After last week’s elections, how can the EU be called undemocratic? Now listen to the people one more time

There is no majority in parliament for just slipping out of the EU one wet October evening, but the electoral mechanisms to stop that happening are now more limited than they were

“Brexit has won the day” was an inevitable narrative after Sunday evening’s European election results. There is only one problem with this analysis: it is complete nonsense. A little under a third of the vote going to Nigel Farage is not an “overwhelming victory” any more than the process of leaving the EU has proved “the easiest in human history”.

In fact, the Brexit Party increased only very slightly the vote that Ukip, the leader’s former party, achieved five years ago. The Remain parties, however, were indeed the beneficiaries of a substantial boost: my own party scored its best result in a national election for a decade, with 3.4 million votes.

Taken together, the clear Remain vote – for the Liberal Democrats, Green Party, Change UK, the Scottish and Welsh Nationalist parties, Sinn Fein and the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland – totalled 6.8 million, whereas the hard Brexit vote – for Nigel Farage and Ukip – was only 5.8 million. Factoring in the likely allegiances of Conservative (80 per cent Leave) and Labour (60 per cent Remain) voters still leaves Remain well ahead.

Despite all this, I am still berated regularly by those who say calling for a people’s vote is a disgraceful “betrayal of the will of the people”.

The Leave campaign, having clawed its way to a mendacious victory three years ago, demands that the views of the public must be frozen in aspic. The real guardians of the “will of the people” are those of us who are interested in what people think today.

There are two immediate preoccupations for pro-Europeans now, one in the EU and one at home.

The first is the question of what direction Europe as a whole should take. It is popular folklore to say that the EU is hopelessly undemocratic, yet 403 million people were entitled to vote in last week’s election – the biggest pan-continental democratic exercise anywhere in the world (only India beats it in sheer size), and the outcome really matters.

Votes in the European parliament – which will sit first in July – are critical to who becomes the president of the European Commission, and what their programme will be.

Chosen in concert between the parliament and the council (which comprises 28 elected prime ministers), whoever heads up the Commission will have a clear impact on the union’s approach to everything from agricultural policy to climate change, to reform of its own institutions. We will be pushing for a Liberal commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, to take the helm.

At home, Remain MPs will need to be fleet of foot in preventing a no-deal Brexit, despite the wild ebb and flow of Conservative politics over the next few months.

There is plainly no majority in parliament for just slipping out of the EU one wet October evening, without any conclusion on what the terms of departure should be. To do so would promise chaos at ports and catastrophe for the economy.

But the parliamentary mechanisms to stop that happening are, at the very least, more limited than they were at the time of May’s first series of “meaningful votes” on her Brexit deal. Critical to the political pressure necessary will be the courage of remaining sensible Conservative MPs; many of them realise that sitting on their hands would be an unacceptable dereliction of duty.

The Liberal Democrats led the “Stop Brexit” cause in the recent elections and we will continue to lead efforts in the UK and European parliaments, working across party lines to end the Brexit mess.

The Labour Party now looks like its constructive ambiguity may finally become a touch more constructive and a little less ambiguous. It too must surely recognise that the prospect of a no-deal Brexit as a prime ministerial option of choice makes putting the final outcome back to the public in a Final Say referendum all the more important.

Sir Vince Cable is leader of the Liberal Democrats