Three things caught my eye this week. The first was an article on the BBC website by the incomparable Mark Mardell entitled The new divide: hard or soft Brexit. He echoed David Cameron's line that the 52% 'must be respected' and that a further referendum on the subject would be to play into the hands of those Brexiteers who complained that 'politicians never listen'.
He defined 'hard Brexiteers' as those that are prepared to ride roughshod over all and sundry: 'We won and so we will send in our Article 50 letter as soon as possible. That will be irrevocable and will prevent the Remainers from holding anything up.' The 'soft' want to take a longer view and get some ducks in a row first. The Chilcot Report suggests their approach might be a wise move.
The second thing was the statement by Theresa May who said 'we are all Brexiteers now' as she launched her leadership campaign. (She is sounding like 'soft' compared to Leadsom's 'hard'.)
And lastly, a few senior statesmen (Tory of course) said that another referendum or election, or indeed a Scottish referendum, would be out the question.
To quote a former leader, 'No', 'No' and 'No'.
'No' because we should betray neither the 52% nor the 48%. That is the terrifying stupidity of the binary decision that we were offered and the narrowness of the result. The country is split and the wounds continue to bleed. To go ahead with Brexit would be as damaging to half the country - or potentially rather more than half - as not doing so. That is the rule of the bully and democracy was surely never meant to encourage that. If ever there was a time for finding a third way ...
No', we are not all Brexiteers now. Blindly to follow the mass when the referendum was as flawed as this one is to repeat the mistakes of the Iraq War and the Bay of Pigs when 'group think' took over and reason was thrown to the wind in pursuit of 'political pressure'.
There is general agreement that the campaign information was misleading and in many places simply untrue. (It is customary to say 'on both sides' but I have yet to be told a major structural lie on the part of the Remain camp.)
The Electoral Commission's website says 'You must not use threats, intimidation, deception or fraud to persuade electors to vote for a particular outcome'. Do I have to give you a list of the 'misleading statements' in the campaign to justify deception, or even fraud. That may be another reason why the three leaders have run for cover as the lawyers sharpen their quills.
A vote to leave based on false promises, no matter what the margin, does not make the result morally sound or right. It is building on sand. To go ahead now would be to be like Tweedledum and Tweedledee having a battle 'because we are all dressed up' in armour. Come to think of it, that sort of thinking led to WWI.
Imagine a vote on a topic like 'Do you want a tax cut and free cake every Monday morning?' The result might be an almost unanimous 'Yes' - I feel sorry for those who are gluten-free - but that would not make the end result deliverable.
Similarly, consider a vote on capital punishment - the question we never dare ask - or a vote to send Michael Gove and Boris Johnson on a one-way trip to Mars. Both of these might yield a majority in favour but that would not make the result morally acceptable.
Imagine, then a vote which offered to remove all the perceived annoyances of life; economic prosperity, plenty of housing for all; an end queues for trains, buses, doctors' surgeries, hospital appointments; and which would save the country lots of money. What's not to like? The only small problem is that it is not deliverable. It is a pipe dream. If everyone voted for it, would it therefore be morally right? Would it be a result we 'should respect'?
Despite the fact that the criteria were not set out at the start, it would be crass to anyone not brought up with the UK's antiquated voting system, to allow the will of around 37% of the electorate to lead to a constitutional change of this magnitude. We cannot change the process but, under any circumstances, a majority of 50% (not 37%) of the total electorate or 66% (not 52%) of those voting might seem a much more reliable test of public opinion.
And finally, 'No' because some further vote has to be inevitable, if only by Parliament in agreeing to submit an Article 50 request.
Parliament is another form of democracy, invented in the days before we - or most of us - had access to the internet. It is a representative form of democracy with the MP representing us the voters (although don't get me started on proportional representation). The role of the MP is confused. At one level, we trust them to exercise their judgement on what is right - although they are generally told what to vote by the whips - at another we want them to vote for what we want: sometimes quite specifically.
Having a representative democracy has strengths. Almost no decision is black and white: there are implications. The world is full of trade-offs. MPs are well-placed to look at a question in the round. Yes, it can be irritating when they do not see things as clearly, and as simply, as campaigners would wish, but they are in a position to understand and allow for the trade-offs.
On matters like capital punishment, and surely, on matters as complex as our relationship with the EU, we should let them have the final say.
Individually we can take a pretty narrow view of broad questions. Some of the local and narrow-focused arguments that were floating around during the EU campaign suggest that the vote was influenced by some pretty weird issues.
My favourite was the view that we should vote out 'because the EU has stopped me buying my favourite anti-fouling paint'. There may, just may, be slightly wider issues to consider than anti-fouling, even if the UK (sorry Wales and England) parliament were to consider overturning this particular aspect of the environmental protection regulations at some point in the future. Talk about setting it up to fail.
Someone who was passionate about stopping migration, for instance, may not have understood the economic implications of continuing as we are vs stopping all migration. Losing the benefits of the EU single market may have looked of less interest than getting the right anti-fouling.
Parliament is in a unique position to take a broader view and for this reason, if for no other, must be given a vote. They will not be in an enviable position. If, as reported, the majority of MPs would like to remain then they set themselves up in opposition to the people's declared desire. On the other hand, they would be failing in their duty if they followed the masses and ignored the broader issues and, dare one say it, the advice of every informed source they have been funding for years. Thereby hangs a real dilemma for democracy.
Ian Hislop hit the nail on the head by encouraging those of us who still believe that leaving is the wrong answer, to keep on making the arguments to remain.
Mark Mardell's options are a false dilemma. The options are not hard or soft Brexit. They are hard, soft or no Brexit.
At the very least, we should reject a decision based on rhetoric and rubbish: a decision which deserves no respect. The default has to be the status quo but that is not to argue against some change.
We have opened Pandora's box by having one referendum as an exercise in consultative democracy. Now we must see it through using the same method otherwise 'democracy' will come to mean nothing. But next time, for heaven's sake let's get the question right.
It would be sensible to ban the gang of three from participating in a future campaign but I suspect that might stretch the idea of democracy a tiny bit too far.
