In June 2016, the British people voted by 52 per cent to 48 per cent to leave the European Union. But a 52/48 verdict would be “unfinished business by a long way”, the then UK Independence party leader Nigel Farage told the Daily Mirror on May 16 2016, when he feared a victory for the Remainers. Farage went on to say to the BBC that “there could be an unstoppable demand for a re-run of the EU referendum” should Remain win by a narrow margin. “Win or lose this battle,” he concluded, “we will win this war.” Yet the Brexiters now seek to deny to their opponents the very rights that they themselves claimed, and accuse Remainers who want to continue the debate of disrespecting the views of the people.
Most Remainers seem hypnotised by the self-confidence of their opponents. The vast majority of Labour MPs and over half of Conservative MPs were, after all, Remainers. So there is a clear Remain majority in the Commons, and an even larger one in the Lords. In endorsing the EU withdrawal bill, MPs were voting for something in which they do not believe.
In a recent survey by the CBI employers’ group, nearly 40 per cent of businesses reported that the Brexit vote had deleteriously affected their investment decisions. Yet the CBI campaigns, not to reverse Brexit, but merely to secure a transition period, and the CBI’s chief economist declared defensively that its purpose was not to “delay the process of leaving but to expedite it”.