No, I will not give way to the hon. Lady. Russia is that excuse today. Perhaps the reality is that voters might not agree with the established liberal
consensus on Brexit. Perhaps voters in Britain, America, Poland, Hungary and elsewhere have legitimate concerns that they feel are not being addressed. Those concerns must be addressed, and we in this House must be the ones to address them. Such was the wisdom shown by Disraeli and others in expanding the electorate. Such is the British constitution that it adapts, evolves and bends instead of breaking.
The fact is that the referendum was a free and fair vote of the British people. If there was foreign interference, it was so ineffective that I doubt it made any difference at all to the final result. It was not the work of foreigners somewhere distant, plugging away at computers and unleashing Twitterbots. Authority comes from above but power comes from below, and it came from the people in our referendum. If we do not accommodate the legitimate concerns of ordinary people, we undermine the very foundations of our parliamentary democracy. We might find ourselves being replaced and irrelevant, as Mr Gorbachev did on 26 December 1991.
1.16 pm