The painful price of ignoring voters
‘What about democracy?” asked Nigel Farage on the BBC yesterday during a dyspeptic exchange with Andrew Marr. It was a good question and one that is dominating the run-up to the election that was never meant to happen – next week’s contest for the European parliament.
Or at least it is in the world beyond Westminster. Our MPS, by contrast, continue to obsess about customs unions, cross-party talks that are going nowhere, further votes on deals already rejected three times and a second referendum before the outcome of the first has been honoured.
It is about democracy; and the Brexit issue has settled in the minds of many people on that very straightforward concept. Mr Farage’s party is ahead in the polls because it has that central point at its core.
Brexit was as much a vote against a perceived popular sense that politicians do not listen to voters and do not fulfil their promises. It should not come as a surprise to the mainstream parties, then, to find that having failed to do either in response to the 2016 referendum they are reaping the whirlwind. Their only response is to gang up on Mr Farage and seek some sort of common solace in attacking him rather than responding to what he represents.
The Tories, in particular, look to be heading for their worst-ever defeat in a national poll. It is conceivable, though it barely sounds credible, that they will not even achieve double-figure support and will come fourth. If this happens the clamour for Theresa May’s resignation will be deafening.
Tony Blair was also interviewed on the television yesterday. For the former prime minister this was not about democracy, since he hardly mentioned the word, but about process and what he considers to have been a mistaken decision taken by the country on the basis of false information.
But Mr Blair was among the voices during the 2016 campaign warning that extricating the UK from a 40-year relationship with Europe would be hard and painful; and yet a majority still voted to leave. Understandably, those who wanted to remain felt aggrieved and still do – but they lost.
That is the nature of a democracy. That is why Mr Farage is right to ask his question; and that is why the political parties who fail to appreciate its importance or simply have no answer to it are about to suffer the consequences.