In fact, the turnout was reasonably high: at 72 percent, it was higher than any national election since 1992, and three million votes higher than in the previous year’s general election. The 52:48 margin of victory for the Leave camp wasn’t huge, but it was clear enough; crucially, there had been no requirement for a quorum or a supermajority imposed when the referendum was called, so demanding one afterwards smacks of special pleading. [...]
The argument that the referendum was not binding is legally correct and politically useless. Nobody thought they were voting in a glorified opinion poll last June; everyone understood that it was a straight choice between staying in the European Union and getting out. There were plenty of lies told by the politicians who spearheaded the Leave campaign, but ruling a referendum invalid on that basis is a very dubious idea (how many elections and referendums, in Britain and elsewhere, would have to be struck out on the same grounds?). [...]
The 52 percent who supported Brexit weren’t all signing up to a hard-right, xenophobic agenda, even if the effect of their vote has been to strengthen that agenda: they included about one-third of Labour and Scottish National Party (SNP) supporters, and one-third of black and Asian voters (in a marked contrast to the vote for Donald Trump, who was supported by less than 10 percent of African-Americans). [...]
A speech by Corbyn in early January was flagged up in the media as heralding a major shift in policy, but only served to muddy the waters: the party leader stated that Labour was “not wedded” to free movement in principle, but would not rule it out either, and refused to say that current levels of immigration were too high and would have to come down. This rhetorical fudge managed to annoy some of Corbyn’s strongest supporters, without offering any satisfaction to those right-wing Labour MPs who want full-scale capitulation to UKIP.
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