Well said, mr b.
I've thought for some time that the big democratic deficit was between Brussels and the British public. It would appear that the big democratic deficit is amongst the British public themselves.
Reasons?
Partly, I think the Labour Party was in government for too long. The centrist wing of the Labour movement grew too complacent thinking that it had done its job and took its eye off the ball. This led to the resurgence of the career agitators and the professional whiners and before you could say "John Smith's your uncle!", all of the good work done between 1985 and 2010 was undone at a stroke.
It's sad that in 21st century Britain, marching and protesting against the result of a general election / referendum is now seen, by a sizeable minority of the British electorate, as a perfectly normal and natural thing to do.
Secondly, social media may be partly responsible as well. Everybody lives in an echo chamber nowadays. The opposite view isn't argued with because it's never even seen. How many times have I read "but no-one I know voted Leave!"?
Which brings me to my third and final point. Why were the polls so wrong? The only poll that accurately predicted the result was the one done by Leave.EU on the eve of the poll. I don't know anything about their methodology but I can imagine that "Shy leavers" were to blame for the discrepancies in all of the others.
When people are embarrassed to reveal their voting intentions because they feel it's socially unacceptable (see the social media point above) then the socially acceptable point of view will appear to be more prevalent than it otherwise is, which will cause more people to conceal their true intentions which will cause ........... it's a 'Spiral of Silence' and it's very worrying for British politics.







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