Day Of The Dead

"March the 29th 2019 shall be renamed The Day Of The Dead for on that day they shall rise up and once again rule this cursed isle" as someone spooky should have said of Brexit Day, but didn't. Or to put it another way why is Theresa May prioritising the votes of the dead over the Will Of The (living) People?

As reported this week in The Independent, by virtue of simple demographics we may already have passed the point at which Remainers now outnumber Leavers, and we can be sure we will have passed it by mid January. This is the result of a poll conduct by Peter Kellner of YouGov which concludes that Leavers are dying at the rate of 876 per day and Remainers at 438. Leavers achieve voting age at the rate of 164 and Remainers at 1082, giving a net daily move towards Remain of 1356, theoretically. The key finding from this is that even if no-one has changed their mind since 2016 and the demographic split remains as it was at the time and the turnout distribution favouring the older voters remains as it did in 2016 Remain would be in the majority by 100,000 votes on March 29th. To be fair, that's really only a rounding error and it would be churlish to argue for a second referendum on the basis of such a small number of theoretical votes - however, other polling clearly shows that people are changing their minds. It does make it look a bit ridiculous that we fixed the result at one point in time and by the implementation date the policy will have lost the support of the country. We should certainly not speak ill of the dead nor castigate them for the way they voted, however tempting that may be, but should we really let them have a veto over our politics?

Should, by some miracle, Theresa May still be in power on March 29 she can creep out of No.10 at the stroke of 11pm, head down to her nearest cemetery and proudly inform the residents that she has honoured the mandate they bestowed on her, without a thought for the will of the majority amongst the living. If she is hoping for a "thank-you" she will have to make her proclamation loud enough to wake the dead.