What is the definition of ‘the will of the people’?

justincase

Right, but to say ‘the will of the people’ implies all the people.  Or the majority of the people.  And it’s neither.  This is my point, and I think some people are missing it.
28% of people may not have voted, but you can’t assume you know what their will is.
May is making that statement about ‘the will of the people’ being to brexit and I think that is disingenuous. That’s my point.  
Also I’m one of the people and it’s not my will.

Stuart Wright

Doesn't this make the case for no trade deals...?

doug56hl

I wasn’t complaining about the result, I was complaining about Theresa May stating that the will if the people is to leave.  And I object to the implication that it is the will of all the people to leave.  It’s the inaccuracy of that statement that I have an issue with.

LV426

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EarthRod

It is equally valid (or invalid) to suggest that the result of a binary choice, such as we had, does NOT support leave.

You say "only" 37.5% of people voted Leave.
It's equally true that "only" 34.5% voted Remain.

To interpret that in any other way than a vote to Leave gives a weighting to the status quo.  Regardless of the rights and wrongs of the specific issue at hand - Brexit itself - in any binary poll, there is no justification whatsoever in weighting one half of the binary choice over another.

Or, to put it another way - maybe "we don't know" that Brexit is the will of the people.  But if we don't, then equally, we don't know that Remain is the will of the people.

Why then would you choose one over the other?  Bearing in mind that "do nothing" i.e. "Remain" is still a choice.

Stuart Wright

It all comes down to definition.

Theresa May seems to equate 'the will of the people' to mean a 'general will', in other words those who chose to use their right to contribute to a vote (every UK adult citizen had that democratic right). The result of that vote of common interest to all - Brexit referendum - was expressed.

So Theresa has used the expression 'the will of the people' to mean the result of the referendum in which all adult UK citizens had the right to vote.

Stuart Wright

Don’t disagree with you.  But that is also not my point.  The result of the referendum was obviously that we should leave.  A binary choice.  It just feels disingenuous to me to refer to the result of the binary choice as the will of the people.
In a similar way to how referring to the outcome of the American election of Trump as the will of the people would be disingenuous because, in fact, millions more voted for Clinton.  Maybe not a perfect analogy, but the my point is May’s use of language to describe the result.
Apologies if my original post didn’t make that clear enough.

Edit:  actually I didn’t use the word ‘only’.

doug56hl

Right.  And I don’t like that.

EarthRod

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Stuart Wright

Well, it is a political definition of 'the will of the people'.