But what is it that you actually believe yourself? Your statement merely rehashes all the old arguments that have been circulating for months, while you seem to lack the courage to state what you really think is the best course of action. Which leave option do you think is best? Do you want to leave or remain? How would you vote in any proposed second referendum?
And what exactly would such a referendum look like? You’ve been so vague on details it’s no surprise you haven’t thought about this either. What would the question put to the people actually be?
If it is, as you appear to indicate, a choice between:
- Remain
- Leave with govt deal
- Leave with no deal
Then what would happen if, say “Remain” were to win the same 48% of the vote, “Leave with govt deal” won a 27% share, and “Leave with no deal” won 25%? Who wins that? I presume you would say Remain, which seems to me perverse if we have two referendums with Leave winning the majority vote in both, and the result is that we Remain. Or is all that someone else’s problem to work out? You seem to have thrown your hands up in the air and slunk away when asked to do some hard work, in much the same manner your party has handled these negotiations.
And what if either Leave option wins outright? Do they suddenly become good options? Do all the issues outlined above suddenly evaporate? If not, then a second referendum seems entirely pointless. (I suspect in reality your answer would be to call for a third referendum, presumably entitled “Are you double-triple sure you want to leave the EU?”.)
And while you talk a great deal about uncertainty, like all remainers you give no specifics on what “Remain” actually means. What sort of EU will we be getting? The one that didn’t even exist the last time we voted back in 1975? One that involves us joining the single currency? One that integrates us yet further politically so that we would never again be able to extricate ourselves? Or one that sees the formation of an EU army? Doesn’t the public have the right to know what it is signing up for?
[As a matter of interest, could you also please name any EU referendum anywhere in Europe where the pro-EU side has lost, and which hasn’t subsequently been overturned? I just want to reassure myself that we still live in a democracy and there is a point in voting.]
