Beware efforts to ‘get round’ the referendum result
THERE are few more insightful columnists than William Hague. No wonder: having been leader of the opposition and foreign secretary he has been there, done that and can offer wisdom from experience. He has always been clear, even as a Remainer, that the Brexit referendum result has to be respected. Which is why his words yesterday are especially interesting.
Discussing the immediate aftermath of the vote last year he wrote: “Everywhere I went abroad, business leaders and politicians asked me how we would get round the result and whether we would lose heart about leaving when it got difficult.”
This is revealing because it shows the mindset of an EU elite which cannot accept the idea that anyone might leave the EU. Worse, as we have seen repeatedly since the Maastricht Treaty turned the European Economic Community into the European Union, they simply assume that no member state’s governing class will allow it to happen.
However it could also be viewed as a case of Lord Hague stating the obvious because history offers so many examples of the EU getting round the results of democratic votes. If voters reject Brussels then voters are wrong.
That view was expressed unambiguously by the then president of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, who said in 2005: “They must go on voting until they get it right.”
LO and behold that is exactly what happened in other referendums. In 1992 the Danes said no to the Maastricht Treaty. Their vote was ignored and the treaty went ahead. In 2001 the Irish voted against the Nice Treaty. That was cast aside. In 2008 the Irish voted against the Lisbon Treaty. Again it was cast aside.
This contempt for democracy is so deeply ingrained in the EU’s DNA and the mindset of its champions that they cannot even see it. They regard themselves and their project as morally superior to those who question them, so by definition their opponents are not merely wrong but dangerous and it is their moral duty to overcome them. It’s one thing expecting