Press Release
The Brexit Farce is a Symptom of Democracy’s Inability to Unite People

Now that the British establishment have firmly established themselves as the laughing stock of the world, with Britain now seen as the new sick man of Europe and renewed mockery of the empire that the sun never sets upon: it would be a mistake to consider this merely a mistake of one party or another. This is a symptom of the democratic system itself being incapable of unifying humanity for their good, leading them instead into division and misery for all but the privileged few.

It is no joke for the underprivileged and disenfranchised ordinary people of Britain. The wealthy elite were only ever concerned about how much they may gain from Brexit, while the common people must now worry about how much they might lose. The wealthy are unlikely to actually lose in any case, while the rest of the people are unlikely to gain either way.

Prior to Cameron’s ill-fated 2016 Referendum, his Conservative Party was split between Europhiles and increasingly vocal Eurosceptics who were buying into the xenophobic rhetoric of the UK Independence Party. What started as an irresponsible gesture to quell internal party dissent is now exposing the deep fractures in British society, with no solution or ability to unify the people in sight.

Capitalism has failed the British people, just as it failed the French and Americans, who turned to populist incompetent leaders to satisfy public demand for change. These are the leading capitalist states in the world, who fly the democratic flag highest, but are unable to dig themselves out of the debacle that their system created for them.

Democracy is a system that necessarily creates a group of haves and have-nots, the privileged and the disenfranchised, those with power and those who wish they had even a little. The folly of democratic choice means that the expectations of the underprivileged will grow until they demand what the politicians cannot deliver, but as populists, will promise it anyway.

Democracy has deeply divided the country and Brexit has only brought that division to the fore. Most people before and even now after the referendum had little expert knowledge of international trade agreements and the European Common Market, yet everyone was asked to vote on the essentially technical matter of continued membership of the European Union. The powerful interest groups of the elite could not resist manipulating the situation, using their media machine, to steer the issue away from the technical reality to populist emotional arguments that had no intellectual basis nor deserving merit.

Thus, the divisive democratic system delivered the only thing that it is truly suited for: more division. The long hard look that is overdue is to truly evaluate the democratic model on its basis and merits, to draw the conclusion that it cannot work, so a better alternative should be considered.

The Islamic political system details the legislative sources from which are derived the rules for governing life’s affairs. In areas where divine legislation is not prescriptive, such as technical matters requiring research, or where the people’s opinion is to be sought, the Lawgiver has permitted consultation between the ruled and the ruler. Such consultation is called shura, and the Shariah has detailed how the process works; the valid cases for consultation, who is consulted, and when the verdict is binding on the state and when it is not. Shura on the technical matters is for the experts in the field in question and not for the layman to engage in.

Consulting non-experts in technical matters and for Parliament to be bound by their verdict is highly irresponsible and not in line with managing the affairs of people in a competent and just manner, as it opens the door for manipulation, as Brexit has shown.

The Khilafah (Caliphate), the Islamic State that is established on the way of Prophethood does not mislead the people with false promises of participation, nor lead them to division and destruction due to the manipulation of a powerful self-interested elite.

(وَمَنْ أَعْرَضَ عَن ذِكْرِي فَإِنَّ لَهُ مَعِيشَةً ضَنكًا وَنَحْشُرُهُ يَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ أَعْمَىٰ)

“Whosoever turns away from My Reminder (the Quran) verily, for him is a life of hardship, and We will raise him blind in the day of rising” [Ta-Ha:124]

Yahya Nisbet
Media Representative of Hizb ut Tahrir in Britain