Chelsea pensioners at a polling booth. Daniel Leal-Olivas/PA Wire/Press Association Images. All rights reserved.This referendum showed a profound disrespect for democracy.
I'm not just talking about the petty reason David Cameron promised it in the first place. We know he promised this vote with the aim of persuading a few UKIP supporters to vote Conservative in the general election. And when he called the referendum after his improbable election win, he hoped it would resolve the split over the EU within his party. The EU wasn't even in most voters' top five concerns. Initiating a referendum with such fundamental, far-reaching and uncertain consequences was stunningly irresponsible, and it's a stain on Cameron's character. His casual partisanship showed plenty of disrespect for our democracy, but this is already well recognised.
And I'm not just talking about the debate itself over the last few months. This has been the cause of much anguish, but it was entirely predictable, and has been the focus of most of the recrimination. Plenty of the key players, especially Johnson, Gove, Farage, and the tabloid press, have showed disdain for the voters. A mere four hours after it became clear Brexit had won, Daniel Hannan clarified that the Leave campaign never promised to actually reduce immigration. The glibness with which they deny having ever promised what their voters firmly believed they were voting for shows an unbelievable disrespect for those citizens.
