The BBC is creaming itself with "news" that almost three million of our fellow citizens have signed a petition calling for a re-run of the EU referendum. I am told this shows that the nation is having second thoughts. Really? It makes me think that many of us are incapable of sensible thought at all.
It seems apparent that many of the names are bogus but I am happy to accept that a couple of million of folks who are eligible to vote want us to have to vote again because we voted the "wrong way". But are these two million "having second thoughts?" One suspects that they were "remainers" before and are "remainers" now. Nothing has changed it is just that they refuse to accept the popular will.
In covering this sad episode the BBC interviewed one signatory, a middle class young lady who espoused that those voting for Brexit just did not understand what it meant. That is why we must vote again. And that is one argument put by posh middle class kids who have not seen their jobs destroyed by the EU as have the fishermen or suffered downward pressure on wages thanks to migration as have the working classes or seen pressure on health and state schooling as have folks in the Grim North. For the posh middle class kids it is simple: Brexit voters were thick. Or racist. Or both. So lets have a new vote and keep voting till they get it.
Others argue that not enough people voted. The petition says that you should not accept change unless 60% vote for it and 75% of all voters vote. So by this curious take on democracy where you can get to decide policy by winning just 40.1% of the vote one is guaranteed inertia on all matters. Such a distorted poisonous version of democracy would have allowed recidivists in Parliament to delay abolishing the death penalty, decriminalising homosexuality and keeping Britain illiberal for longer in so many unpleasant ways. Is inertia always so cool young folks?
As for the 75% turnout, the referendum say the highest turnout in any national contest (on an old electoral roll since 1992 and more votes cast than in any national contest ever. If that is not democratic nothing is.
The reality is that had the vote been to Remain by even one vote on a turnout of just 30% this petition would not have started. It is nothing more than a long list of names which are either bogus or are of millions of folks who are elitist patronising snobs who simply cannot accept what democracy means.
It is a roll call of shame.
PS. I am now off to start a petition saying that own goals scored by Northern Ireland should not count and therefor post match we can change the rules and force a re-run of the Wales game on Thursday. can the three million sign up quickly surely you know that it makes sense?