I don't follow that Scottish independence is much like Brexit.
Although many aspects of it aren’t, some are. There’s that idea that 50%+1 is enough, rather than broader consensus. There’s hand-waving away important considerations like the economy and, now, land borders. I get it — and I suspect independence would, in the long run, be the best option for Scotland. But there is overlap with Brexit, even if the primary reasoning is in reality different.
Nevertheless, majority voted for it, it won't be democracy if we test it every few years continually. Democracy isn't perfect and doesn't always work, but it's the only (most) trustful system we have today.
Two things there. Democracy is literally resting things continually. That’s what elections are. Democracy isn’t making a decision that’s forever. One of the UK’s most stringiest rules is that no parliament can bind its predecessor.
But on democracy in general, it’s a good thing, but it’s strongly dependent on systems and people playing by the rules. The USA and UK have in recent years shown what happens when people just don’t care about the rules. As for systems, that showcases the weakness at the heart of British democracy.
Our elections are not designed to provide representative government. Instead, they are provided to give total power to whoever wins more votes than whoever’s in second. It would be feasible if five parties were running across the entire UK for one to gain 100% of the seats on a little over 20% of the vote. That’s of course never happened, but we’ve had seats won on a little over 20% of the vote, and Blair’s Labour won a majority of seats with a little over a third of the vote. The system is broken.
As for Brexit being democratic, it was. But it also used the most idiotic referendum set-up imaginable. Let’s look at what happens elsewhere:
- Ireland has a vote on abortion. It pits the status quo against a policy document. In the event of a no vote, everything stays the same. In the event of a yes, people know what they’ll get.
- Switzerland frequently has referendums where the destination is fluid. So when that happens, they have the vote, discover the consequences (like with the recent free movement mess) and then get a confirmatory referendum to decide whether to stick with the original decision.
The UK? We did the worst of both: pitting the status quo against aspirational woolliness, without any confirmatory ballot once the destination was shown.
In short, democracy is only as strong as the systems that comprise its foundations.
As for everything else, what Jim said. We’ve already lost thousands of companies, millions of people and billions of pounds. COVID has shielded then Tories from much of this. People aren’t aware of the massive damage that’s been done. And worse is on the way. Everything the Tories will do in terms of eradicating rights will be dressed up as “hard decisions to get the UK back on track after COVID”. The insular nature of our society and our news means enough people will lap that up, rather than look further afield and see how aghast the rest of the world is at what the UK has become. Meanwhile, an overly expensive boat named after a dead royal will sail to countries with the aim of securing trade deals, like a sketch from The Day Today, because the Tories live in the 1800s.
