If, instead of a referendum, the government had put up a suitably idiot-proof website inviting anyone who wished to give up their EU citizenship to use an online form to do so, how many of the dimwits who voted Leave on the 23rd would have taken them up on the offer?
The two answers on last week’s referendum voting slip - Leave and Remain - were surely qualitatively different from a legal perspective.
One involved the possibility of voluntarily surrendering one’s citizenship, the other involved the possibility of having it taken away AGAINST one’s will, in effect by force. (Something for which there are few precedents.)
The 'will' of the people on each side of this debate was never going to be something you could express as two portions of a pie-chart.
The Scots clearly get this, as do many ex-pats who were not even given the chance to participate in this farcical plebiscite.
The Scottish government considers that the Remain majority north of the border gives their argument particular moral force, but in fact every member of the 48% minority has it as well, and they also have a strength in numbers beyond existing geopolitical boundaries.
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