At the outset, I would like to make clear that, in writing this article, I am not lending my support to any argument that the EU referendum should be re-run or that the result should be overturned. In my view, any such argument is specious in the extreme, with its Liberal Democrat proponents appearing especially hypocritical. That the EU Referendum Bill received overwhelming support from all parties (the SNP excepted) is demonstrative of both the democratic inviolability of the outcome as well as the abject failure of Parliament to properly countenance the potential impact of an affirmative vote to leave the EU.
In presenting the question of the UK’s exit from the EU, a profound, multi-faceted and far-reaching change to the UK’s constitution, in such binary terms, the framers of the referendum question are arguably as responsible for much of uncertainty facing the nation as those on the Leave side who waged such a dishonest campaign. Indeed, the amorphous nature of the question posed unquestionably resulted in a vacuum in which the worst excesses of both sides were allowed to run wild, devoid of any common anchor to which voters could tie them. Loose talk of punishment budgets, hoards of Turkish immigrants descending upon our shores and overtly simplistic assertions on parliamentary sovereignty detracted from the very real and very significant constitutional resettlement that was being proposed. That such a complex and challenging endeavour should now be embarked upon following a relatively small and nationally disjointed majority is staggering.
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