It's the Will of the People innit.... or is it?

Today I saw another of those tweets - this time from a Tory notable - saying the referendum is a done and dusted and so Brexit is a done deal.  So.. to save my blood pressure I just need to get this off my chest....

Yes.  We had a referendum and a majority - a small one - said they wanted to leave the European Union. But, and you know this already, it was an advisory referendum.  The vote of the referendum is not binding.  If it had been set up to be binding a simple majority would not have been enough for the major constitutional change that Brexit entails - stripping over 60 million people of EU citizenship for example.

 Now an advisory referendum is pretty much a state sponsored opinion poll. "Dear Mr Voter, we'd like your opinion on this one please."   .. and last time I looked nobody wins in an opinion poll.  All you get is an opinion. An opinion on what was on the ballot, on the day that the vote was made. 

Interestingly, what was on the ballot was two unequal choices.  One one hand, stay in the EU.  A fairly well defined choice based on 40 years of experience and a lot of existing institutions and law.  on the other hand something defined only by what it is not.  It's not the EU.  Voters were free to imagine what 'not the EU' would be like.  Not the EU could mean a lot of things - the Norway, Swiss, Canadian and WTO options?  With or without the freedom of movement? The ECJ?
So voting leave in the referendum said nothing about what people wanted - only what they didn't want.    Compare this to the referendum on proportional representation. That was binding - and the choice were two specific options. There wasn't a 'not first past the post option', and if you didn't like the alternative given, tough luck.

Post referendum, the only thing we do know about what people want is that 48% want it kept the way it is.  The rest might want any one of the alternatives - but probably don't all want the same thing.


But I hear you say - the people have spoken! Yes. The people gave their opinion - and now it's up to politicians to sort out and decide what that should mean. It's their professional reponsibility to weigh up what's best for the country - taking account of this opinion (a split vote with a small majority for one view) alongside a host of other factors - like...

• the majority is too small to win a binding vote on major constitutional change. 
• a clear majority of those born within the EU  - those under 45, want to stay. 
• the young are those that will live with the consequences longest - and those too young to vote, longest of all.
• there are millions of EU citizens affected that weren't eligible to vote - far more than the slim majority
• the campaigns included lots of misleading or deceitful information which has been shown as such since then 
• and every day that passes shows new not so cheerful information on the consequences of Brexit.

And what does the referendum result mean anyway??  On one extreme you have people that hate immigrants and want to take back control.  On the other extreme are Europhiles that would happily go hand in hand into a European superstate.  The deciding votes though and the balance of opinion is with those voters in the middle.  The people who are swayed by bendy bananas, more money for the NHS or making sure nan still gets her pension on the Costas. Kids that want to study abroad. Pensioners that read too many scare stories in the tabloids. People that want the single market but don't want freedom of movement, and don't understand the incongruity in that.

Ultimately it's not the will of the people for one half to lead the other half over a cliff and bugg*r the consequences. It shouldn't be a game of winner takes all and the devil takes the hindmost. And it certainly shouldn't be the case that the nation is led off into the worst off all Brexits because the interpretation of 'not the EU' is given over to the most extreme Brexit hardliners.  That's not respecting the will of the people - remain or leave voters.  That's taking them for a bunch of Charlies.

The referendum was an opinion, on the day the vote was made.  And opinions can change.  Do change. Are changing, if current polls are anything to go by.

Our politicians have voted to let Theresa May sign Article 50. But if opinions change, as they may, they also have the power to vote to annul it. And that too will be the Will of the People. And not a day too soon.