Continuity Remainers have been attempting to make the case that we should overturn the results of the European elections in 2014, the General Election in 2015, the European Union referendum in 2016, and the General Election in 2017.
Such a case must inevitably be predicated upon two notions:
1. That public opinion has since shifted so fundamentally that the repeatedly-expressed will of the people should be delayed until a new question can be asked, and
2. That the original referendum outcome was somehow tainted.
These cases have both been dealt a huge blow.
The first is difficult to argue, when a ComRes poll on the front page of the Sunday Telegraph shows a 14% lead not just for Brexit, but for a No-Deal Brexit, in the event that the EU refuses to make further concessions. (Of course, a 44-30 lead is even wider than 14% when the Don't Knows are excluded!)
You can't argue that the entire process should be delayed for many months, and kicked into the long grass, with the intention of re-fighting a referendum when polling is hardly clearly in your favour.
The second has already struggled because of Remain having outspent Leave by 3:2 during the referendum campaign, and because Remain got a free £9-10 million propaganda campaign in addition to that.
The argument that Leave broke the rules is still being tussled over in court. Remain campaigners have also been fined for breaches of the rules. The Court of Appeal ruled (Wilson & Ors, R v The Prime Minister [2019]) this week that "there is no evidence that gives rise to any soundly based ground for believing the outcome of the referendum result would have been different if the breaches of the rules had not occurred", and that "It would be inconceivable for the common law to adopt a principle that requires or even enables a court of law to interfere with the democratic process where any breach of the voting rules is proved but not such as to affect the result".
In possession of these facts, the moral and intellectual case for a re-run referendum is dead in the water.
And yet, the argument will go on. Because still, almost 2 years and 9 months after the referendum, some senior politicians still refuse to accept the result.
It's like someone grabbing you around the waist and refusing to let go, then deriding you for not being able to run fast enough whilst they're holding you back.
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