Missed Opportunity
Really sad about the NO vote winning the referendum. Clearly it was the will of the UK electorate, but a once in a lifetime opportunity has been missed to reform British politics.
AV may not have been the perfect voting system to replace our current system, but without taking the step to AV there will be no significant reform and we’re stuck with a an old boy, corrupt, two party political system that should be resigned to the history books. Sadly, in a typically British manner, we’ll cling onto a failing dysfunctional system just because it’s British.
It’s unlikely that in my lifetime we’ll see real reform of politics in this country and we’ll continue with the two party system, that suits Labour and Tories so well. They’ll continue with jobs for the boys. We’ll continue to get more and more ill thought out legislation which purely reflects party political ideology not helping the UK develop.
The YES campaign was seriously hampered by a number of things, including the bank balance of the NO campaign, the timing of the referendum and Nick Clegg’s foolish sound bite about AV prior to the General Election. (He seems to have quite a collection of those, which can be played to counter almost any argument he makes)
What happens now? Well many reformers will feel that British politics is a lost cause. Sadly if British politics is a lost cause, then there can only be a negative knock on affect to the UK economy, way of life and general well being of us Brits. It’s really clear that the Scots are sick of our political system, and have used their vote to elect the only party not mixed up in the mess that is Westminster. I doubt the SNP support in this election will lead to independence, but would understand if it did.
I’m sure the NO campaigners will be very pleased with themselves tonight, thinking they’ve won a great victory. Sadly, unless they are through and through Tory or Labour supporters, they’re simply deluding themselves as the big loser tonight was Britain.
