No you're right, he didn't literally say that, he made his views on how people should vote very clear though, when really he shouldn't at all use his influence to affect a vote. Considering all the drama around Russian bots affecting the outcome of their elections as well.
I think
@h4rm0ny summed it up quite well. You should either be outraged by both Obama and Trump's 'interference' with UK politics or accept them both as being entitled to express their opinion. Having said that, I appreciate that there is a difference between expressing an opinion in a national newspaper op-ed
and in a joint media conference with the sitting Prime Minister, and simply stating your views in a media interview.
Of course, most people who are pro-Brexit will decry Obama's statement and accept Trump's and vice-versa for pro-Remain voters — it's basic cognitive bias.
Do you know what the GREAT thing about that is? We can elect another government if we don't like that. What a crazy concept.
The problem is, once the process has started it would be very difficult to halt or reverse it, and it wouldn't necessarily garner enough support from the public to reverse it once it was established. Look at most previously state-owned institutions as an example:
- Implement an *unofficial* policy of chronic underfunding for ideological reasons.
- Blame the inevitable failures on the fact that the institution is state-owned.
- Privatise the institution for a song because it's 'failing'.
- Continue to give public money to the institution in the form of subsidies etc. even though it's meant to be privatised.
- Now that the institution is being properly funded it performs better.
- The public support the privatisation even though they are paying more than they otherwise would have done had the institution remained in public hands but been adequately funded in the first place.
It's a pattern and I have no doubt that the same thing would happen to the NHS if we let it.
