Harry Mount: No going back on Brexit - the biggest British vote in history for anything

Despondent: Some Remain campaigners have refused to accept the referendum result

REUTERS

27 June 2016

It’s not fair! Not in my name! The referendum has triggered a mass outbreak of bad losers who won’t accept the result. Some 3.5 million people have signed a petition demanding a second EU referendum — the most popular ever on the Parliament website. Another petition wants an independent London in the EU.

Whatever happened to that annoying little thing called democracy? On a 72 per cent turnout, 17,410,742 people voted Leave — the biggest vote in British history for anything.

In 1992, John Major was re-elected with the largest ever total — 14 million votes and 42 per cent of the vote — compared with Brexit’s 52 per cent. In 1997, Tony Blair won 13.5 million votes and 43 per cent of the vote.

You didn’t hear the usual suspects say, “Not in my name,” then — because they thought the right man won.

The bad losers can’t believe the rest of the world doesn’t agree with them. To paraphrase Bertolt Brecht, they not only want the Government to dissolve the people, they want them to elect another people who think like they do.

In general elections, when people feel they’ve been cheated of their anointed candidate, they take their anger out on the Prime Minister. This time, the Prime Minister was on their side. So they attack the poor voters and Boris Johnson — even though the Stop Boris faction will find it tricky stopping someone who’s pulled off the biggest political upset of the age.

Witness the astonishment of Polly Toynbee — how dare the Labour working class desert her? Because the poor fools didn’t know what they were doing, of course. “Buyers’ remorse will set in,” she said, massaging her crystal ball. “With 48 per cent voting against this national self-harm, it only takes a few leavers to change their minds.”

Actually, it takes 600,000 leavers —four times the Guardian’s circulation — to switch sides to reverse the referendum. What a novel form of democracy: vote and vote again until you get the result your betters approve of.

And what about the 52 per cent who voted for Brexit? Don’t they get a say? Not if they’re working-class thickos — or disgustingly old.

On Newsnight, the writer Paris Lees declared that misguided, working-class voters in Burnley had been lied to by the Leave campaign. She demanded a second referendum and called old Brexiteers selfish because they won’t be around as long as the young.

Giles Coren also attacked “wrinkly bastards” who had “reached out with their wizened old writing hands to make their wobbly crosses and screwed their children and their children’s children”.

I was a hesitant Brexiteer, and I appreciated the Remain arguments. I’d have respected a Remain result — and wouldn’t have demanded another referendum, or disenfranchised young, middle-class Remain voters for disagreeing with me.

To the bad losers, all disagreement is opposition. In their narcissistic bubble they can’t grasp that it was precisely this mother-knows-best attitude that drove many voters towards Brexit.

The bloody-minded British hate being told what to do by anyone, particularly by anyone unelected, whether it’s Paris Lees, Polly Toynbee or the European Commission.

In democracies, the people can’t be told how to vote — or told to try again if they produce the wrong result. It isn’t a difficult concept to handle, whatever age or class you are.

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Harry Mount: No going back on Brexit - the biggest British vote in history for anything

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