What if the result in 2016 had been 52% Remain, and Leavers had asked for a second referendum?
This touches on a few different issues:
- it's foolish, IMO, to base decisions as impactful as leaving the EU on a simple majority. Some sort of supermajority should have been required. When the threshold is just 50% plus one vote, then small changes in public sentiment can cause major fundamental, structural upheaval. That being said, if 50% plus one vote is the threshold to adopt Brexit, then 50% plus one vote should be the threshold to abandon Brexit.
- as long as the sense is that some past referendum still reflects public sentiment, it doesn't make sense to hold another one. This is more about public appetite for the disruption and expense of a referendum, though, not about some specific minimum spam if time between referendums. If there's significant call for a second referendum, it should happen... regardless of the outcome of the first one.
I think that public understanding of the implications has changed enough that it wouldn't be reasonable at this point to assume that the Brexit referendum is still an accurate reflection of the views of the British people.