Lord Norton of Louth has published an interesting post on how we arrived at the position of having a referendum. He traces the history back to that day back in October 2011 when I released the referendum genie out of the bottle. I argued we should let the people have their say. By the way, lots of people say there was no demand for having a referendum. I would respond by saying three things:

1. All the polling evidence at the time was that an overwhelming majority (70/80%)of people agreed they should be given a say on our membership of the EU .
2. The actual turnout in the referendum was higher than any recent general election.
3. The holding of an In/Out referendum was carrying out one of the clear commitments in the Conservative Party manifesto.

Lord Norton’s article can be read here:

https://nortonview.wordpress.com/2016/06/24/why-was-there-a-referendum/