“If a democracy cannot change its mind, it ceases to be a democracy.” These wise words were spoken by David Davis when he was a backbench MP.
In the wake of the referendum, it’s not just Brexiters who forget this core principle of a free society. Even some Remainers think we should lump it now the people have spoken. They are wrong.
A good example of the latter category is Philip Collins, who was once Tony Blair’s chief speechwriter. In his column in today’s Times, he writes: “We have voted to leave the EU so we must leave.” He adds: “It may well be an error but it is an error we must now make.” Collins’ reasoning is that: “It does not seem legitimate to discount a referendum, in the absence of overwhelming buyer’s remorse, before it has even been implemented.”
With the exception of the word “overwhelming”, which sets too high a hurdle, I agree with this last sentence. Unless the people change their minds, it would indeed be illegitimate to stay in the EU.
But acknowledging this doesn’t mean we should stop campaigning to change people’s minds. Quite the opposite. If Collins is right that quitting the EU may be an error – I would say it’s likely to be a historic mistake – we have a duty to try to wake people up before it is too late. And if we succeed, politicians will have a duty to reverse course.
Collins asks how we can know whether the people have changed their minds. The obvious answer is to have a referendum to check whether the people want to leave once they know what Brexit means. A petition on the Parliament website urging such a referendum had gathered 67,000 signatures by time of writing.
Collins is opposed to such a referendum on the grounds that “we are still in the period marked by the first one,” which he seems to think must last at least until after we quit the EU. By that time, of course, it would be too late to stay in and we’d only have the more cumbersome and problematic option of rejoining.
But there’s a flaw in this part of Collins’ argument too. If the voters really do change their minds, then surely the legitimacy conferred by last year’s referendum will have ended. We’ll be able to spot such a shift via opinion polls, attendance at rallies, lobbying of MPs and so forth. But we’ll only be able to validate it by a new vote.
All this, of course, will be immaterial unless the public will actually changes. That’s why pro-Europeans shouldn’t spend too much effort pushing now for a new referendum. They need to put the lion’s share of their energy into changing public opinion.