Find the time to respect the referendum

For the referendum vote on 10 October was the start of the process, not its end.

Just as it has become all too clear that the Brexit vote a long two years ago generated momentum but not clear direction, the island’s first referendum result cannot be left to its own devices.

For it to have any chance of success it needs deputies who believe in the cause to guide it to its destination.

After all, they were the ones who dismissed the concerns about the practical difficulties of island-wide voting and convinced voters that it would all be fine.

But instead of stepping up to the plate, as Deputy Peter Roffey asked of them, they have gone all coy.

The retreat has been swift and shameful.

Excuses flooded in. Too busy, conflicted, washing my hair.

For years this issue has been pushed as of crucial importance to the island’s very democracy. Without island-wide voting, electors would turn their back on the ballot box feeling disenfranchised, we were told.

That sounds pretty important.

Yet now that the hot potato has been tossed into the air nobody – with the honourable exception of Neil Inder – wants to catch it.

The danger is that the grand experiment will fail, the general election will be as difficult and unsatisfying as opponents of island-wide voting said it would be. Yet extricating the island from the referendum result will be nigh on impossible.

At that point – again, just as we are seeing with Brexit – the campaigners will return to the surface and be all too willing to criticise those who could be bothered to try to sweep up their mess.

The idea was fine, they will say. It was how it was implemented that was wrong.

That will be a failure of political leadership on a grand scale. It will anger and dismay all the 14,379 people who voted in the referendum, not just those who chose Option A.

Pro-IWV deputies have a duty to stand up and be counted. If need be, resign from another committee to clear some time.