It would be easy to dismiss the Independent Commission on Referendums as a branch of the lobby trying to overturn the Brexit result – even if it does contain a token Leave campaigner, Gisela Stuart. Its pretentious title could easily lead people to mistake it for an official, government-sanctioned inquiry rather than a unsolicited piece of work by academics at the Constitution Unit, UCL. It is utterly certain that the commission would not have been set up had the Remain side won the day two years ago.
Yet even so, the commission is right when it concludes that referendums “work best when they are held at the end of a decision-making process to choose between developed alternatives.” Whether you are for Brexit or Remain it would be impossible to argue that the process for enacting the decision made by the British people in June 2016 is going well.
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