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Mr Maloney, whilst I well understand, indeed sympathise with, the desire to see the result of the referendum as somehow legally ‘binding’, both the European Union Referendum Act 2015 and the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 (to which it refers back) are silent as to the significance of the result of the referendum. They focus on procedural matters rather than on the constitutional significance of the result. So, the referendum result is not legally binding, because there is no identifiable mechanism for making it so. On the other hand, it is evidently seen as binding in a political sense, since the generality of our politicians have made this clear by their statements and actions. Effectively, although the referendum was in nature an exercise in simply gathering the collective view of the voting population, the result is recognised by both the people and their representatives in Government/Parliament as democracy in action. The point then is that the referendum result did not need to be binding in law, even if that had been possible (not on the cards, I am afraid, as no-one, not even a previous Parliament, can constrain the actions of the Parliament of the day). Rather, the power of the referendum result lies in its hold on the minds and wills of those who have now assumed responsibility for implementing it.

Suppose, after 24 June, the Government had announced that it was not going to do anything about acting under article 50 or moving any appropriate legislation to implement the result. There would have been no legal mechanism for compelling the Government and Parliament to act. But there would have been a political firestorm founded on the stance that ignoring the referendum result would be anti-democratic. I suppose the Government could have adopted the same approach as the Irish adopted to their first referendum on the Lisbon treaty and, after a suitable interval, held a second referendum to give the people a chance to change their collective mind. A second referendum would have been just as non-binding legally, but just as binding politically as the first. However, that is not the course the Government has chosen. It is therefore now constrained (politically not legally) to pursue the article 50 + negotiations + bringing appropriate UK legislation forward approach. But in doing so we are moving into uncharted waters and will need to deal with the uncertainty that attends this for many months, or even years to come.