Demography Democracy and Gerrymandering

It seems to me that politicians arguing against Brexit do so because they cannot achieve their political aims by democracy as it exists in the United Kingdom but they can achieve their political aims by the rule of the European Union, if EU law over rides the law of these islands.

For example, we can look at the issue of environmental policy. The UK has generally adopted environmental policies that are not terribly helpful to the environment. The EU has apparently adopted slightly more helpful environmental policies. Therefore the political parties who favour more helpful to the environment policies prefer EU rule to the rule of a democratic United Kingdom. Therefore they are against Brexit because they cannot achieve their ends through the UK ballot box.

Certain politicians believe that the rights of employees should overwhelming prevail against the rights of employers. If the UK is left as a self governing nation there is a real risk that at some time in the future democracy through the elections at the ballot box will adversely change workers rights whereas they are confident that the EU, an autocratic bureaucracy, will be much less likely to do this, and so they are against Brexit.

There are other examples in areas of economic policy, taxation and laws. In essence those against Brexit generally oppose Brexit because they do not trust the voters of the United Kingdom to adhere to their favoured policies, but they can trust the EU or so they think.

Now the policies of those against Brexit may be marvelous or may be appalling. I do not make that judgment. The point I make is that it is for voters in a state to decide (more or less) what policies of what government the state should enact.

Those against Brexit are merely gerrymandering on a grand scale.They prefer to manipulate electoral boundaries so as to favour the rule of the EU over the democratically elected governments of the United Kingdom.

So democracy is out voted by an institution which really has no ideals other than economic ideals. The famous “four freedoms of the EU are all ones that we would not normally consider as freedoms at all. They are the free movement of goods, services, capital and persons within the EU. These are not what we traditionally think of as freedoms. We think of life, liberty, freedom of expression and freedom to elect those who govern us.  The four so called freedoms of the EU do no more than provide what large corporations and multinationals require – trading, finance and a work force. These so called freedoms are not to be enjoyed by those outside the EU. A freedom is a universal concept that should apply to everyone, not a local concept applying to members of a club.

Sovereignty of a nation is hard won. Many of the EU member states won their sovereignty as a result of sacrifices made by the United Kingdom and the United States. Others won their sovereignty as a result financial expenditure by the UK and the USA on defence, which ultimately wore out the old USSR.

The concept of sovereignty is an important one in a democratic context. If there is no sovereignty in a state there cannot be democracy there, and if there is no democracy then we as individuals cannot enjoy our individuality.