http://lobelog.com/well-heres-another-fine-mess-youve-gotten-us-into/#more-34787

Well, Here’s Another Fine Mess You’ve Gotten Us Into

by James Spencer
Brexit is a lose-lose situation, which could so easily have been avoided if the various elites had deigned to listen to their peoples and addressed their concerns. The signs of growing popular dissent have been obvious for years: the Arab Spring and the Occupy movement; the steady rise of the anti-establishment parties in Europe; Sanders and Trump; and so on. Instead of listening, the elite ignored the people: “The People have lost the confidence of the Government; the People must be dissolved,” to paraphrase Brecht’s poem, “The Solution.”
“Project Fear,” which told people that they would lose something that they didn’t feel they had in the first place, didn’t work. Further, the constant barrage of (often self-interested) international leaders warning (correctly) of dire consequences generated a Blitz spirit. Given the seriousness of the issue, it would have been prudent of the international leaders to intervene with the Eurocrats earlier and suggest that they offer a better deal to the UK, and other EU electorates. That might have moved sufficient Eurosceptics (rather than Europhobes) into Remain. That’s not a new idea; here’s what Diodotus the Athenian said 2,500 years ago, as quoted in Thucydides’s History of the Peloponnesian War:

“[T]he right way to deal with free people is this – not to inflict tremendous punishment on them after they have revolted, but to take tremendous care of them before this point is reached, to prevent them even contemplating the idea of revolt.”http://lobelog.com/well-heres-another-fine-mess-youve-gotten-us-into/#more-34787