If there was a referendum asking voters to choose between continued membership of the EU under the current agreement, or with a settled deal between Britain and the EU after we’ve left, then I must have been on holiday when it took place!
On the 23rd of June 2016 there was a referendum and people voted for something – that much we know.
After a campaign that was described as having “glaring democratic deficiencies” by the Electoral Reform Society, people voted to leave the European Union. They did so for a variety of reasons. Some thought it would reduce immigration, others believed they would get more money for the NHS, and some did so based on vague and indefinable notions of sovereignty.
Everyone voted in good faith. It’s wrong to accuse Leave voters of not knowing what they were voting for, or not understanding what they were doing – everyone makes decisions based on how they interpret their own reality.
However nobody can possibly predict the consequences that will now ensue because of this decision.
A referendum on the final Brexit deal is essential.
This wouldn’t be a ‘second ‘referendum because there never was a first referendum on a negotiated deal.
In order for people to vote sensibly in a binary referendum then, surely – with an urgent appeal to common sense – you have to give them two options that can be directly compared and scrutinised against each other. The 2016 vote failed to do this. It was a campaign of sentiment not fact: a saga presented as zealous nationalism VS apocalyptic defeatism (‘Project Fear’), and zealous nationalism brought them out to princely turnout sum of 72.2% and won the day.
Brexit is likely but it is not inevitable. Public opinion could change everything.
So far there is a growing trend where people think it was wrong to leave the EU. This is happening because as the negations proceed, it becomes apparent that untangling ourselves from the a union we’ve been a part of for decades is a lot more complicated than what was sold to us in the campaign.
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