Not so, they retort - 52% minus 48% equals 4%. Aha, I say, with a flourish that makes me doubly unpopular (once for having voted Leave, twice for being better at maths), but 52 is nearly 8% bigger than 48. They retreat, muttering, and calculating.
Childish I know, but true.
How does this matter? Only in that 4% seems a close result, almost within the margin of statistical error. 8% does not. 8%, if not a thumping majority, is a significant and decisive result.
I'll come back to this.
The British press is always full of how badly Brexit is going, but a couple of pieces have stood out for me recently - Jonathan Powell's article in the Times under the headline, "Brexiteers play the blame game as they run out of solutions", and Ambrose Evans-Prichard's in the Telegraph, apocalyptically entitled, "Weep for Brexit - the British dash for independence has failed". No need I think to sum up the substance - readers will get the picture.
I agree. Brexit is a mess, and looks like being a failure. Why?
Well, the people (see above) decided we should Leave the EU. But how we should Leave has been decided by politicians, egged on by the media, civil service and academia. Let us frankly enumerate their positions.
The Prime Minister is pro-Remain.
The Cabinet is mostly pro-Remain.
The Parliamentary Tory party is mostly pro-Remain.
The Parliamentary Labour party is mostly pro-Remain.
The House of Commons is mostly pro-Remain.
The House of Lords is mostly pro-Remain.
The Civil Service is mostly pro-Remain.
The media is mostly pro-Remain.
Academia is mostly pro-Remain.
Did I miss anyone out?
Now let's go back to Leave's majority. Leave obtained nearly 8% more votes than Remain. A significant and decisive victory in the biggest ever exercise of democracy in British history. And yet all of Britain's institutions have - conspired implies a conscious process - lined up to either prevent Brexit taking place at all, or, failing that, to ensure that it happens in name only.
If this is a tragedy (and it may be), it is not because Brexit represents the sunlit uplands and Britain's institutions are preventing us getting there. It is because those institutions are doing their damnedest to prevent the exercise of the popular will as manifested in the referendum.
Every Remainer politician who tries to control the direction of travel will tell you that they are only seeking to save Britain from national disaster. But they are forgetting that, however badly Brexit turns out, the fatal undermining of the democratic process their meddling is causing would be a far greater disaster.
Collectively they have taken leave of their senses.
PS. A message to Jonathan Powell, by the way, he of the "Brexiteers play the blame game as they run out of solutions" article. The people running the Brexit process are those implacably opposed to it in the first place. No wonder it isn't working. Mr Powell - if you don't like the direction of travel, why are you so determined to hang on to the steering wheel?
