Quote Originally Posted by Burney View Post
Britain is a classic example of the fact that the political class cannot simply ignore issues because they don't like them and hope to get away with it. Sooner or later, they'll come back to bite you on the arse. A classic example would Blair's craven and cynical failure to offer the promised referendum on Lisbon. That led directly to Brexit. That referendum could have been the pressure valve needed to keep us in the EU (not least by arresting some of the most unpopular aspects of the modern EU). Instead, he bottled it and resentment grew. The result was Brexit.

The attempt by political elites to ignore or suppress public sentiment on key issues only ever results in a more extreme version of the thing they feared in the first place. This is a lesson history teaches us over and over again. And yet short-sighted politicians and their lackeys (ie you) ignore it over and over again.
History doesnt really teach us that at all. The political class 'manage' democracies in their own interests and they always have done. Brexit did not happen because the political class caved into some irresistible groundswell of public sentiment. A PRime Minister took a measured punt on a cynical electoral ploy which hugely backfired on him.

This isnt the political class caving in to mass sentiment. It is them misreading it and believing they can use it to their own short term gain. In other words, it was a mistake.