"There we have it. Steve Shaw's basic premise is that the electorate is "ignorant" (himself included?). And so the decisions should have been taken by our elected representatives. Does he realise that those representatives were elected by the same people he considers "ignorant"? Hardly an argument for good governance!"

I take it that you do know the difference between electing members of parliament every four or five years, a throughly reversible, broad-brush process should the electorate lean that way, and an irreversible referendum whose apparently simple question was underlain by highly technical, logistical and legal problems that the country knew very little about? What proportion of the electorate could have explained the first thing about the customs union, the single market and the upcoming Irish border issue by June 23 2016? Well I don't know the precise answer to that any more than you do, but I can assure you that millions on both sides blithely put yes or no on their ballot papers without having the slightest inkling of the implications of their decision for those matters. You may want to read all sorts into my use of the word ignorant, but the really scary thing is that it has become abundantly clear over the last two years that it is exactly the right word. It certainly applies to a good few people involved in this discussion, and you are clearly one of them, I'm afraid, going from the simplistic and falsely hopeful nonsense you post.