What does democracy look like when you're considering a second referendum?

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Sir Kier Starmer vowed to force to Government to publish secret Brexit report (AFP/Getty)

Whatever your views were on the referendum at the time, a lot has changed since. There was misinformation on both sides and we have learnt how that decision is being interpreted by the current Government and what the consequences will be.

Given that the vote was very close, you might have assumed that the Government would have tried to compromise and bring both sides together. However, the Government continues to just focus on Leave voters, alienating Remain voters and widening the abyss, with the Tory press stopping proper debate and discussion and using the language of betrayal and mutiny.

Eventually this period of history will be seen as a fight for truth and democracy. Had Remain won, I don’t for one second imagine this is how Leave voters would have been treated. Lots of people on both sides are angry and this anger is likely to be focused on the Conservative Party at the next election. They have shown little respect to people with different opinions and have shut down debate and they will be shown no mercy in return.

Nicki Bartlett

Cardiff

I think a second referendum is needed before it all goes too far. The British people were not given the true facts before the last vote. Most young people are against it and they are the generation that should be considered.

Roy Linacre

Address supplied

The first referendum was won on lies and misinformation given to an ill-informed, discontented sector of society delivered in the form of a red bus promising £350m.

Due to the massive divide between the ages, a second vote must be given. Let’s face it: it is the younger generation that will have to pick up the pieces from the fallout.

Phil Somerville

Address supplied

It’s odd that someone like me, who sees Brexit as a huge, unnecessary sick-making farce foisted on the UK by the pedalling of lies and xenophobia, should agree with a prominent Leaver.

Former Brexit Minister and MP David Jones reportedly said: “Our negotiating position needs to be agreed, not made up on the hoof.” How true.

The difference is that I think potential negotiating positions should have been considered (also social cohesion, the economy, the Irish border, the effect on universities, young people, rural communities, inflation, and so on) long before a referendum was launched by David Cameron in an attempt to control his party.

During the horrible recent campaign in Alabama, “Country before party” became a popular refrain for those paying attention. The Westminster cabal should try it.

Amanda Baker

Edinburgh

I voted for Brexit and, during the referendum, the Remainer side was extremely clear: if we voted Leave, we would be out the customs union, out of the single market and out of the ECJ. That is what must be done.

The result might not be what you want, but as a country we have to stop fighting, stop trying to undermine the vote and use all of this energy to get the best way for all instead. Britain should be pulling together to make it work for everyone instead of just the social elite who it’s working for now.

I know it will take a lot of hard work and bosses having to pay a decent wage as well as real investment in training our young generation rather than importing qualified workers from abroad – and yes, in the short term that will hit all employers’ pockets. But we need to give our young people a future where they can afford to buy their own homes and have a decent salary that gives them a good standard of living. It has to happen so please use your energy to find solutions – I hate to see everyone turning against one another. Please stop.

Joanna Hamnett

Address supplied

I enjoyed reading the articles by contributors from different sides on this debate, but one thing that struck me about all three arguments posed by the Leavers was their disdain for trusting the people of our county with a second referendum.

For instance, Matthew Elliott railed against the injustice of the Danes and Irish being given a second vote, having initially rejected the Maastricht Treaty as if this was an affront to democracy. Surely, if the Brexiteers believe in their position, they would welcome allowing the British people the opportunity to support their view – isn’t that how democracy is meant to work? Or are they worried that the two million or so young people who were too young to vote in June 2016 but will have reached 18 by March 2019, coupled with a corresponding attrition of the elderly Brexit supporters, which might swing the vote the other way?

Ian Dust

Waltham Cross, Herts

Thankyou for your Special Edition addressing the EU debate. I was and am a Remainer so read the various pitches with some bias, but I value The Independent’s inclusiveness. And I acknowledge that we may well subliminally seek support for our views and give approval accordingly, but your Brexit contributors wrote nothing to change my mind.

Suella Fernandes wrote: “Still more hold the distasteful view that somehow the electorate did not or were incapable of understanding what they were voting for. These views tell us more about the holders of them than they do about British society.” I would argue (strongly) that the quality of information provided by politicians of all parties and beliefs, and the level of debate surrounding the relevant issues prior to the referendum were shamefully low.

The advantages of EU membership, the funding and subsidies, the market strength, the unity of intelligence, research and so on were never explained. That is a reflection on politicians and the media, not on the electorate. It is, after all, on public record that Leaver politicians lied to us – and continue to do so. I am tired of being accused of telling Leavers they don’t understood the issues. It’s a cheap, divisive shot that does nothing to help advance the discussions.

Fernandes also wrote that “Voters were subjected to threats of recession, World War Three and even the end of civilisation.” I don’t recall any of that but I can tell her that Remainers are now threatened with calls to arms and civil war.

Then there was Matthew Elliott. He wrote: “There is in fact a supreme irony in the Remain-backing cognoscenti suggesting that having failed to understand what we were voting for in last year’s referendum, the very same device is required for us to change our decision”. Why the use of the term “cognoscenti”? Surely not complimentary. I’m no cognoscente but I do know, as I have said, that the quality of political debate was shamefully low. He went on to say: “Indeed, you have to be aged over 60 today [I am] to have been able to cast a ballot in that first referendum on our relationship with Europe – a reminder that the vote on 23 June 2016 was arguably the real second referendum”. So does he then believe in a second or third referendum?

Lucy Harris’s arguments were more alarming. “I voted Leave to call the establishment’s bluff. To test that we are, indeed, a free and democratic country. To confirm that I was able to say no to the European Union. After all, as Salman Rushdie once wrote, the freedom to reject is the only freedom”.

Based on the Salman Rushdie argument, I claim the freedom totally to reject the outcome of the referendum. Except that I don’t and can’t, but I can argue against it. Lucy Harris goes on to deny further our (“Salman Rushdie”) freedom to reject: “Even the utterance of a second referendum insults the very concept of our precious democratic system, and its undermining should outrage us all. It is an open attack on our individual freedoms – to say no, and have the establishment take us seriously”. Where is Salman Rushdie now? What exactly are our individual freedoms? Hers? Mine? Whose freedoms prevail? And what is the establishment to whom she refers? Those MPs who campaigned to Leave or those who campaigned to Remain? They are all the establishment. Who does Lucy Harris think she has now empowered? Does she have any concept of the fragile but precious European unity she has discarded just so she could say no to something? Does she not see a fragmenting world around her where unity is so much more worth striving for than creating division, conflict and borders?

From the Remainer side, Vince Cable pointed out that “the decision to leave the customs union was taken by the Cabinet without any quantitative assessment of impact”. That does not inspire any confidence in the Government or our freedoms.

Beryl Wall

London W4

In the German press today is yet another report on the changing attitude of the English public to Brexit. It refers to your special debate on this issue and again claims that a majority of the British voted for Brexit in the referendum.

Viewed statistically, it would be fair to state that of those that voted, a small majority were for Brexit. It however does not mention that the referendum was not a plebiscite for all British citizens. Excluded were millions of British citizens resident outside of the UK. It also fails to mention that of the restricted electorate only 72.21 per cent actually voted and the 51.89 per cent who voted for Brexit represented only 37.46 per cent of the electorate.

How would those British excluded from the referendum have voted? The special exception of Gibraltaris probably a fair indicator of how the majority of British resident outside of the UK would have responded.

The Gibraltar results: 83.6 per cent turnout of which 95.9 per cent voted to remain in the EU.

The long term burdens that Brexit will bring will be shouldered by the younger members of today’s society. That the electorate for the referendum was restricted to 18 and older was unfair to these younger people.

Should a second plebiscite ever become reality, then it might be worth parliament considering extending the electorate to include all British citizens, irrespective of their place of abode, and a vote for younger people, eg 16 years old and above. In view of the seriousness of the issues involved, it might also be appropriate to make voting compulsory for the referendum. Twenty-two countries including Australia have compulsory voting to ensure large turnouts at elections and the results may then be viewed as a more democratic result than the Brexit referendum and the continued persistence of the media to claim that a majority of the British people voted to leave the EU.

Michael Gibson

Hochstadt, Germany

“We respect the result of the referendum” is the frequent opening statement of those who supported Remain. So how about a bit of respect coming the other way? Can the Brexiteers please respect that almost half the voters did not and do not want to leave the EU? Instead of having their sincerely and legitimately held views respected, Remainers are being subject to a hysterical barrage of abuse.

The latest outcry against ensuring Parliament has final scrutiny of any deal illustrates the point. If we are to be dragged against our will on to the Brexit bus, is it not reasonable for us to at least ask to check the oil and water and verify that there is a current MOT before being driven off into the unknown?

Richard Charnley

North Yorkshire

If a second referendum produced a Remain result, that would be a score of one each, a draw, and then we could go to the best of three. That would really confuse those people who don’t understand the meaning of democracy.

Sean Sharkey

Address supplied