory party and so cynically disregarding concerns for his electorate, gambled the future of Great Britain by putting this complex issue to referendum. He gambled; Great Britain may have lost.
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