On a momentous day in which hundreds of thousands marched (again) for a People’s Vote, and Boris Johnson tried and failed to railroad Parliament into accepting a deal he’d only shown them two days previously, the possibility of a People’s Vote is once again being discussed.
Soon after the chaos in Parliament, Tobias Ellwood went on the BBC to decry the value of a 2nd Referendum.
He used a well-worn argument, which went unchallenged.
You’ll have heard it many times, and not just on the telly, but probably also down the pub.
It comes in several variants, which all boil down to the “What Would It Prove Anyway?” argument.
Typically it goes like this:
“Say there was a 2nd vote, and it went marginally for Remain – what would that prove? It wouldn’t settle anything. Imagine it’s 52/48 for Remain. That’s the same as Leave got first time round. What would you do then? Have another vote? Best of three? Four? Five? It would be ridiculous. We’ve had a vote, the people have spoken, let’s get on with it.”
As a pub-style argument, it works pretty well, doesn’t it?
Except there’s a technical term for it: it’s bollocks.
It’s bollocks because a 2nd Referendum which went 52/48 to Remain would either be significant, or it would not.
If somebody argues that it 52/48 is not significant, then they must admit that the first referendum was similarly insignificant, and therefore is not the basis for major constitutional change. (Correct, of course.)
If, on the other hand, 52/48 IS deemed significant, then the fact of a vote now going that way for Remain would be evidence that there is no longer any basis for major constitutional change.
Either way, such a vote would spell the end of Brexit.
Whichever way you cut it, a 52/48 split is no basis for major constitutional change.
Mocking the notion of a wafer thin majority for Remain in a 2nd Referendum only underlines that point.
Clever though it at first seems, Tobias Ellwood’s argument – and the argument of your mate down the pub – in fact is self-defeating. Because if a close-run second referendum can’t settle Brexit, then a close-run first referendum can’t either.
In mocking close referendum results, all they prove is that we should never have gone down this deeply unpleasant rabbit hole in the first place.
[The video here is Ellwood making the same argument earlier in the year.]