OVER the last few weeks the emerging trend among political commentators is best summed up as an emergence of Brexit denial.

Social media commentators posting “it will never happen”, “they are looking for a way out,” “it will be pushed into the long grass, “ you can understand. After all, promised investigations into Tory election fraud, Hillary Clinton’s emails, Westminster child abuse etc all melted away and even Chilcot became a two- million-page-plus exercise in obfuscation.

Then, the liberal left-wing press joined in, stating – again without evidence – that the UK population now collectively realises they made a terrible error and that there was now a feeling of Bregret.

Legal experts were rolled out to explain the referendum was only “advisory and not legally binding” and politicians grasping at straws pointed out Ireland’s referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon had been re-run (an apples and oranges comparison if ever there was one).

A petition calling for a debate in Parliament on ignoring the referendum result quickly collected 4.1 million signatures and London law firm Mischon de Reya, acting for 50 business and academic clients, launched a lawsuit aimed at forcing the UK Government to have a parliamentary vote prior to enacting Article 50. Presumably they believe the pro-EU majority of MPs and Lords will fail to support leaving the EU.

Baroness Patience Wheatcroft (an unelected Tory peer) has even suggested if Article 50 goes before Parliament, the Lords could delay its implementation almost indefinitely by continually sending the legislation back to the Commons.

To say that the unelected House of Lords obstructing a democratic referendum result that was partially motivated by the perception that the EU wasn’t democratic enough would go down badly with 17.4 million Brexit voters would be the understatement of the century.

Don’t get me wrong: I genuinely fear the economic and social implications of a Brexit for Scotland. But, I fear the fallout from attempts to ignore the Brexit vote on a UK-wide basis could bring the worst of all worlds. Scotland should be allowed to negotiate to stay as a special deal and to investigate independent EU membership – that’s respecting democracy – but blocking the UK Brexit en masse would be an assault on democracy with potentially terrible consequences.

Five reasons why Brexit means Brexit:

1 Politically, there is no wiggle room. David Cameron absolutely ruled out ignoring the result and as he wasn’t willing to see Article 50 through, he resigned, Theresa May categorically stated that “Brexit means Brexit” and was elected by her MPs’ and party faithful on that premise.

May has also promoted many hardline right-wing Brexiters to influential positions: David Davies, Liam Fox and Boris Johnson, the very people who wanted Brexit, are the ones tasked with delivering it and then redefining the UK’s global trading relationships. If May were to backtrack at all she would face a leadership challenge and her party would split in a way that would make Labour look like the very picture of unity.

2 UKip have achieved their key goal and many wonder what the point of Ukip is post-Brexit. Any attempt to back out of Brexit however and that question would be answered load and clear. Just as the SNP brought the 45 per cent Yes vote into the fold, Ukip with the right leadership, would be able to get a large chunk of the 52 per cent. The current Tory majority was based on 36.9 per cent of the vote – after they managed to get Ukip supporters to vote Tory with the promise of a referendum. Ukip in the next GE would wipe out the hopelessly divided Labour Party throughout the North of England and Midlands. With maybe a dozen Tory MP’s switching, the pro-Article 50 Ukip would be in government either as a minority, but possibly a majority. The well documented (mainly English-based) increase in racism, anti-immigration and even racist crime would intensify.

3 The EU have experienced the pain of the Brexit vote once and they don’t want to go through it again. They know Ukip would fight the next General Election with a promise to enact Article 50. The EU would be fools to agree to potentially go through this all again and allow years and years of doubt on the future of the UK’s relationship with the EU and even by association years of doubt about the EU’s survival, which would under those circumstances become a self-fulfilling prophesy.

4 European attitudes are hardening towards the UK. If you vote to leave a political union (such as the UK), you can still trade, share a currency, rules and regulations etc through a trading union. But if you leave a trading union, then that trade is put at risk and needs to be renegotiated. Currently in the Council of Ministers, the UK, Germany and France between them can form a blocking majority and when the other two don’t agree, the UK is hugely influential. However, with the UK out, France and Germany can form a majority on their own. That’s a significant power switch and a YouGov Poll this week found French and German voters are overwhelmingly against the EU offering a generous Brexit deal. Excluding the Don’t Knows, 61.5 per cent of German and 64 per cent of French people don’t want the UK to experience a soft Brexit, and around 25 per centin both countries don’t want the EU to offer a free trade deal at all to the the UK. The humongous well of goodwill required to allow the UK to back out of the Brexit just doesn’t exist.

5 European nations are now smelling an economic opportunity. Sure they need to trade with the UK, but all trade deals the EU does are about protecting EU nations’ interests, not free trade. Germany and France in particular could see a major boom in their finance sectors simply by omitting financial passporting from any trade deal and humbling the city of London.

Oh and by “generous trade deal”, make no mistake: EU voters think that means one that includes freedom of movement, implementing EU regulations and a Norway level of trade levies (costing almost as much as membership) but with no grants and no representation. That would be better than a complete and hard Brexit for the UK economy, although still worse than membership, but it would be an act of absolute economic vandalism on Scotland given our increased reliance on exports and the fact that with 8.4 per cent of the UK population, we pocket 17.4 per cent of EU grants to the UK. The UK with some form of trade deal with the EU and Scotland knowing with certainty that independence would maintain our EU membership, (meaning our trade with the EU and rUK would be unaffected by the rUK’s Brexit)is the only good economic outcome available to Scotland.