Brexit is a warning alarm for Australia’s future

For Australians, Brexit isn’t really about the whether or not Britain leaves the EU. Instead, it’s what happens when we watch the Establishment conspire to treat democracy with contempt, writes Peta Credlin.

The Brexit chaos — will it happen or won’t it?

Will Britain leave with a deal or without one?

Can Boris Johnson survive as PM having lost control of his party, and the parliament?

At its heart, this is a tale about how “the system” hijacks democracy, with plenty of salient lessons for Australia too.

Whatever your view on Brexit — and I supported it from the outset — a referendum was held and the people decided to leave the European Union. It was one of the biggest votes in UK history with a clear result of 52 per cent to 48, despite a ferocious, indeed dishonest campaign by the Establishment to stay.

Don’t believe anyone who tries to tell you there wasn’t proper process here or that the people didn’t know what they were voting for. For good measure, at the general election that followed the referendum, political parties claiming to back Brexit won around 80 per cent of the vote.

RELATED: Boris Johnson faces another Brexit showdown

But then the Establishment started to fight back with obfuscation in the parliament, a Speaker that played games and the cunning ineptitude of May, until she herself was shown the door and a new PM brought in to try to get done what the people voted for.

Boris Johnson has called for an early election after a series of votes in parliament tore up his hard line Brexit stance and left him without a majority. Picture: Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP

But with a bill to ban a no-deal Brexit passed last week and with Johnson’s bill for an election failing to get the required two-thirds majority because of sneaky tactical abstentions by Labour, it’s hard to know what will happen next. Surely, once the Queen signs the bill banning a no-deal Brexit into law, Labour has to back an election on October 14.

But it’s hard to say with any confidence because the one thing that’s characterised the European Union and its supporters, including those in the UK parliament, is contempt for democracy.

RELATED: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson says he’d ‘rather be dead’ than delay Brexit

When Portuguese and French voters, some years ago, rejected a proposed European constitution, the faceless bureaucrats of Brussels decided to get the same result via a treaty that didn’t need approval by the people.

Then, when Irish and Danish voters rejected an “ever closer union”, the EU bullied their governments into holding a second vote so that the people could ‘admit’ their mistake.

And that’s what’s happening again in Britain. Those at the top of the tree keep forcing the people to vote until they get the result they want. Only that’s not how democracy should work if we want to call it democracy at all. But putting the specifics of Brexit to one side, what this sorry episode has highlighted, not just to Brits but to people living in comparable democracies around the world, is how aggressively those in power can conspire against the voter to stop happening, what they don’t want to accept. Need some examples?

Pro-Brexit demonstrators have set up outside the Houses of Parliament. Picture: AP/Alberto Pezzali

How often have the Australian people voted for parties that want our power supply to be affordable and reliable? Whenever there’s been an election with power prices front-and-centre, the people have voted for that. Against a massive campaign to the contrary, they voted in 2013 to repeal the carbon tax; as they have voted similarly in Ontario Canada, and only recently in Alberta too. In the May federal election, Australians voted against Labor’s un-costed 50 per cent renewable energy and emissions reduction targets. But despite this, how often have state Labor governments that were elected promising better schools and hospitals, once back in office, decided to legislate for 50 per cent unreliable and expensive renewable power, or other things people never had a say in like changes to gender laws?

MORE FROM PETA CREDLIN: Come on Britain — where’s your ‘keep calm and carry on’?

Look at the Berejiklian government in NSW, elected promising good management and more-infrastructure, only to make its first legislative priority sex-selection and late-term abortions. Indeed the Premier admitted her plan for radical abortion law reform was deliberately kept from the electorate before the March election.

For us, Brexit isn’t really about the whether or not Britain eventually leaves the EU. Instead, it’s what happens to once great countries when the Establishment conspires to treat democracy with contempt. That’s why we need to watch what’s happening offshore closely and learn the lesson to fight back, here at home.