A Boycott Is the Underpriced Risk of a Second Brexit Vote

Brexit-supporters could just decide to abstain from voting in a second referendum. What then? 

A boycott could spoil the fun. 

Photographer: Luke MacGregor/Bloomberg
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Now that parliament has taken control of the timetable in order to hold indicative votes on various Brexit paths, one option MPs will be asked to reconsider is a second referendum. Talk of a new vote, with a Remain option on the ballot, has grown again following Saturday’s mass-scale protest march. But lost amid all the chatter about another vote is the tangible danger to British democracy lurking in such a plan.

The risk is that any attempt at what proponents call a people’s vote would likely be met with a people’s boycott. Regardless of the referendum’s final tally, an organized boycott would mean all of Britain loses.