25 - Yerp

Okay. Who is the most influential UK politician of the last 20 years?

Think about it.

Depending on your political bent, I'd be willing to bet you'd be thinking of the likes of Tony Blairs, or David Cameron, or (oh) Jeremy Corbyn, or Nicola Sturgeon, or...

…well, whoever you say, you're probably wrong, as the answer to the question is someone that has never been a Member of Parliament, and has in fact failed to be elected about 57 times...

(That number might not strictly speaking be accurate, but my disdain for the person I speak of is such that I don't actually care if the number is correct or not; and hey, this whole piece is just a bit of opinion on a blog... I'm not trying to win a Purlitzer prize here...!)

...can you tell you it is yet?

The answer is that it's that moon faced poltroon, and hero to the UKIPs; Nigel Farage.

And the reason is this...

...seeing the increase in the popularity of the UKIPs, prior to the 2015 election, and after a couple of defections from the Tories to the UKIPs, in an effort to cling to power, Prime Minister David Cameron (hereafter referred to as “PMDC”) made a manifesto promise to hold a referendum on the UK's membership of the UK.

Still, it didn't stave off an increase in the UKIPs vote, from 919,456 votes in the 2010 election (no MPs) to 3,081,099 in the 2015 election (one MP. But not called “Nigel”. I forget the name of the MP; the only other one of the UKIPs whose name springs to mind is Paul Nuttalls, and I know it wasn't him.)

(Curiously, in the 2017 election, the UKIPs vote collapsed to 549,068 (no MPs); anyone would think that was a resounding snub of the party and all it stood for... And these numbers are accurate. I checked them.)

So, with Farage getting the one thing he'd always wanted, a second referendum on UK membership of Europe...

...wait, what I hear you say; SECOND referendum? Yes. Second. The first was in 1975 in which the question asked was “Do you think the United Kingdom should stay in the European Community (the Common Market)?” The result was “Yes” 67.23%, “No” 32,77%

Yes! The will of the people was clear. Remainers got over 2/3 of the vote, so all those Leaver whingers should just respect the will of the people and the likes of Farage should just hut their cakehole and accept that the will of the people had been implemented.

But no, Farage and his ilk (I accidentally typed “elk” there; might have been interesting!) ignored the will of the people and constantly harped on about a second referendum, and PMDC gave it to them.

So.

I could write reams about how rubbish the referendum campaign went, and how things were rubbish on both sides, and how there were BIG WHOPPING LIES about the NHS written on the sides of buses, and how things that people said would happen didn't happen, but that's a whole other article.

Actually before I continue there's an interesting quote that someone said the the lead up to the vote. Read it, and see if you can work out who said it;

"In a 52-48 referendum this would be unfinished business by a long way. If the [the opposing] campaign win two-thirds to one-third that ends it."

I've edited one word so that it doesn't immediately make it obvious who said it.

I'll come back to the first sentence later, when I talk about the actual result. The second sentence is very interesting as it indicates that if there were such a result that would be an end to the matter... oh, wait... of course. That 1975 result... why didn't that end it?

So, there was the day of the vote, where the question asked was “Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?” 51.89% said “Leave”, 48.11 said “Remain”.

Then, surely the person who said "In a 52-48 referendum this would be unfinished business by a long way” proudly repeated this assertion? Well. no. Because the person who said this was the moon faced poltroon himself, Nigel Farage. Curiously this result went from “unfinished business” to bein a clear mandate from the people, nay, it is THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE, and any attempt to frustrate Brexit is anti-democratic.

Within hours of the result PMDC had quit, leading to the chain of events that led to PMTM taking over, having a disastrous (well, for her) general election, and a chaotic series of negotiations over Brexit that, with only seven months until that fateful day we leave, has a Government that can't even agree what it wants over Brexit; how can they hope to negotiate with the EU and come to an agreement when they can't even reach a consensus amongst themselves.

And all this is because of the moon faced poltroon, who now just sits back and berates people on his radio show for not doing Brexit right. Which is why he is the most powerful politician of the last twenty years...

Postscript

Given that we now have had two EU referendums – referenda – maybe we should have just one more. Like a best of three to settle it?