1/ After a Nazi referendum victory Goebbels said that "the will of the people is the will of the government and vice versa". He said this to delegitimise the core democratic right to oppose. The Brexiters used the "Will of the People" in exactly the same way.

2/ Aspiring populist dictators love referendums because they give them the chance to demonise opponents as "enemies of the democratic will of the people". Thatcher was entirely right when she echoed Attlee in saying that "the referendum was a device of dictators and demagogues".

3/ In a healthy democracy there are the majority and minority, there are arguments and compromises, there is government and opposition. There is no place for the totalitarian unity of the "Will of the People".

4/ When the "Will of the People" is invoked opponents become "enemies of the people", they are no longer part of the people, they are the "chattering classes" and "liberal metropolitan elite" – alien bodies infecting the otherwise healthy body politic.

5/ Because the opponents are "enemies of the people" and no longer belong to the people, they need no longer be accorded the rights and respect proper to the people. If lies and cheating are needed to defeat them, then so be it. That is how you treat enemies.