Minor rant alert!
In this interview Andrew Marr makes the point of “language is important” when discussing how immigrants are referred to by those in government and/or parliament. He later then seems to forget this point when Theresa May makes 2 statements. Both of which seem to be in the standard MP playbook whenever discussing Brexit. Those statements were, (4:15) “the majority voted for that” and “the democratic will of the people”. When it comes to language being important I find these phrases somewhat triggering. Perhaps I’m alone?! Here’s why:
The majority of the people in the UK - those who are registered and have a right to vote on such issues - did NOT vote to Leave the EU.
The instinctive reaction to this statement may leave many angry, frustrated, confused, agreeing or all of these plus more besides. However, let me explain why this is true. For reference, see the Electoral Commission for the numbers but you’ll clearly see that of those who turned out to vote the majority of those voted to Leave the EU. Plain as day. However, the problem I have with the language in this interview is the inference that this represents the will of the 46,500,001 people at that time in the UK that were able to vote i.e. the electorate.
Only 33,551,983 of voters cast their ballot. 12,948,018 of voters didn’t. Of course, it is their democratic right to choose not to vote but to infer that they were represented - as the phrases “the majority voted for that” and “the democratic will of the people” seek to do - is an insult and a perfect example of how non-democratic this so call “democracy” is; not to mention how broken voting is in the UK.
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