One important narrative clouding Britain these days is the narrative about betrayal of democracy in Britain, coming from hard Brexiteers and No-deal Brexit agitators, claiming that the Parliament is not committed to deliver Brexit, and respect the will of referendum about UK leaving EU. In this article, I will show why this narrative is false.

Technically speaking, UK is parliamentary democracy only, which means referendums in Britain aren’t binding. Legally speaking, parliament in Britain has no obligation to respect the will of referendum. Philosophically and morally speaking, in the case that the Parliament refuse to respect the will of referendum, could be considered undemocratic, something which is obvious and with which I could totally agree, not to mention the political consequences would be enormous ignoring so, especially for the ruling Tory party. But only if the Parliament doesn’t respect the will of the referendum, which is not the case. 

In March 2017, after the Brexit referendum took place, MPs in the House of Commons (UK’s lower house of Parliament) voted to invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, which formally started the British departure of EU. So the claim by hard Brexiteer, that MPs in the Parliament don’t respect the result of the referendum is not true. Invoking Article 50, the process of Britain leaving EU formally started. But, if enormously complex questions could be solved with the “yes” or “no”, “leave” or “remain” choices, Brexit would be solved long time ago. But usually, this is not the case. In order for Britain to smoothly leave EU, both sides need to agree on a deal, because UK is obligated with many agreements toward EU, and this is where problems comes in. You can’t just leave, you need to agree on a deal. 

What was in David Cameron’s mind when he called for the Leave referendum, I don’t know, but the way he approached the question is rather naive; or it was a gamble (?) – we can’t say for certain. But the way he implemented his decision for the referendum was a base for the biggest political quagmire in Britain after the Second World War with no end in sight after more than three years, with tendency to become ever more tense in the coming autumn, with the deadline of 31st of October approaching. Nevertheless, the political forces in Britain handled this question rather poor, poor and amateurish in its very basis. 

In Serbia, we are going through a process of becoming a member state of the EU, the negotiating process which is already taking years (the process started in 2014), with no end in sight. This is saying in order for some country to become a member state of the EU, that country need to negotiate its membership first, and than, through a legal instances, through parliament or referendum (the most likely scenario in Serbia), vote to join or not. But, the agreement first! In that way, certain country and EU are setting the conditions first, before the final decision by specific country. Now, of course, certain country could vote for joining EU or not, simply with “yes” or “no”, before the country start the process of joining the EU, but just in order to sort domestic issues or dilemmas (something which was probably an initial idea by David Cameron, which would prove as a tactical disaster), but this decision has no formal consequences on relations between EU and certain country. The decision to leave the process of joining EU doesn’t breaching agreements if the two didn’t agreed on the final issue (For example, Turkish accession is pretty much dead, and Turkey can easily leave its goal of becoming the EU member). The things with Britain are different: Britain is a part of the EU, which means Britain has many agreements with EU as a member state. You can’t just leave, like you can’t just join, you need certain conditions do to so, and this is where all sorts of problems comes in. 

Being the member state of EU doesn’t mean you just have some obligations toward EU. Being the member of EU define country’s relations with EU and its members, which means if Britain leave EU without a deal, that doesn’t mean Britain is just breaking ties with some minor obligations, rather, Britain is staying without key agreements regarding her relations with EU. This will leave consequences on British diplomacy, trade, finances. You can’t just leave EU without a deal and than having well establish relations with EU. This is why No-deal Brexit is causing such a big polarization in Britain between the camp which absolutely hate it, and the camp which see Britain being in the shackles of EU, and thus see No-deal breakaway as liberation. Why agreed deals with EU failed in the Parliament during Theresa May being a PM is a complex political topic which I will leave for another articles, because I don’t want to make this articles too long, but the conclusion is – the Parliament in Britain didn’t failed democracy.

Even further, the Parliament, as much as David Cameron, voted naively, prematurely, while invoking Article 50, in order to exactly show the commitment to the results of the referendum, even though the negotiations with EU didn’t even started, and without a deal the Parliament, accidentally, set the default for Brexit which is No-deal if the deal isn’t reached, making political quagmire even deeper. This is the possibility which the current PM, Boris Johnson, is trying to exploit, pushing Britain into default while trying to bypass the Parliament, something which is truly undemocratic and immoral, because still no one tested No-deal Brexit in a public voting, the No-deal scenario, as polls are showing, is supported by minority which is yelling “democracy” and “the treason of democracy”.