Pro-Brexiteer campaigners stage a rally outside Downing Street. Photo: PA

There are few surviving phrases in the English language with the bombast and pestiferous capacity of “a people’s vote”. While the term is merely a populist synonym for a referendum, the charged egalitarian language behind “a people’s vote” can tempt and entice the politically disenchanted into action. It bestows on the average citizen the tools of revolt; replacing pitchforks and flaming torches with pencils and a streamlined, simplified proposition.

Herein lies the problem. Whatever the individual’s reasoning and rationale behind their vote, whether well-founded or not, every answer is equally weighted and reduced to the same state of ambiguity, the mark of a cross indicating a mere “yes” or “no.” As the Brexit referendum has demonstrated, a one-word answer will always remain somewhat detached from the rationale behind each vote. It is now the burden of the current government to deduce the popular motives and logical grounds from the obscure result.

As a result, a political battle has ensued in the United Kingdom about the meaning of a “real Brexit.” In the mind of Theresa May and her negotiators, the cornerstone of Brexit is the immigration issue. Despite what some may claim, it is not wholly unreasonable for them to have arrived at this conclusion. After all, the Brexit referendum would most likely never have occurred had it not been for the anti-immigration sentiment spurred on b…

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