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Good morning. Since the referendum there has sometimes been an appeal to “the will of the people”, first particularly by brexiteers and more recently by remainers. It’s a heady phrase, but what does it actually mean? If you put something to a vote, even in a small organisation you are likely to get conflicting opinions, not a single voice. And in a nation there are multiple voices. Not surprisingly a political philosopher, Albert Weale has written a book arguing that “The whole concept is just a myth. The people is made up of many people. They produce no singular will.” I would also add that it is a dangerous myth. Not perhaps in our society, but too often in history a small group have seized power claiming to act in the name of the people and then repressing all opposition. Our own political system is in fact based not on the will of the people but on the will of the majority and their elected representatives. Built into this system are checks and balances so that the majority cannot repress the opposition. It is a political system arrived at after centuries of hard won experience. It also owes a great deal, I think, to a Christian understanding of what it means to be a human being in society. On a Christian view we all have some genuine good will which want to work for the good of society as a whole. We also have a dark side which is all too ready to pursue our own interests at the expense of others. Democracy takes both sides of our nature into account. It encourages the good we can do and limits the harm. As the American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr put it, “Our capacity for good makes democracy possible. Our inclination to evil makes democracy necessary. Referenda, which in our system, are then very rare, don’t express the will of the people, they indicate where the majority opinion lies. Working out the implications of that opinion properly lies with parliament. So it is that in the next days and weeks, which are going to be very turbulent, MP’s will be doing the absolutely crucial job for which they were elected, using their own best judgement on what is in the best interest of the country. Whatever our views they need all the wisdom and courage they can find. Prayers are said daily in parliament. One phrase will have special force at the moment when they ask for heavenly wisdom from above to guide them in all their deliberations.