Interviewing Boris Johnson last night on my show, I ended up feeling a bit sorry for Jo Swinson, leader of the Liberal Democrats. Because for him the election is a proxy for another referendum.
His whole mantra is ‘get Brexit done, and move on’. Swinson’s position of ‘revoke and move on’ is a wholly rational response in the context of Johnson’s framing. But apparently what is democracy in action for Johnson is anti-democracy when the Lib Dems react.
We are truly in the ‘age of unreason’.
Some of you will be screaming that ‘we had a referendum, so the only legitimate way to cancel it is to hold another one’. Except under our unwritten constitution referendums have no legal force, and are certainly inferior in their democratic weight to general elections.
But I don’t want to have a fight with you about any of this.
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