Brexit means Brexit: the problem of the people’s will

Overheard in the men’s loo outside the cabinet room.

Business minister Why does the PM keep insisting that there will be no backsliding? I thought she was for remain.

Brexit minister It’s because she believes in democracy. The people have spoken.

Business minister Why can’t they speak again?

Brexit minister We can’t challenge the result of a vote just because we don’t like it. That’s obviously undemocratic.

Business minister Why is it undemocratic to give the public a chance to change their minds? That’s what happens every time we have an election. Every five years, in fact.

Brexit minister We don’t hold elections on constitutional issues. That’s not the British tradition. Once we’re in power we say: “We have a mandate,” and we just go ahead and change the constitution if we feel like it. Like Blair did. Lords reform. Or devolution. But this was a referendum on a specific issue. This is different. We have to stick to it.

Business minister We said it wasn’t binding. Only advisory.

Brexit minister We said that when we thought we would lose. Now we’ve won, it’s binding.

Business minister A referendum isn’t even in our constitution. Parliament is supposed to be sovereign. I thought that’s why we wanted to leave Europe. So we don’t lose our sovereignty.

Brexit minister Right. We’re getting our sovereignty back. So, we can’t have an election about it later, the people might change their minds. Then where would we be? Chaos.

Business minister There’s no chaos now?

Brexit minister If we lost a second referendum and stayed in the EU, we would lose our sovereignty all over again.

Business minister How could we lose our sovereignty if our sovereignty depends on a sovereign parliament and the sovereign parliament votes to remain?

Brexit minister You’re confusing things.

Business minister That’s what we’ve always called democracy. Till now.

Brexit minister That’s a different kind of democracy. That’s a parliamentary democracy. We’ve moved on from that. We’re cutting out the middle man. Now, it’s just the people and us.

Business minister We should be asking parliament if we can trigger article 50.

Brexit minister We can’t put triggering article 50 to parliament because parliament might refuse until they know the terms we’ve negotiated. And the lawyers say that triggering article 50 is the royal prerogative, nothing to do with parliament.

Business minister That sounds really democratic.

Brexit minister I just don’t understand your problem.

Business minister My problem is that I don’t think the people understood what they were voting for.

Brexit minister I agree – we handled that really well, don’t you think?

Jonathan Lynn is the co-creator of Yes Minister. @mrjonathanlynn