He's been attending the Teribus Academy Of How To Miss The Point Every Time, Dave. Was I recommending the vote for children? No I was not. I was responding to Nigel's assertion that "the populace has spoken." It hasn't. The populace means everyone in the nation. Approximately one quarter of the populace voted to leave the EU. The point about under-18s, almost a quarter of the population and not far off the number who voted leave, is not that they should vote but that they will be severely affected by this disastrous turn of events, decided by just over a quarter of the populace, none of whom were under 18, for longer than the rest of us.

The rest of Iain's post is insulting, ignorant and laughable by turns. The irony is that he pretends to be a champion of democracy then supposes that not voting in a referendum completely disqualifies you from having a say (even though you still pay your taxes). Therein lies the seed of totalitarianism. Here, Iains. A little list off the top of my head of possible reasons for not voting in the referendum:

1. You were too lazy.

2. You didn't care.

3. You forgot.

4. You were ill on the day/in jail/abroad/smashed out of your skull.

5. You think that "all politicians are the same and you don't know what they're on about."

6. You listened to the two campaigns, decided that they were all heat and no light and didn't advance your knowledge of the issues, so you decided that you couldn't vote because you didn't know enough.

7. You oppose referendums on principle, on the grounds that you elect politicians to make important decisions about the country.

8. You listened to all the arguments and genuinely couldn't make up your mind.

Right, Iains. According to you, anyone who didn't vote now forfeits their right to be heard. As you haven't qualified that in any way, even though you've said it more than once, I assume that you think that all of the above have so forfeited. OK?

Or would you care to go through that list and discuss the relative merits and demerits of the different stances? Would you even care to put numbers to each category?   Or shall I make it easy for you? Generally speaking, people in all those categories pay their taxes and are entitled to use the services that the state pays for with those tax receipts. They aren't stopped from using the NHS or state schools for the kids because they haven't voted, and they don't get let off income tax or council tax if they haven't voted. As such, they have as much right to have a say as anyone else about how their money is used, and that includes how it is used in EU-related ways. Politics is very largely about how governments use our money. It doesn't suddenly become any less your money if you didn't vote.

And one last point (again, but you conveniently ignore it). If you feel entitled to be judgemental about people who didn't vote, maybe that entitles ME to be judgemental about some of the people who did vote. I reckon that large numbers of leave voters voted for the worst possible reasons. They were taken in by the lies about our money contributions. They were taken in by the totally unwarranted exaggerations about the deleterious effects of immigrants (who come here to work, rarely claim benefits, a majority of whom don't come from the EU anyway, who prop up our public services and who do jobs that Brits don't like doing). They were taken in by spurious arguments about "taking back control," when the overwhelming majority of laws that are EU-related have been cheerfully taken on board without demur. Or they are simply racist or xenophobic. Now I have NO evidence enabling me to put any figures to those categories. Or should I say that I have as much evidence as you have for knowing why some people didn't vote. As I asked, who made the more moral decision, the bloke who abstained because he genuinely couldn't make up his mind or the bloke who voted leave because he wants to keep foreigners out?




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