Brendan O’Neill

Every now and then there is a political moment, some event or comment, that reveals just how much society has changed. This week contained one of those moments. On Tuesday it was reported that nine pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong had been found guilty of causing a public nuisance by taking to the streets five years ago to demand a greater democratic say in how their society is governed. And on the same day, the exact same day, the Guardian published an article with the headline ‘Democracy is overrated’. Most voters have ‘no idea’ about what’s going on in the world, the piece argued, and therefore it would be better if they just didn’t bother voting.

Remember when people would say things like, ‘Jeremy Corbyn might talk a lot of nonsense but at least he has principles’? We now know what rot that was. Corbyn is, in my view, the most unprincipled politician in the UK right now, and by some margin. Exhibit A: this man who was a devoted Eurosceptic his entire life has now effectively been employed by the establishment to keep us tied to the EU. This man who raged against the Brussels machine for years is now tasked with softening Brexit to such a degree that Britain will remain tied to the Brussels machine. For a taste of power, for a taste of influence, Corbyn has sold out everything he once believed in. It is a depressing and depraved spectacle.

Suella Braverman, the Conservative MP for Fareham, said yesterday that the radical left is increasingly hostile to open debate and is now obsessed with ‘snuffing out’ freedom of speech. And how did the radical left respond to her comments? By trying to snuff out her freedom of speech. It was almost too perfect: a politician says lefties are easily offended and determined to shut down opinions they don’t like, and lefties respond by stamping their feet and saying, ‘I’m offended! Shut her down!’ Self-awareness isn’t the new left’s strong suit.

I’ve had a lot of flak for describing Saturday’s march for a ‘People’s Vote’ as ‘disturbing’. Angry emailers inform me it was actually a super-polite demo at which children and even pets joined hundreds of thousands of adults in a good-natured traipse through central London calling for Brexit to be rethought. It’s true the marchers were polite. And it’s true there were pets. I saw a dog with a ‘Bollocks to Brexit’ sticker attached to its head. But the politeness bordering on tweeness of Saturday’s mass march cannot disguise its true and, yes, disturbing aim — to overthrow a great act of democracy.

It is time for plain speaking. The stakes are too high for euphemism or obfuscation. Bluntness is required now. And the blunt fact is this: Britain’s parliamentarians are in revolt against the electorate. They are defying the demos. They are pursuing a coup, albeit a bloodless one, against the public. This is what last night’s votes against a no-deal Brexit reveal: that our representatives now refuse to represent us. What else are we to make of the events of the past few days? They voted against Theresa May’s deal, which was a super soft Brexit, unloved by Brexiteers like me. So they don’t want a soft Brexit, clearly. Then they voted against a no-deal Brexit, twice (why give the electorate just one slap in the face when you can give it two?).

When will politicians learn they can’t just buy off voters? You think they would have twigged this during the EU referendum campaign when the Remain camp’s Project Fear utterly failed to sway the electorate’s feelings about the EU. Every household will be £4,300 worse off, the Treasury claimed, which a) wasn’t true and b) looked to many voters like a cynical bung designed to wean them off their Euroscepticism. Such chattering-class cluelessness was on full display in the aftermath of the referendum too. How could people in regions that have received oodles of EU cash — parts of Wales, the old industrial north of England — turn against the EU, Remainers in London wondered?  And now here comes Theresa May with what looks like another bung.

Let us consider the gravity of Jeremy Corbyn’s announcement that Labour will push for a second referendum. In siding with the so-called People’s Vote lobby, Corbyn has betrayed Labour’s traditional working-class base, who tend to favour leaving the EU. He has betrayed his party’s own manifesto in the 2017 general election, which promised to respect the outcome of the referendum. He has betrayed his old Labour mentors, most notably his hero Tony Benn, who was the left’s most articulate critic of the EU. And he has betrayed himself. He has betrayed his own longstanding and correct belief that the EU is an illiberal, undemocratic, anti-worker outrage of an institution. Has any politician ever betrayed so many people in such a short space of time?

How brilliant was that cheer on Question Time last night? Isabel Oakeshott said Theresa May should just walk away from the EU. Fiona Bruce asked her if she meant we should pursue ‘No Deal’. ‘Yes’, said Oakeshott and there it was, instantly, contagiously, the loudest cheer I can remember hearing from a Question Time audience. This was no polite applause or murmur of approval. It was a statement — a noisy, rebellious statement of the people’s continuing and profound attachment to the idea of leaving the European Union, deal or no deal. It was a cheer that should echo through the nation. That will chill the bones of the political establishment. Which will rattle a commentariat that ceaselessly pumps out columns on how awful No Deal would be.

People are talking about the ugly protests outside parliament as if they are a new and strange phenomenon in British politics. The rough bellowing at politicians. The hollering of the word ‘Nazi!’ at people who clearly aren’t Nazis. The attempt to shout down politicians and journalists who simply want to make a political point. It is all so shocking and strange and un-British, commentators claim. Really? To me, the protests look and sound incredibly familiar. They look like another expression of the nasty, censorious, violent-minded political correctness that has been growing for years in this country. These protests aren’t fascism in action — they’re political correctness in action. All the elements are there.

It is coming to something when Vladimir Putin has a better understanding of democracy than many in Britain’s own political class. When this not especially democratic bruiser from the East demonstrates greater respect for the will of the British people than some of our own leaders do. Yes, just when you thought 2018 couldn’t get any odder, here comes actual Vladimir Putin to put British politicos straight about the nature of democracy. Yesterday, Putin lashed out at those in Britain who want a second referendum — and presumably a third and a fourth and a fifth until the plebs finally relent and say: ‘Okay, okay, we’ll vote to stay in the EU!’ Britain has to ‘fulfil the will of the people expressed in the referendum’, said Putin.