Getting the train up to Cambridge from London on Saturday evening I was forced to sit on the floor on account of the plethora of middle-aged, middle-class day-trippers returning from the capital and their big day out. The abundance of these assorted Cantabridgensian oldies induced nausea. Among these well-heeled hobbyists’ hummus-stuffed backpacks and Pret a Manger coffee cups were wedged a small forest of EU flags. Of course, it had been the day of that most shamefully mislabelled march for a ‘People’s Vote’.
This well-branded campaign closely resembles Voltaire’s description of the Holy Roman Empire – “neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire” – in every respect. Representing a minority of opinion who lost the referendum, orchestrated by unabashed elites from George Soros to George Osborne, and determined to rig the wording of a second ballot, one wonders how much the PR men who came up with the title were paid.
But the irritating nature of the People’s Vote crowd isn’t enough: they must be combated with arguments. I’ll endeavour to do so.
They claim that there is some kind of democratic deficit in the result of the Brexit referendum result of 2016. Well, it’s now repeated endlessly on news panels that 17.4 million voters – a clear majority on a three-quarters turnout – is the largest democratic mandate in British electoral history. No disagreement so far.
The opponents of Brexit then decided to reject the legitimacy of direct democracy in this case, invoking parliamentary sovereignty as their rallying cry: only the legislature can take us out of the EU; referenda are only advisory.
This would be a good argument, but for the fact that in 2015 David Cameron’s government legislated for the referendum and stated that the result would be implemented. He included this pledge in his 2015 manifesto and was returned with a majority. Later, Parliament voted overwhelmingly to trigger Article 50. In 2017 both major parties pledged to implement the result – between them they gained over 500 seats in the House of Commons. In short, there is now both direct and representative authority for Britain to leave the EU.
Not content with ignoring this, the Remainers then decided audaciously to change their tune on referenda. The people must be given a say on the final deal, they claim. The facts have changed, we didn’t know what the deal was, we were lied to, Vote Leave cheated, we must be allowed to vote again.
It’s unclear why if the result of the first referendum wasn’t binding the result of the second would be. How many referenda would the Remainers like? Perhaps a best of five? A Test series? When would we decide to call it a day? The answer is, of course, when they get the result that they want. Echoes of Ireland and Denmark being asked to vote again on the Lisbon Treaty abound.
Now to the more plausible points: they claim that Vote Leave broke electoral law. Well, the High Court ruled that the Electoral Commission and not Vote Leave was at fault in the dispute over campaign funding, so that argument goes out the window. Then there is the claim that Vote Leave lied. Over what, exactly? The £350 million number is often touted as a fabulous fib, but the facts on this are far from clear. £350m can plausibly be described as a net figure if you exclude the UK budget rebate and the money spent here by the EU that we don’t control. But the bigger point is that this was discussed at length during the referendum campaign; people had the chance to hear the arguments on either side and to cast their vote accordingly.
Some Remainers now argue that opinion has shifted in their favour as a justification to vote again. This is Alastair Campbell’s “democracy is a process, not a moment” argument. Nice soundbite from the old King of Spin, but this is deeply insidious. The argument relies on polling, and polling was so accurate before the Brexit vote, right? And in fact before the 2015 general election. And 2017. Spot on every time. The fact is the only poll that actually matters is the one that actually occurred on 23rd June 2016.
He argues that general elections are not binding forever; we can cast out governments that fail us. However, we give them up to 5 years to make a go of it before voting again. Otherwise, many governments would fall after their first couple of years in office. How long should referenda be binding for? One answer, on this issue at least, might be “forever”. But I’ll grant that that’s extreme. “A generation” (the length of time since the last referendum on Europe) might be a middle ground. But as a bare minimum, how about “at least until the result of the first one has actually been implemented”? Remainers are trying to stop Brexit not after the fact, but before it’s even happened.
The only good argument for a vote is that the terms of the negotiated deal were not known in 2016. But it’s the job of elected governments, supported in the Commons, to negotiate treaties; you cannot export the minutia of foreign policy to popular plebiscites constantly. The simplicity of the In/Out vote reflected the fact that it came down to a fundamental question of sovereignty and whether the demos endorsed its being given away by government to Brussels. But even if there were to be a second referendum, then on the basis of this “facts have changed” argument, the question should be “Deal vs No Deal”, not “Deal vs Remain”.
It’s here that People’s Vote types give themselves away. In a recent debate with Peter Hitchens, Lord Adonis – who, staggeringly, backs a second referendum even though he thinks referenda are unconstitutional – let slip that his main motivation was not democratic but his desire to stop Brexit. Likewise Matt Kelly, editor of the New European, is brazen about wanting to exclude ‘No Deal’ as an option from any second vote. They sometimes say that the people should not be deprived of the Remain option, but the people deprived themselves – willingly – of that option in 2016. That’s called democracy. You can’t run the ‘vote on the deal’ argument consistently while also seeking an effective re-run of Leave vs Remain – it’s just intellectually dishonest.
The question that must be put to Adonis and Campbell should be: what would Leavers have to do for you to agree that that they have finally done enough? In what possible world would you be satisfied that Brexit has a mandate? Ask People’s Vote supporters this and they become rather embarrassed.
Any reversal of the 2016 result – especially if it’s by sleight of hand, with a rigged question and under a phoney name – would absolutely shatter faith in the whole concept of democratic legitimacy upon which our peaceful, constitutional order is based. The notion that the government will respond to the people’s wishes and take action based on what they choose would be dispelled forever, with appalling consequences for our reputation both domestically and abroad as a democratic power. It’s vital that ‘People’s Vote’ are stopped, and that the final relationship between Britain and the EU is decided by Parliament.