1/ Lord Sumption giving the Reith Lectures addressing the Brexiters' claim that Brexit is the will of the people - "This is the authentic language of totalitarianism. It is the lowest point to which a political community can sink short of actual violence."
2/ This is not about percentages. It doesn't matter what percentage voted for Brexit. It is about a referendum being used to attack the fundamental democratic right to oppose, and to promote the totalitarian idea of the people and its enemies, the subversives and saboteurs.
3/ In the period following the referendum the so-called "Will of the People" was used to create a climate of intimidation that silenced almost all political & media opponents. During that period Britain was not functioning as a democracy, and we are still living with its effects.
4/ In the post-referendum period we didn't have tanks and torturers, but political and media opposition was silenced just as effectively. The core democratic right to oppose Brexit was suppressed. What had happened had the coercive effects of a coup.
5/ In a democracy we have government and opposition, majority and minority, competing parties and voices. We do not have the totalitarian unity of the "Will of the People" which makes all opponents into the enemies of the people. Where the right to oppose ends, democracy dies.
