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The most important thing to note about last month's Brexit referendum is that the government is obliged to follow through on the result.
Regardless which way the soon-to-be-chosen next prime minister voted herself, she must commit to a course of Britain leaving the European Union.
Such are the rules of the game.
By "game," I mean political reality rather than the rules.
From a rules perspective, the government does not need to follow up on the referendum. That is because in the British version of democracy, parliament is sovereign. Its 650 elected members set the laws. They get to decide whether Britain leaves or stays. They could choose to ignore the result.
But they won't.
Here's why: At the time of the referendum, the ruling Conservative Party and its opponents in the Labor and Scottish National parties were united in favor of remaining part of Europe. The most vocal party in favor of leaving Europe, UKIP, has just one member of parliament. Subtract the minority of Conservative Party rebels, and still around 75 percent of the lawmakers favored staying in Europe.
To undo the result of the referendum would require the political establishment to do something it was unable to do at the time of vote. On top of that, it would need to convince a few million people that they voted stupid first time around.
Given this, why are the losers protesting? Over four million people signed a petition for a re-vote (which the government has appropriately rejected). People have held marches and demonstrated. The wonderfully bolshie city of Brighton has added the word "refugees" to the city sign, "Welcome to Brighton." My daughter who was born in Korea and considers herself a citizen of Brighton, West Sussex, England, the U.K., Europe, and the world, has added an EU flag to her tattoos.
Such moves by the losers may make sense from our perspective in Korea. The losers have tried to undo the result of every election here ever since the 2004 impeachment of then-President Roh Moo-hyun.
But what's the point of people protesting in Britain after they've lost a vote? It's like trying to renegotiate a contract after you've signed it. A majority of Britons voted to leave the EU and so it's going to happen.
Isn't it?
Er, well. Actually mate, old chap, dear boy, or whatever you would like me to call you, it is not that simple.
The crafters of the referendum, who favored staying in the EU, made a big mistake. They didn't say what leaving meant.
I suspect that's because they didn't believe they would lose. The choice presented was: do you favor 1) Changing nothing or 2) Uncertainty. The pro-Leave camp also didn't articulate what Leaving meant. I reckon that was because they did not really believe they would win.
Because of this collective stupidity, for many people the vote was kind of: Do you feel 1) Things are Going Swimmingly or 2) Not. And, as is normal with a mini-election in between elections, the result was a complaint against the status quo.
It turns out there are many ways to leave the EU. The gamut of options goes from nasty divorce to sleeping on the couch for a couple of days.
The most likely options really mean staying in by tweaking the terms and conditions.
There are also ways to seal that tweaking with a general election. Or, better still, a referendum on whether to accept the new version. That's what it should have been in the first place.
Michael Breen is the CEO of Insight Communications Consultants, a public relations company, and author of "The Koreans" and "Kim Jong-il: North Korea's Dear Leader."
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