It was perfectly clear, and repeatedly stated that this referendum was advisory. I don't think it would be constitutionally possible in fact to have a binding referendum.

And the only question asked on it was, should we leave the EU. Absolutely nothing about ending free movement or immigration. Even if it is treated as a done number that we should leave the EU, it would be perfectly possible to reach an arrangement in which current free movement was retained. That would in no way be out of line of the vote to leave the EU. That's what I'd like to see happen, and I'm pretty sure that if we had a referendum offering the chouce of EU exit with an end to free movement on the one. hand and EU exit with existing arrangements retained on the other, the latter would get more votes.

It is no more undemocratic to ask for a second referendum after a relatively close result than it would be to call for a papid fresh general election in similar circumstances. The flaw in logic of those who sneer about "neverendums" is that, in a sense, the system of democracy under which we live is based on a series of neverendums, but we call them General Elections.

It is absolutely selfevident that, if the vote in June had gone the other way, advocates of Brexit would have continued to fight for what they beieved in, and pushed as hard as they could for another referendum. They would have been perfectly entitled to do so, and it would have been absurd to suggest that that was an antidemocratic demand.