Wednesday 4 August 2010

Crowdsourcing - A Waste Of Time

The Mail reports that the UK Government's public consultation, where members of the public were invited to make suggestions as how to tackle the problems facing Britain was:

"...deluged with suggestions that Britain should leave the EU"
Well what a surprise. But naturally those who 'know better' disagreed. The FCO website states (my emphasis):
"We understand that so many of you feel jaded and sceptical about the EU. Speaking about the EU in Parliament, the Foreign Secretary said he knows there is 'a profound disconnection between the British people and what has been done in their name by British Governments'. We want to deal with this."
Dealing with the profound disconnection properly can only be dealt with by a referendum on our membership of the EU, which won't happen. What they really mean is 'how can we shut these people up'? Or, 'we need to spend even more taxpayers money re-educating the people on the benefits of the EU'. The rest of the statement makes it very clear that leaving the EU is not an option. So much for listening.

The disconnect between the governed and the government was accurately predicted by the FCO when the UK joined the EU Common Market in 1973, as detailed in this FCO document from 1971. The arrogance of the political elite is summed up by this quote in the Mail from Labour MP
Denis MacShane:
‘The Government’s job is to govern. If it runs around asking people what they want it will get answers that it can never deliver on.
What he meant say was; 'doesn't want to deliver on'. This head in the sand technique cannot work forever, the more they ignore the will of the electorate the more likely that the voters of Britain will use the only option available to them to express their views.

And the Government won't be able to complain that they weren't warned.

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