Brexit and Democracy

I have been thinking to myself a lot recently, (scary I know) about the governance and political construction of the United Kingdom. I'm going to analyse the results of the EU referendum and consider whether it was a true democratic decision to leave.

Vote on UK membership of the European Union

In light of the recent referendum on the membership of the European Union, there was a 51.9/48.1% split in favour of leaving.

The number of voters in the referendum was 33,551,983 out of a possible eligible voting population of 46,500,001.

17,410,742  voted to leave and 16,141,241 decided they wanted to remain, yet it appears that their vote now means nothing. Adding insult to injury 13,000,000 didn't even go and vote. So around 29,000,000 people did not vote to leave the EU, yet because 17,000,000 did, we are. How is that democracy?

Media Influence

I had a pretty solid statement when I told those who were unsure if they wanted to stay or leave and it was "Unless you can think of a reason to leave, then vote to stay, if you're unsure, it means there is not a strong enough pull on your conscience to vote to leave." This wasn't some little vote on ludicrous lies on whether we could have bendy bananas, but on the future of the UKs' integration with the majority of Europe.

How can a biased media be helpful to a democratic vote of this magnitude? The Daily Mail, The S*n, The Express, all peddled half truths and sometimes even blatant lies and those on the left were no better.

Dr David Levy, director of the Reuters Institute stated:

“The research reveals a picture of highly polarised press coverage, reliant on a narrow range of voices, and where coverage was relatively more focused on the contest itself and personalities than any of the complex issues at stake."

BMG queried whether voters understood what they were voting for and the results speak for themselves. Around 22% in their penultimate survey before the referendum thought they understood what they were voting for “well or very well”.


The media should have given facts on what the EU does, what the EU is, when and why it was formed. What are the key areas it legislates in, what is the role of the ECJ, explain the difference between the ECHR and the EU so no one gets confused as per usual. Instead we got fear-mongering on immigration from the right and constant insults pelted at Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson from the left.

Additionally, here is a graph showing the number or equally balanced EU articles in the media during the referendum campaign:

Education

An uninformed electorate that don't know what they are going to gain or lose from a referendum vote, is not a democratic decision. It is a sham vote. I'm not calling the electorate stupid or bigoted (although i'm 100% certain some are), but uneducated on the EU. What man in the pub (apart from your quiz team captain?) is going to know about the TFEU, or the Free Movement of Goods and People, the Tariff free trading for example. They're going to be the people that see on the front page, a headline about an "immigrant wanting to eat your baby because he's been brought up somewhere not as amazingly brilliant as Britain". I thoroughly believe that in huge and monumental decisions like this, there has to be rules and regulations to ensure fairness or democracy means nothing. As Franklin Roosevelt said:

"Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education."

Moreover there has been a confirmed link between level of education and how each person voted. The lesser educated and those not in possession of higher academic achievements such as degrees generally voted to leave, while those who did, more likely voted to stay

Exposure

Also, if both sides were to be given equal exposure to media and events, shouldn't they have both been funded by the government, not private donors, and traveled the country together, in a debating fashion. This way both sides could have set out their arguments and been compelled to tell the truth as they would be accountable to the other debater and audience.

Furthermore a report by Loughborough University found a huge advantage in exposure for leaving the EU:

"In aggregate terms, this produced a ‘coverage gap’ of 60%: 40% in favour of OUT campaigners. However, when these differences are weighted by circulation, the difference extends to 80%: 20%."

So that means 8/10 sources of information on the EU referendum were pro-leave. Completely fair debate.

Conclusion

Overall, it is certain that there was no balanced argument or debate for the future of the UKs membership of the EU. I believe that the vote to leave was one that was mired in prejudice, xenophobia, false information and a lack of knowledge of the EU itself. The media was biased and therefore I believe this not to be a democratic decision. People espousing "remoaners" or "the will of the people" are being small minded. They see it as they have won. Winning was not the purpose of this vote, it was to decide whether to remain a member of the EU. There are no winners and losers, just people that voted one way or the other. Winning would insinuate there was a prize at the end of the vote, but as of yet I fail to see one. The decision to leave is enormous and could have implications that no one has even yet foreseen. The British leave voters are jumping off a cliff not knowing what waits in the water below, and dragging the rest of us along with them. 

My faith in democracy is almost non-existent currently. If there was a fair campaign and we still voted to leave, then fair enough, but democracy means everyone gets a voice, even those who were not on the side that achieved the most votes. 48% of the voters cannot just be cast aside in a democracy. If they are, then we don't live in one.

References

http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/find-information-by-subject/elections-and-referendums/past-elections-and-referendums/eu-referendum/electorate-and-count-information

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/sep/20/pro-brexit-articles-dominated-newspaper-referendum-coverage-study-shows

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=15545

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/jun/26/people-spoken-brexit-did-media-tell-the-truth-eu-referendum

https://blog.lboro.ac.uk/crcc/eu-referendum/uk-news-coverage-2016-eu-referendum-report-5-6-may-22-june-2016/

http://theconversation.com/hard-evidence-analysis-shows-extent-of-press-bias-towards-brexit-61106