This is amazing to me. The idea that feeding a single completely unrealisable fantasy solution for every one of our ills to people who were already totally disillusioned with politicians, would 'revitalise' politics was itself the greatest and most dangerous fantasy of all.
Yet Ms Balls, another journalist with zero experience of trade, the EU or international treaty making, persuaded herself it would all be a good thing and has only now come to the conclusion that it won't.
She wrote:
"The days of people claiming that voting was pointless were over. What’s more, the decision to leave a bloated, bureaucratic organisation and hand more power back to the UK would only provide further reasons to vote in the future. But now that reasoning rings hollow.
"I was too quick to presume a happy ending and should have been more realistic about the risks of high expectations and big promises. After all, it’s not as though any political party elected has delivered every manifesto pledge. And now it’s becoming clear that with regards to the EU referendum, everyone – on all sides of the debate – is going to end up disappointed. Rather than rallying people to get involved, it could do the opposite: it could put people off voting for life".
First of all, the EU is far from a bloated bureaucratic organisation, it employs about 34,000 civil servants. This is about the same as a middling size British city.
She now thinks everyone will be disappointed by Brexit - something this blog recognised at the beginning of 2017 (HERE) and which should have been obvious to anyone claiming to be a political correspondent.
She does not quite go as far as recanting her views about Brexit - although working at The Spectator and perhaps with a mortgage to pay, this might be a wise thing to do. Instead she finishes with this:
"It seems dissatisfaction is the order of the day, no matter what route we take. Far from reinvigorating our democracy, the referendum has done the opposite. In 2013, Russell Brand told Jeremy Paxman why he didn’t vote in a Newsnight interview: “It is not that I am not voting out of apathy. I am not voting out of absolute indifference and weariness and exhaustion from the lies, treachery and deceit of the political class that has been going on for generations.”
"At the time, commentators and politicians were quick to fly off the handle and lambast his irresponsible comments. But unless MPs get their acts together, this will become an increasingly reasonable, regular refrain".
The way to combat lies, treachery and deceit was never to force-feed the population a triple dose of it but to counter it with the truth, honesty and transparency. Two and a half years on they are yet to appear. Ms Balls' mea culpa is a welcome small step in the right direction but we need much more and from the bigger players.
