President Donald Trump’s National Security Adviser John Bolton has criticised EU elites for ignoring the will of the people and forcing them to vote repeatedly “until they get it right”.
Mr Bolton is in the United Kingdom to meet with Prime Minister Boris Johnson to discuss security and post-Brexit trade, announcing that the U.S. and President Trump will back Britain whether it leaves the EU with or without a deal.
The top Trump administration adviser pointed out that unlike the European Union, the United States respects the decisions made by citizens of sovereign nations, observing: “The fashion in the European Union when the people vote the wrong way from the way that the elites want to go, is to make the peasants vote again and again until they get it right.”
Almost immediately since Britain voted to leave the EU on June 23rd, 2016, Remainers have been pushing for the decision to be cancelled or for a second referendum to be held, with even Eurocrats hoping the British will change their mind and stay.
While Britons have not — as yet — been forced to vote again on the question of European Union membership, other European nations have when they have voted against the interests of Brussels.
In 1992, Denmark voted against the Maastricht Treaty which turned the European Community into the European Union and furthered European integration, but it was made to vote again.
In 2001, Ireland voted ‘no’ to the Nice Treaty, which reformed the EU to prepare for expansion into eastern Europe and also brought defence policy co-operation into Brussels la, but was made to vote again.
The Netherlands’ and France’s votes against the European Constitution in 2005 were ignored, with then-Prime Minister of Luxembourg and outgoing president of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker saying: “The French and Dutch did not really vote ‘no’ to the European Constitution.”
Juncker had famously said ahead of the French vote: “If it’s a Yes, we will say ‘on we go’, and if it’s a No we will say ‘we continue’.”
Indeed, the European Constitution was simply rebranded as the Lisbon Treaty, with only Ireland offering a public vote on it.
The Irish people voted ‘no’ to the Lisbon Treaty but, as with the Nice Treaty before it, were simply made to vote again.
This is not the first time Mr Bolton has criticised the EU, which he once remarked had “made Europe less than the sum of its parts”.
He has also criticised British political elites who wish to keep Britain tied to the bloc, asking on March 20th, 2019, when Brexit was set to be betrayed and delayed: “When is the political class going to give effect to that vote?”
Just over a week later on March 29th, when the British were originally supposed to leave the EU, Mr Bolton was asked whether he agreed with Leave campaigner Nigel Farage that it was a “day of shame”.
While the American refrained from remarking too greatly on what is a situation belonging to the British people, he said: “I think Britain had a referendum, the Leave vote won in what everybody agrees was a free and fair election; doesn’t the will of the British people get to be carried out?”