Earlier this week, a 3 judge panel in U.K. took it upon itself to attempt to overturn the votes of 17.5 Britons who voted in June to leave the European Union. While ostensibly making a ruling (which is being appealed) that says that only Parliament can begin the process of formally exiting the E.U., this appears to be an attempt to slow down the exit process, perhaps postponing it indefinitely.

This action, taken as it was by the elites, appears to be just the latest attempt to push forward with an E.U. project that was already suffering from a democratic deficit. Time and again over the last quarter century, the political class in various E.U. countries have sought to push the E.U. integration process forward, by hook or by crook. In cases where E.U. treaties have been rejected, the people have been “invited” to vote again on treaties that were at best, marginally revised. Or in other cases, the treaties haven’t been submitted for a vote at all due to fear that they would be rejected by the voters. In the case of the Lisbon treaty (effectively the E.U. constitution), the Irish were the only country to put the treaty to a popular vote, which they rejected. The abuse heaped on the Irish voters by the E.U. elite was stunning, and they were graciously given a “second opportunity” to “correct their mistake” (which they did).  

In the case of the Brexit vote, the governing class and elite opinion were all on one side. Brexit voters were abused and disparaged as racist idiots, even before the first votes were cast. After it was clear that the British had dared to vote the “wrong” way, the initial reaction in certain circles was to float ideas about ignoring the vote, to complain that it was invalid because the other side lied, or demanding another vote, or claiming that many people had changed their minds, etc. etc. The problem in Europe is that these tactics and attitudes only seem to cut one way. If the Brexit side had lost, it is highly questionable that there would have been calls for a re-vote.

What has been clear for quite some time is that elites in Europe (and even in the U.S.) don’t really believe in democracy as a system. The system that was taught to many of us in school was that the people vote for representatives and then those representatives decide. Or in the case of a referendum, the people vote and whatever gets the most votes wins. Now nobody says that the people will always get it right every time, but the idea is that they will in the majority of cases. And where they don’t, the system is flexible enough to allow them to change course over time. But what is not questioned is that the decision of an election (assuming that there was no fraud involved) should be hindered, frustrated, ignored, or overturned just because a class of people doesn’t like it, or that it massively inconveniences groups of people who have been powerful and have had things largely their own way up to that point.

It is the system I just described that the governing class of Europe in general and of the U.K. in particular have no use for. The system that they believe in is one where the people can vote, but that they (the governing class) has the right to question, declare illegitimate, frustrate and/or overturn decisions with which they fundamentally disagree. The system that they believe in (voting until you get the result that you want, putting hurdles in the way of executing the election decision in the hopes that you will derail it, etc) is the stuff of light dictatorships. The court’s attempt to force another vote, albeit in Parliament, does it no credit at all.  That it would do this calls into question whether the court can consider itself a legitimate part of a government that considers itself a democracy.