There's a scene in the first season of House of Cards where Frank Underwood tells Zoe Barnes, "Everything is about sex, except sex." I can't help but be reminded of this as the UK heads into another election with the main topic of the last three years - Brexit - quickly receding from public discourse yet again.
This time it is especially ironic, as the current elections underway are for the European Parliament. Normally, British voters use these elections as a chance to register a protest. No one really much cares about Europe in normal times. These are not normal times, of course. Europe has been the overriding political issue for so long that journalists seem genuinely surprised when Brexit is not the lead story on a given day. Strangely, now that we have a European election that should really be about Europe, Europe is not really get much mention. Well, not really. There is a sort-of pesudo-discussion of European issues. The party expected to win next week's poll is the new Brexit Party, run by former UKIP leader Nigel Farrage. There's a lot of talk about the Brexit Party, but that's not the same as talking about Brexit per se. The biggest media talking point, by far, is how badly the Conservatives will do in the election. A poll out today puts them in fifth place behind the Brexit Party, Labour, the Liberal Democrats, and the Greens. Other topics of note are Labour's inability to have a clear Brexit policy, and the incredible shrinking poll results of Change UK (née the Independent Group). But no one is talking about Brexit itself. There is no discussion of the issues. This is precisely what happened in the 2017 general elections, when the expectation that there would be an election-long public debate on the issue was completely and utterly wrong. With Brexit dominating all political discussion and action outside of election periods, and Brexit being the last topic anyone wants to discuss directly during an election season, there is precious little opportunity for the British people to give any sort of mandate on what exactly Brexit is supposed to be. Brexit must be like sex - everything is about it except itself.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorSteve has many disparate and unconnected interests. This, he thinks, entitles him to claim the label "Renaissance Man." Archives
March 2019
Categories |