Not to be pedantic Vidcapper but in terms of UK population, the referendum was won by 1.93%, so judging by your estimate it *could* have been "right-wing Hitler lovers" that swung the referendum.

"Swinging" the referendum isn't the same as being a swing voter. If there was enough of them to fundamentally change the outcome, it doesn't matter that they were never going to vote any other way. It matters that they exist.

Ah, but the referendum was won by 3.86%, not 1.93% - so the loss of a hypothetical 2% extreme-right votes would still have Leave leading by 1.86% since they wouldn't have switch to Remain, as you yourself acknowleged.

That's if you assume that those views are only held by around 2% of the voting population.

In other EU related news, a former Daily Mail hack, James Chapman, has been trying to build up momentum for a new political party called "Democrats", which from what I can gather is a Macron-inspired centrist party which is avowedly pro-EU, which hopes to pick up support both from Remain-leaning Tories, as well as from Labour members unhappy about Corbyn's gung-ho attitude towards a hard Brexit. They're due to launch next month, and despite them not technically existing as a political party yet, they've had some "success", so to speak, with one betting firm giving them 200-1 odds of getting the most seats at the next general election (for comparison's sake, Ukip is currently as 250-1).

I will be surprised if this takes off beyond the initial momentum for several reasons. The main one being that an avowedly pro-EU party, the Lib Dems, barely made any gains in June when they ran on that platform. Secondly, the FPTP system would keep them from gaining any real seats, unless they were able to gain a few defections from current MPs (and if they did, the two that have been mentioned as possible turncoats, Heidi Allen & Anna Soubry, would go down like a lead balloon among quite a few people). And let's not forget what happened to the SDP. The other issue is that I'm not sure whether the name would get past the Electoral commission, as they may view the name "Democrats" as too generic, and possibly too similar to current UK parties, so I imagine a change of name may be in order before next month.

re: a second referendum, there would be no point having one until people know what they firmly have in the way of a concrete Ex-EU deal on the table. At that point there would be no bullshit, it would be there in black & white, warts and all (including how much it is or isnt hurting/going to hurt the economy).

A second centre-party would only split the centre vote and the pro-EU vote - they would have to have the momentum (cough) to appear instantly electable for anyone to abandon the Tory/Labour axis as they are both so extreme compared to previous recent-ish incarnations no-one would risk letting the other side in by not voting for the party likely to keep the other one out.

There's numerically more remainers than leavers in the HoC so default remain wording would be a breeze to get past. However it wouldn't happen because of May

But a vote on the deal would be rather different from a simple in/out referendum.

If the question was 'Accept/Reject the deal?', that still leaves open as what a rejection would mean - stay in, or get out without a deal?

I can't see any wording with a 'default Remain' option getting past the Leavers in the HoC.
A new centrist party along the lines suggested would be a total non-starter - the LD's already occupy that ground, and the last GE shows there's barely room for one party there, let alone two!

1. Why would there be only 2 options? Surely it would be "stay in the EU" "leave the EU without a deal" "accept the deal and leave the EU" or "stay in the EU until a better deal is constructed". Life is complex, but I think we could cope with getting our tiny brains round the concept of 4 options rather than the blank slate in/out which caused the current situation - a divided nation.

2. Yes, that's what I said.

I've no reason to doubt that, since that's what extreme-right parties tend to get in general elections.

I would wager on there being a small but not insignificant share of Tory voters (and UKIP ones, although that's becoming less relevant as their vote share shrinks) with similarly extreme views.

Are you suggesting they would instead vote for the extreme-right under a more proportional voting system?

Not necessarily. Many probably wouldn't even accept that they had extreme views, let alone formally acknowledging it.