You are reading a single comment by @villa-ru and its replies.
Click here to read the full conversation.
-
Ah - I see what you mean. But your not talking about the referendum itself, more the feelings it unleashed. The ref can be undone by revoking art 50, or losing a 2nd ref and that will officially put it away (for a while), but the division and distrust will linger for a generation, I agree. IMO remaining is the quicker way for things to heal though.
villa-ru
No, I really don't think it does. Sure, the referendum was advisory, but that has not stopped it from being used as a powerful political football with which to sow divisions, with due apologies for mixing metaphors. I'm well aware that one can stand on the legal situation, but as you can see in perceptions of the Supreme Court judgement mentioned above, that fails to convince many people. What is needed is indeed a second referendum that either confirms or denies the previous referendum outcome, whatever the legal status of such a referendum might be. Even were a new referendum to deny the previous outcome, there would still be serious and meaningful work needed to address the perceptions of many that 'Europe' is the cause of much misery to many. I personally don't care too much about instinctive anti-Europeans, but rather about people who voted for 'Leave' out of a sense of grievance or believing false information that was spread.