I am glad this referendum is nearly over. I have said just about everything I have to say on the issue without churning up ever more obscure details. If you have to dig that far down to demonstrate your case then it isn't worth making. The principles transcend the technical minutia of leaving.
The principle is that we should have democracy. ie that the people should hold the power. That would in any normal circumstances make this a cakewalk. But that has been a difficult argument to make because Britain has been without anything resembling democracy for so long that the public equate democracy with the increasingly pointless ritual of voting. That is why an alarming number of otherwise intelligent people believe the EU is a democracy. It is this misapprehension the EU has nurtured with its decoy parliament, which further entrenches the confusion.
But as a well as the principle there is also a moral aspect to this. We are not voting to leave what we joined in 1973 (the EEC). We are voting to leave something we are members of only through the connivances of successive governments who have sought to commit us to a political merger without our consent, while hiding their true intentions.
And though that is sufficient reason in itself to oppose the political establishment, the further deceit by David Cameron in claiming he has secured EU reforms cannot go unanswered. While simply ejecting the individual could be viewed as sufficient, it should be noted that in engineering this contrivance, he has given up any further leverage we might have inside the EU - and has surrendered any veto over further integration. And that is deadly serious.
Having lied so completely to the public and parliament it should have seen him facing a vote of no confidence. Instead, our bovine MPs went along with it and stand in support of this deception. This entire referendum campaign has been a master-class in abuse of powers. It is a massive breach of public trust.
If we acquiesce to this, we are complicit in throwing our democracy in the toilet. Furthermore we are letting our politicians treat us any way they choose. As a precedent that is a dangerous one to set. Not least when this is probably the last time we will ever get to correct their historical mistake.
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