[Winniesboy]

The actions by many in the British government are treason - because they overtly thwarting the will of the people that was settled in a democratic referendum. The Brexit vote could not have been more democratic - it was the definition of sheer democracy.

In what way is the people's will being thwarted? The referendum settled the people's will, by a small majority, on one question only: "Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?". The only options on the ballot paper were

Remain a member of the European Union

or

Leave the European Union

That was a reductionist question and a reductionist answer. Referendums are necessarily reductionist, which is their weakness as well as their strength. The referendum did not - could not - give the people an opportunity to express any wish about the form and process of that departure. As became apparent immediately afterwards and ever since, there are a myriad interpretations, and there was a similarly large range of beliefs about what had been voted for among individual voters. Despite the efforts of some to claim otherwise, there was no vote for a 'hard Brexit' or a 'soft Brexit' or any other kind of Brexit: the only vote was for the proposition that the United Kingdom should leave the European Union. Nothing has been done which thwarts the will expressed in that vote. Article 50 has been invoked, and nothing done by the UK Government has altered the determination to leave the European Union in March 2019.

You say that the vote was 'the definition of sheer democracy'. Referendums are a device of direct democracy, and invoking them in a constitutional system based on representative democracy is inevitably messy - one reason why we have so few of them. The most successful referendums are those in which the electorate is invited to vote on a proposition which has been worked out in great detail, which is laid before them in all that detail, and to which they are invited either to assent or not. An example is the pan-Ireland referendum on the Good Friday Agreement. Unfortunately this referendum laid before the electorate a proposition which might have appeared simple but which was in fact ill-defined and vague. The current mess is a more or less inevitable result: but there has been (at least as yet) no treason and no thwarting of the people's will.

[mewzilla]

Isn’t the UK required to leave now, anyway? And by a drop dead date?

[SkyPilot]

A sober and and detailed analysis. Thank you for posting that. My only disagreement is that the so-called “hard” and “soft” Brexit paths are manufactured outcomes that were not part of the referendum. As I recall, the wording on the ballot simply asked whether the UK should remain a member of the EU or leave the EU. The anti-Brexit crowd lost. The referendum was (as are all referendums) are pure demonstrations of whether a majority of the public hold a certain view, or not. The sitting government must implement the election results. Otherwise, democratic legitimacy is compromised to the point that the government has gone rogue. Has the current government crossed the Rubicon? No, but if the results are delayed or thwarted, it will. We say that justice delayed is justice denied. The same holds true here.

But I thank you again for what you said. You made me think in much more specific and defined terms regarding this issue.