David Carter: and thus parliament determines the will of the people.
No, parliament can only determine the will of parliament. It could be expected to represent the will of the people, but that is not always the case.
In this particular case parliament decided to find out what the will of the people actually was, in order to be guided in what to do.
Having found what the will of the people (or at least the majority view of those both able and willing to vote) they should have taken their guidance from that.