Decade of decay
I’M just wondering if the very democratic systems that we rely on are in danger of imploding.
Wherever you look in the Western and by definition the righteous and democratic first world countries, we are going through a crisis.
A crisis of direction and a crisis of belief. Wherever you look there are new problems without any apparent solutions. Wherever you look governments are failing to correct the mistakes of the past or are failing to recognise the wishes, demands and future expectations of the people they represent.
Throughout Europe you have Right-wing parties pushing heavily against the entrenched liberal democratic governments who are failing to recognise the concerns of citizens.
In America, Trump has achieved what the Russians and more recently the Chinese have failed to do over the last two or three decades. He has quite definitely split the country and polarised opinions so there is almost no middle ground to be occupied.
In Australia the internecine fighting, firstly with Labor and its internal factional fighting with Rudd then Gillard and back to Rudd, cast Labor into the wilderness for a number of years.
We are currently going through the same sort of in-party fighting with the Coalition, with Abbott, Turnbull and more recently Morrison all gaining the main prize as the factions battle out who shares the spoils.
The UK parliament is also indulging in a self-inflicted, selfcentred, self-immolation and all in the name of the democratic process over Brexit, but of course in this case there is a major difference.
On the 23rd of June 2016 a referendum was held in the UK to decide whether or not to leave the European Union and 52 per cent of the country decided yes, we want to leave.
This referendum cost the country the equivalent of $248 million. And just like the ridiculous same-sex marriage plebiscite we had in Australia, which was also passed in the majority, parliament was not bound by the result.
In both countries however, parliament did agree to abide by the respective decisions and press forward with the will of the people. Some two years later in the UK, things are less clear than on that June day in 2016. Negotiations are not going well to leave the EU. Most consider that the current leaving deal is a total lose-lose situation.
Again, let’s not make the mistake that this is all about economics, immigration or any other particular item of life because, as usual in our world of ‘new realpolitik’, we are talking about factions within factions, fighting and chest beating themselves to prominence. Bugger what’s good for the country and never let Joe Blow interrupt the process of politics.
Brexit is far too complicated to discuss in full but the solution to the current impasse in the UK is very simple and to me is the kicker over what is and isn’t considered to be the acceptable face of democracy. Put simply, in the UK there are three choices; accept the current deal, renegotiate a new deal or leave without a deal. What concerns me the most is the suggestion that there is in fact a fourth option and that is to hold another referendum. Can you imagine what your reaction would have been had the Australian parliament rejected the first vote on same-sex marriage and decided to hold a second vote, just to be sure? No allegedly democratic country will ever again be able to hold a referendum as no one would ever believe that their vote would be translated into action. Not quite the end of the world but you could see the end of the world from where you’d be standing. The UK has, whether you like it or not, set the standards for how democracies should work. The Brexit vote and how it is handled could change our perception of how the democratic process works in action and change the world of politics forever.