In the Commons yesterday, as part of her statement on the withdrawal agreement, the prime minister said:
Parliament gave the choice to the people. In doing so, we told them that we would honour their decision.
The Referendum Act did not give power to the people. Referendums in this country have traditionally been advisory, not binding, and the 2016 vote was no exception. (Indeed, as a fellow-Remainer has pointed out, if it had been made binding the Electoral Commission could have negated it because of the massive breaches of electoral law on the part of the various Leave campaigns, not to mention a few alleged infringements by Remain supporters.) It was Mrs May's predecessor, a man about whom dispute rages as to whether he was the worst prime minister ever or merely the worst since Anthony Eden, who virtually confessed that he had no policy of his own other than to be re-elected, that man Cameron who pledged to abide by the result of a vote in which those who had the most to lose were not allowed to take part.
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Now we have judicial confirmation that if the referendum had been binding, its result would have been set aside because of the scale of its illegality: https://www.facebook.com/notes/manchester-for-europe/the-mandated-advisory-referendum-that-doesnt-matter-anyway/2274552749475270/
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