Must ‘the will of the people’ always be respected?

I’ve always respected Alistair Darling and cannot imagine him saying anything ill-considered. But listening to him interviewed last Monday on the Today programme I heard him offer, as though it were obvious, an assumption so much less obvious than he appeared to recognise, that it set me thinking: not about the admirable former chancellor but about a real divide among civilised people that our age is perhaps insufficiently aware of.

The presenter, Nick Robinson, had asked Mr Darling if he supported a second (or ‘people’s’) referendum on Brexit. No, said Darling: ‘You ask people what they think and clearly you’ve got to live with it.’

Seconds later, still speaking about Brexit, he said: ‘We’ve made a profound mistake.’

Something about the conjunction of those two statements electrified me. A non-binding plebiscite has recently been held on a constitutional change that, if made, is likely to prove irreversible. An individual of great standing and experience believes the change would be a profound mistake.