IN the new year there will be calls for peace around Brexit and unity in accepting it as a fact of life. Let me state why Brexit would never be good enough for the people of Scotland.
The claim that (less then) 52% was a “clear majority” of people (by May, Leadsom, etc) is false. It is now accepted even by government that the question put to the vote exceeded in significance and consequences of a constitutional amendment. But constitutions require much larger majorities, as is shown by the many examples.
Another example is offered by one of Scotland’s nearest neighbours, the Netherlands, in ensuring that it is indeed “the will of the people” that supports a proposed change. The triple-lock system works as follows: (1) At least 2/3 of the votes must support the amendment. (2) It must be supported by government. (3) There must be a General Election, after which the new government must also support the amendment. Only then is the change accepted as the choice of the nation as whole.
In the case of the supposedly advisory Brexit referendum, voters advised government that the UK was deeply divided. Of the many messages that came from the results just one, the barely 52%, was hijacked by English nationalist and Brexiteers as their first-past-the-post victory. However, the referendum had many other messages, of which two are of outstanding significance.
First: Two of the four nations of the United Kingdom voted with really clear majorities to remain in the EU. In Australia, where not only a majority of parliament and senate but also of the states must approve a constitutional amendment, the change would not have got past the post. Second: Young voters opposed Brexit; of the 18 to 26-year-old women voters, 80% chose to remain. By the time Brexit would be done and dusted, the older Leave voters will have left for other destinations, and the young are landed with a future they did not want. Any country should fear that prospect.
READ MORE: I fear for the future of our children and their children
Personally, I have another and much neglected argument, which is that Brexit is culturally disastrous. At this time of Christmas, families travel to Finland to meet Father Christmas, gather around German Christmas trees, listen to Classic FM playing Austrian melodies, sing French and German Christmas songs, go to the Catholic Church of Italy’s Rome or to the French/Swiss churches of Calvin, as do their Presbyterian brothers and sisters in the Netherlands. All of us eat too much Belgian chocolate, Danish pastry and Dutch cheese, and some of us drink too much wine from the rolling vineyards of France and Spain, from the very landscapes we want to see and enjoy on our next trip to a Europe that stretches from the Arctic Circle to the Mediterranean, and from the Black Sea to our Atlantic. To turn our backs on the cradle of our language, our values, our democracy, our laws, our arts and sciences, our being; and to separate from the institution that enabled Europeans to live in peace for a longer time than ever, an achievement that won the Nobel Prize for Peace, is a sad, wanton act of destruction. Particularly at a time we sing of Peace on Earth, Brexit is deeply regrettable.
What of the future? Let’s do everything that is in our power to reverse a Brexit that is undemocratic by international standards of determining what the will of the people is. If this fails, let us stand in the belief that the future of Scotland is best assured as a member state of the EU. In either case, I hope that we will turn to the great task that really matters for 2019: to contain the serious damage we are doing to Earth, the crown on the creation of the God which we, at this time of Christmas, so much confess to admire.
Dirk Bolt
Aberfeldy
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