> I am not aware of any large, let alone national, democratic system that was based-on consensus. It has always been majority decision, with some variation on what constitutes a majority (e.g. simple majority, 2/3 majority, etc).

I didn't imply consensus was strictly necessary for a decision. But if you have a legally non-binding vote, isn't it's purpose to show which option has the favour of the people rather than beeing interpreted as a legally binding majority. The bigger the majority and the higher the voter turnout the more you can speak of a consensus.

If you vote on something that might change the course of a whole nation over the next decades, a small lead with no real or realistic plan should not be basis for any decision. If you had a 51.9% vs 48.1% result when asking for the color of a bikeshed you wouldn't even call it a clear result then. You probably would argue on and vote again in order to avoid social conflicts. Especially when it turns out that one side used illegal methods in the runup to the bikeshed elections and all the people who use bikes are out on a bike tour for the last weeks weren't allowed to vote.

This is a silly example, but it explains precisely the mess the UK got itself into since the 2016 referendum. The majority was in fact so thin that demographic change alone (old people dying and young people becoming old enough to vote) would have swayed it in January of 2019¹. However if I were thrown into the debate without prior knowledge I would have asumed a majority of at least 75% for Leave based on the words of the prime minister alone.

> Democratic support is notoriously fickle and claiming to represent a single coherent national will is disingenuous; but so is trying to reinterpret a vote after the fact.

The basis of any democracy is a informed vote. The Brexit referendum can easily discribed as a misinformed vote: think about Cambridge Analytica², Russian Interference with the election³, the unlawful campaigning on the Leave side⁴ and the right out lies like the 350 million pounds that UK has to pay to the EU every week – a lie by the way, that forces Boris Johnson to court right now⁵.

English is not my first language, I have no ties to the UK and don't live there. I have no skin in the game and IMO they should be able to leave the EU if they please. But as someone who cares about democratic and humanist values, I also hate to see how undemocratic the whole process was. Essentially rich guys who own the tabloid media spreading lies about the EU for decades⁶ and then as soon as the vote is done they think loud about abolishing human rights⁷.

So in the beginning everybody voted for 350 million pounds on the side of a bus, and now they claim everybody voted for No-Deal all along. Ah and the money for the NHS... well it seems like they have just forgot they ever promised that.

The problem here was that there was no real majority for anything – they said "Leave means Leave" when in fact it meant at least 3 mutually exclusive things depending on which one you asked.

Imagine a cocktail party on a yacht. For some reason all passengers decide to vote whether they want to end the whole party. The leaving side has a majority because someone claimed you can stay on the yacht and be out of the yacht at the same time. But the ones that voted to leave are split in thre major plans:

1. those who want to go on land for a smoke and occasionally go back onto the yacht

2. those who want to go to a harbor and cancel the yacht trip

3. those who want to set the yacht on fire and crash it into an iceberg after throwing out the safety wests (but secretly keeping some for themselves).

Of course you can say they all essentially want to leave the yacht, but there is no consensus between the three and no way on earth to make them all happen at once, because they are incompatible with each other. This is how I perceived the Brexit leave side: there was never any coherent plan and literally nobody voted on the same idea. That is why claiming there was a plan and claiming it was clear to everybody all along is a lie and boils down to

> trying to reinterpret a vote after the fact

If this was a clear vote, UK would have been out a while ago. But it wasn't and acting as if it was will only divide the nation further.

¹: https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/final-say-remain-leave-...

²: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Analytica#United_Kin...

³: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_20...

⁴: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unlawful_campaigning_in_the_20...

⁵: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/may/29/boris-johns...

⁶: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/02/world/europe/london-tablo...

⁷: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/theresa-may-h...