As I wrote in my blog yesterday, this petition which was calling on the Government to act if the referendum was deemed by the Electoral Commission to have broken electoral laws was signed by 187,042 people. This morning the signatures are now at 188,022 and bearing in mind that in one sense, the petition is out of date, because the electoral commission have now identified broken laws, it is not necessarily a petition that pedants like me would find easy to sign post the Commission findings. Therefore every 980 people signing is not insignificant. However my blog today is not simply to promote the petition but to look a bit deeper at the response to the petition from the Department for Exiting the European Union that was published in the last couple of days. The theme in this blog is to remind us all and perhaps explain to the DEXEU that the 2016 referendum was not the first EU based referendum as they seemed oblivious to the one that took place in 1975. The first issue was in their statement: “The result of the referendum held on 23 June 2016 saw a majority of people vote to leave the European Union. This was the biggest democratic mandate for a course of action ever directed at any UK Government.”

Now of course there has never been a vote by 17.41 Million before and so in one sense they are absolutely right in numerical terms. However when 17.38 Million people voted for us to remain in the EEC in the 1975 referendum their vote represented 43.35% of those who were eligible to vote and 67.3% of those who voted. When it came to the 2016 referendum the 17.41 Million votes represented 37.44% of those entitled to vote and 51.89% of those who actually voted. So to argue that 17.41 Million voters in 2016 is a bigger mandate than 17.38 Million people in 1975 is deeply flawed and could in itself be described as a lie when one considers that mandates are based on proportions, not simply on numbers.

The second is a bit vaguer in terms of understanding. However in their response the department stated “This was not a decision made after just a few weeks of campaigning, but one that came after a debate that had taken place both in Parliament and across the country for decades.” Now one could argue pedantically that there have been no debates across the nation over decades, however putting that lie to one side. The issue is that over many decades, indeed since 1975 there has been some dissatisfaction with the decision taken by 67.3% of voters and 43.35% of the electorate over our decision to remain in the EEC. If this is the basis on which DEXEU refuse to consider revisiting the 2016 referendum, they are creating a problem for themselves. If a vote that saw 67.3% of the voters and 43.35% of the electorate has led to decades of debates, then how much more will a decision attributed to 51.89% of the voters and 37.44% of the electorate and one which is judged by the electoral commission to have broken the law lead to on going debates and dissatisfaction, particularly if the economy collapses as many people predict!

If “It is the Government’s duty to deliver the will of the people and reach a desirable final outcome.” then that final outcome needs to be one that satisfies a great deal more than 37.44% of the people entitled to vote over 2 years ago, some of whom have since died and due to the young people since then who are now entitled to vote, this proportion will be a great deal smaller!