The increasing focus on Facebook – the subject of hearings this week before an international committee of inquiry in London – is beginning to overshadow the debate on Brexit. Substantial funds were spent on pro-Brexit advertising through the Facebook platform prior to the 2016 referendum, some of which was alleged to be unlawful and some of which may have been financed from or by Russia.

To a degree this is water under the bridge, because the government has now negotiated a withdrawal agreement which must stand or fall on its merits, regardless of how it arose. But one way of guaranteeing for certain that the decision to leave the EU is genuinely “the will of the people” is to ask the electorate to confirm its 2016 decision by another referendum, and to do so with far more care taken to avoid unlawful manipulation.