SINCE the referendum vote there have been demands that the result of the referendum be ignored and that parliament reject the referendum result in favour of continued EU membership or in a re-run of the referendum.
What advocates of this position don’t realise is that the debate is no longer about whether or not we should stay in the EU, it is now about whether or not we should have a democracy at all.
Whilst there is no legal authority for the referendum result, there is a clear political authority. More people voted to leave the EU than voted to stay in it, given the very high turnout, this was well over a million. Arguing to dismiss the result is to argue against democracy itself.
Democracy produces stable forms of government because it allows us to remove our law makers. This was by far the leading reason why people voted to leave the EU.
If you ignore the democratic will of the people, or dismiss it as being invalid then you are on a slippery slope to tyranny.
On March 9, 1761, a crowd of 300 Hexham and Tynedale townsfolk, who had gathered to protest against the way a conscription bill was being implemented, were fired upon by the Yorkshire militia. Seventy people were killed and dozens wounded. This is what life was like before universal suffrage, before the majority will of the people was supreme.
Dismissing the democratic will of the people, even if that will is against everything you believe in, is to turn your back on their martyrdom and to embrace tyranny.
C. PALMER,
Hexham
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