Ian McEwan looks back at Brexit

The take in this op-ed in The Guardian by Ian McEwan sounds entirely right to me.

Here are the opening paragraphs:

It’s done. A triumph of dogged negotiation by May then, briefly, Johnson, has fulfilled the most pointless, masochistic ambition ever dreamed of in the history of these islands. The rest of the world, presidents Putin and Trump excepted, have watched on in astonishment and dismay. A majority voted in December for parties which supported a second referendum. But those parties failed lamentably to make common cause. We must pack up our tents, perhaps to the sound of church bells, and hope to begin the 15-year trudge, back towards some semblance of where we were yesterday with our multiple trade deals, security, health and scientific co-operation and a thousand other useful arrangements.

The only certainty is that we’ll be asking ourselves questions for a very long time. Set aside for a moment Vote Leave’s lies, dodgy funding, Russian involvement or the toothless Electoral Commission. Consider instead the magic dust. How did a matter of such momentous constitutional, economic and cultural consequence come to be settled by a first-past-the-post vote and not by a super-majority? A parliamentary paper (see Briefing 07212) at the time of the 2015 Referendum Act hinted at the reason: because the referendum was merely advisory. It “enables the electorate to voice an opinion”. How did “advisory” morph into “binding”? By that blinding dust thrown in our eyes from right and left by populist hands.

Yes, this last aspect makes a mockery of the stupid arguments put by conservative and libertarian Right alike (and, for reasons I could never follow, also endorsed here in comments by Homer!) that not going ahead with Brexit after the referendum would be some sort of heinous travesty of democracy.   

While I am attacking my readers, I should add that I don't think I have ever seen Jason point to any analysis (outside of the self-serving pro Brexit campaigners, who we know were lying about numbers) to show that it would actually be a benefit in the long run for England.   I sometimes look at Helen Dales's tweets too, and read some of her commentary.  Same thing can be said about her.

So basically,  the people who would like to think of themselves as moderate Right, whether as classic liberals, or those with a stronger libertarian bent like Sinclair Davidson, simply supported it for the simplistic, ideological, belief that a multinational organisation means more "red tape", which = bad, regardless of any actual or serious analysis of the efficiencies the organisation achieves.