Why us remainers shouldn’t be calling for a second referendum

“But Farage said he would call for a second referendum if remain won by 52%” cry some on the remain side. But does that make it right? No it doesn’t. Hand on heart and be honest, would you be really calling for a second referendum if remain had won by that margin? I know I wouldn’t. It may be a slim majority but it is technically a majority so the politicians have to listen to the people now and trigger article 50 and our exit from the EU. Interestingly though it is not a legally binding referendum and if parliament votes against it, we don’t leave the EU. Bear in mind the majority of MPs in parliament are in favour in staying, this is a distinct possibility. Although if parliament does this, you can imagine the backlash they’ll get and those MPs that voted against invoking article 50 would find it very hard to get re-elected. So it is unlikely to happen.

Is this a horrible result? Yes. Is the future uncertain and precarious? Yes. Does the idea of Boris Johnson being PM make my skin crawl? Absolutely. It is becoming increasingly clear that those on the leave side of the argument have no proper plan in place and have outright lied to the electorate on promises to do with the NHS for example. But what we remainers should be doing is pushing for the government to make sure we don’t get rid of things like the social chapter and environmental standards that we get from the EU. That will be very difficult. Even though there is very likely going to be a general election, I’m very worried whether the Tories will be ousted given that rather than take on the Tories, Labour seem to re-enacting an episode of Game of Thrones by brutally trying to get rid of their leader. It’s all a shambles at the moment in British politics but it is why we need people to remain calm and push for a progressive post Brexit Britain.  

To be honest, the only political leaders that have had any clarity are those pushing for remaining, Nicola Sturgeon and Tim Farron. Sturgeon has said to protect Scottish interests there needs to be a second independence referendum given that the majority of Scotland voted to remain. That makes sense. After all why would you accept leaving an organisation that the majority of your citizens voted to stay a part of? Although Tim Farron has said that in the next general election his party will have staying in the EU as a policy despite the referendum result. I’ve even seen some fellow Green Party members suggest that we make re-joining (through an eventual second referendum) as a manifesto pledge at the next election. Given that could be in a few months, I do worry about that pledge. It will make it look like we are ignoring the majority of the electorate in this country.

In hindsight I do think this referendum was a mistake. There was not a massive appetite to have one. It was only made so Cameron could stop Tory votes going to UKIP. It was also such a complicated issue that barely anyone, including me, fully understood how the EU works. I think what sums this all up is that a day after the referendum, the second most googled thing in Britain was “What is the EU?”  But that is all by-the-by. Even if it was a mistake, the referendum has happened and a slim majority of the electorate have spoken. We now need to live with that. Given that our friends, loved ones and neighbours are now facing torrents of abuse just from being EU citizens we need to help them and make sure we stop any more attacks and make sure that EU migrants are protected from potential deportation. I fear either not going through with Brexit or holding another referendum could further divide our country, cause more anger and resentment and make the situation a lot worse. I know a lot of people on the left of politics that did vote leave, So what I would like to see now is the progressives in politics on either side of the debate build bridges, unite and fight this government's austerity measures, which will sadly only get worse as a result of Brexit.

So stop going on about getting people to sign a petition for another referendum. We need to respect the wishes of a small majority of the electorate who wanted to leave a political union that felt distant to them. We on the remain side failed to put a really positive case for the EU forward. And this is where the EU itself has serious questions to answer as other nations themselves will start questioning their membership of the EU.