The quickest way to undermine parliamentary democracy is to wrestle away from its remit the most crucial issue in front of it since WW2 and put it into the hands of over forty million unelected individuals whose credentials are entirely unchecked and which in most cases wouldn't bear close examination (next time you're down the pub, ask a random handful of people what a customs union is). You can then compound this error by staging a six-month campaign of lies before putting it to a ballot giving a binary choice expressed in crudely simplistic terms.

And I've said it before and I'll say it again: the decisions in Parliament to hold the referendum and enact Article 50 were made by a body of MPs which overwhelmingly supports staying in the EU. They voted the way they did because they were put in the position of a turkey being forced to choose one of two kinds of Christmas: allow the UK to make the disastrous exit from the EU but keep your job, or oppose the referendum/Article 50 in the interests of the country and lose your job. So, with few exceptions, they decided to do politics in the face of a populist surge kicked off by Cameron instead of putting the interests of the country first. And, if it ever comes to a vote on whether to revoke Article 50, which everyone with more than one brain cell knows is the only sane solution to this, they'll do the same again. It has nothing to do with "respecting the will of the people" or "refusing to betray democracy" and everything to do with keeping their jobs. And that is the ultimate disrespect for the people of this country.