In signing this petition (and I would urge you all to follow suit) https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/235138

I came across this extraordinary response, date 30 January and purporting to come from HM Government, though the fact that almost all the arguments it contains have been heard repeatedly before that date in the mouths of Jacob Rees-Mogg and his acolytes in the ERG* suggests that it actually originates from them.

It is, as one would expect of anything from that source, of doubtful veracity. I print it below with my interpolations and numbered links to fuller refutations of the arguments advanced made in earlier articles here:

( – but first let me declare my credentials as one of the Remainer Elite**, in contrast to multi-millionaire man-of-the-people Jake Mogg, educated at Eton and Oxford, investment banker and hedge-fund manager; I – an impecunious writer – was born in a council house in Clydebank and went to Lawside Academy Dundee, a state school, though I had the temerity to attend Edinburgh University)

‘The Government remains clear that we will respect the result of the 2016 referendum, and we therefore will not hold a second referendum.

A non-sequitur – where is the logical link between respecting the result of the 2016 referendum (which, arguably, they have not done anyway 1, 2 & 3 4) and not holding a second one?

The Government is clear that we will not have a second referendum; it’s mandate is to implement the result of the previous referendum.

It would help if the writers were literate: ‘it’s’ should be ‘its’; how can the 2016 referendum be the previous one if we’ve not had one since? Really, this does not inspire confidence.

The 2016 referendum delivered a very clear instruction to Government – to withdraw from the European Union.

This is certainly arguable. The only clarity that the 2016 referendum delivered was that (a) the country was divided and (b) only a minority actually wished to leave the EU (5)

Since then, this Government has remained committed to honouring that instruction, given to us through 17.4 million votes to leave the European Union – the highest number of votes cast for anything in UK electoral history.

As stated above, 17.4 million is a minority of the electorate (about 38%) and is only 26% of the population of 65.5 million, all of whom will be affected by leaving the EU for a great deal longer than the 5 years it takes to change the government by a general election.
The claim that this is the highest number of votes cast for anything in UK history is, depending on what is meant by it, either false or insignificant: it is certainly misleading. (6 ) and (7) 17.4 million in round terms is the same number of votes cast in favour of staying in the EEC, one of only three occasions in history that the nation has voted on a single issue. The fact that the 2016 figure is 0.18% larger than the 1975 vote is considerably outweighed by the fact that the electorate then was smaller, so that 43.35% of the electorate voted to remain in the EEC as against 37.4 voting to leave in 2016.

That result was reinforced not only by Parliament’s passing of the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill with clear and convincing majorities;

again, a non-sequitur : the action of parliament subsequent to a vote cannot (retrospectively) reinforce the result of that vote. And the fact that parliament voted on weak grounds (given the actual result of the referendum noted above) is proof only of their poor judgement and lack of courage.

but also in the 2017 General Election, where over 80% of people also voted for parties committed to respecting the result of the referendum. In fact, both major parties stood for election on a stated policy to respect the decision of the people.

This is disingenuous at best, dishonest at worst. In every single General election in the past 100 years the great majority of votes have been cast for either Conservative or Labour; in 1918, it was 59%, the lowest combined total; in the 21 elections since 1931 – the first year in which the combined total exceeded 80% – the total voting either Labour or Conservative has exceeded 80% on 11 occasions (on three occasions it passed 90%).
It is true that last year was the first time since 1979 that the total had exceeded 80%, owing to the emergence of the SDP/Lib Dems as a significant third force from 1983 onwards, but all the same there is nothing particularly surprising or noteworthy about the fact that the majority of voters voted the same way they have for the last hundred years; to adduce that the percentage in the 2017 vote was primarily because the two main parties said they would stand by the referendum does not stand up to scrutiny, since it is a fact that both parties are divided on the issue, and a vote for one or the other cannot be construed as a vote to leave the EU (a point made by Sir John Major, who opposes Brexit but voted Conservative) (8).

The Government is clear that it is now its duty to implement the will expressed by voters in the referendum – respecting both the will of the British people, and the democratic process which delivered the referendum result.

As pointed out above, the British People amount to some 65.5 million people, of whom 46.5 million were entitled to vote in the 2015 referendum. 17.4 million is a large minority of the electorate and cannot be equated with the British People nor supposed to express their will. The referendum result as a whole expressed the will of the electorate, which – as stated above – was that they did not speak with a single voice on the matter and that only a minority of them wished to leave the EU.

The British people must be able to trust in its Government both to effect their will, and to deliver the best outcome for them.

This is a pious hope, not a logical argument. Nor does it address the reality we are confronted with now, where the government has misinterpreted the will of the people and is committed to an outcome which, if consonant with that misinterpretation – i.e. leaving the EU – will not be the best outcome and could well be the worst, if we leave with no deal in place.

As the Prime Minister has said: “This is about more than the decision to leave the EU; it is about whether the public can trust their politicians to put in place the decision they took.”

It is astonishingly arrogant of the Prime Minister to suppose that trust in her government rates higher than leaving the EU. We can rid ourselves of an untrustworthy government at the next election, which at latest will be in 2022 and probably sooner, but we will live with the effects of leaving the EU for a generation.

The Government therefore remains committed to delivering on the instruction and the mandate given to us by the British people – to withdraw from the European Union.

Again, this is a non sequitur – ‘therefore’ has no force here. And as has been pointed out many times already, no such instruction has been given ‘by the British people’. Only 17.4 million have expressed a desire to leave: what of the remaining 48.1 million who will also be affected, almost certainly to their detriment in the immediate, short, middle and probably long term? In any case, how can a desire to respect the will of the British people expressly preclude asking them what they would like to do now that the shape of Brexit has become clear? (9)

We continue to work to reach consensus on the deal we have negotiated, to enable a smooth and orderly exit,

Yet ‘the deal we have negotiated’ has already been rejected by an unprecedentedly huge majority in parliament. (10)

and deliver an outcome which betters the lives of British people – whether they voted to Leave or to Remain.

It does not look, by any credible forecast, as if leaving the EU will leave us better off than remaining in it; on the contrary, it looks likely to make things worse for most of the British people.

Department for Exiting the European Union’

As dictated by the ERG, I would suggest

*European Research Group, a pro-Brexit alliance of MPs – is it just my fancy, or does the initial resemblance to David Stirling’s LRDG – Long Range Desert Group, the forerunner of the SAS – suggest that the Haunted Pencil (as Mogg is known) sees himself as something of a latter-day Phantom Major?

**a curiously large elite, comprising many tens of millions. How many? why not find out by having a second referendum? My own guess would be between 25 and 30 million, but I’m happy to be proved wrong.