MICK HUME is one of Britain’s finest advocates of total free speech. He is probably best known as the editor-at-large of Spiked – http://spiked-online.com/ – the UK’s first web-only comment and current affairs publication. Spiked opposes all forms of censorship, by the state or otherwise. Since April 2014 it has run an international Free Speech NOW! campaign, demanding ‘free speech for all, no ifs and no buts’.
He is also the author of There is No Such Thing as a Free Press … And We Need One More Than Ever (2012), Trigger Warning: Is the Fear of Being Offensive Killing Free Speech? (2015) and Revolting! How the Establishment are Undermining Democracy and What They’re Afraid of (2017).
The article below originally appeared in the Daily Mail earlier this year. This is the fourth and final section of the article.
It goes without saying that there are no official links between Mick Hume, the Daily Mail and Free Speech.
Read part 1 of Tyranny Of The Minority here: http://nationalliberal.org/from-the-liberty-wall-%e2%80%93-free-speech-how-do-we-protect-it-tyranny-of-the-minority-part-1
Read part 2 of Tyranny Of The Minority here: http://nationalliberal.org/from-the-liberty-wall-%e2%80%93-free-speech-how-do-we-protect-it-%e2%80%93-tyranny-of-the-minority-part-2
Read part 3 of Tyranny Of The Minority here: http://nationalliberal.org/from-the-liberty-wall-%e2%80%93-free-speech-how-do-we-protect-it-%e2%80%93-tyranny-of-the-minority-part-3
.
Nearly 17.5 million people voted for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union. This means that more people voted for Brexit than have ever voted for any British government since records began. However, elitists like former Prime Minister Tony Blair (left) and Liberal Democrat leader Vince Cable (right) oppose the popular will of the people and want to overturn democracy.
Tyranny Of The Minority: How the most sinister trend of our age is a poisonous conviction taking root on the Left and among the elite that ordinary people are too stupid to be trusted with voting
Yes, immigration was an important factor for many Leave voters. But it was far from the over-riding obsession it has been made out to be: a post-referendum poll found 34 per cent said immigration was their main concern but 53 per cent prioritised the ‘ability of Britain to make its own laws’.
The vast majority wanted EU migrants living and working in the UK to be allowed to stay.
Still the attempts went on to subvert the referendum result, with the intervention of the courts. First the Law Lords and then the Supreme Court saw fit to overrule the express wishes of 17.4 million Leave voters and tell the elected government it could not trigger Brexit without the permission of MPs and Lords in Parliament.
The same Parliament they had allowed to be overridden by Brussels for the previous 40 years.
Then there was the four-million-strong online petition calling on Parliament to hold another referendum that would require a larger margin of victory.
In similar vein was the letter signed by a thousand top lawyers, demanding that Parliament must decide (ie, vote for Remain). The QC behind this initiative explained: ‘In times of crisis people often turn to lawyers to ask them how we should behave in society.’
The arrogance of the notion that the opinions of 1,000 lawyers — whose fees are an affront to civilised society — could outweigh those of 17.4 million voters summed up the Remainers’ ‘some are more equal than others’ outlook.
Even now, the attempts continue to put Brexit back in its box, fuelled by a sense that too much democracy is dangerous.
The Brexit referendum vote opened up the opportunity for a new kind of political debate about the future of our society, engaging many who have previously felt excluded from public life.
Time and again, according to the Electoral Reform Society, its researchers heard people say the EU referendum was the first time their vote ‘had truly counted’. They decided for themselves what the truth was about the EU, and made their own choice in defiance of whatever was flung at them by the political class.
But the plain fact is that the elite in this country do not trust the mass of voters, believing we are too unintelligent, misinformed and emotional to make the right decisions on important issues.
Whichever side you took in June in the UK or November in the United States, we need to resist this with all our might.
The real issue should be to defend democratic principles against those who would tell us that some voters are more equal than others.
Aux armes, citoyens!
