It is said that to call a second referendum would be undemocratic. I argued in these pages that to call a referendum in the first place violated the principles of representative democracy. We are a parliamentary democracy, not a mob-rule plebiscite democracy (yob-rule, one might say, in the light of Nigel Farage’s oafish grin). No Prime Minister would invoke “democracy” in calling a referendum to bring back hanging and flogging. So why hand over a much more momentous and complex decision to a populace whose level of sophistication may be judged from the number who googled “What is the EU?” the day after voting to leave it?
But even if the first referendum was undemocratic, there is a sense in which only a second referendum could convincingly undo the damage. Those who say, like the terminally discredited Cameron, “The people have spoken and it is now our duty to steady the ship and make Brexit work” also have a duty to convince themselves that “the people” really have spoken. If Brexit really is the will of the people, a second referendum will confirm it. And if it is not their will, how can it then be parliament’s duty to go against the thought-out convictions of the great majority of MPs and “make it work”?
If, as I hope and expect, opinion polls are now being taken, they will show massive remorse among “Leave” voters. The plummeting pound, the word from all sides that Britain (no, England) is the laughing-stock of the world, the looming spectre of the break-up of the UK (who can blame the noble Scots?) the palpable threat to science, industry, employment and the arts, must surely now be provoking massive morning-after queasiness among regretful Brexiteers. These Regrexiteers have woken up to the enormity of what they have done, and many must now long for the opportunity to undo it.
What possible Prime Minister would have the courage, the chutzpah, to call a second referendum? Certainly not Damaged Goods Cameron. Not any “safe pair of hands ship-steadier” from either party. It would have to be a leading Brexiteer. Only such a one could carry the country with him, and get away with such a bold decision. I can think of only one British politician with the sheer bottle, the idiosyncratic contrariness, the endearingly impudent bloody cheek, to get away with it. Boris Johnson, of course.
There are other reasons for saying that Johnson should be Prime Minister. A case could be made that he got us into this disastrous mess, so it is he who should clear it up. Why should the poisoned chalice blight the life of anyone else?
I think there is a better reason. Johnson is probably the only British politician who is in a position to remove the poison from the chalice, and who has the ability to do so. And the way he could do it is by calling a second referendum. If the “Leave” vote is confirmed, then the country really would have to unite behind Brexit with good grace and struggle together to “make it work.” And if, as is much more likely, the vote is overwhelmingly to stay in Europe, the poison would be removed in another way. The inheritor of the chalice would then not have to cope with the appalling financial and economic disaster that now faces us.
The fact that Johnson delayed so long before coming out for Brexit indicates that he himself already had doubts. There are plausible whisperings that he never really believed they’d win and may now be feeling secretly appalled by what he has done to the country. If we give him the opportunity to redeem himself, there is a good chance he will rise to the occasion and become the true statesman he would love to be. By calling a second referendum. Boris for PM
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