Classics Professor and Newnham College Fellow Mary Beard has announced her support for a second referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU.

Following the vote for Brexit last Thursday, Beard announced on her blog, A Don’s Life, that she “did sign the petition asking for a second referendum”.

The petition in question, on the government’s website, has nearly four million signatures. It says that “if the remain or leave vote is less than 60% based a turnout less than 75% there should be another referendum”.

She compared the decision to leave the EU with the process of amending a Cambridge college’s statutes.

“When my college wants to make any change to its statutes”, wrote Beard, “it demands that there is a two thirds majority of those present and voting. I am told that the same is true in some Trades Unions, and that a two thirds majority in both houses is required to change the US constitution.”

Beard said that she signed the petition “not because I thought that there was any or much chance of achieving a re-run, even if that is desirable – but because I thought that a few million votes on this campaign might put iron in the soul of some MPs who might be minded to try to sort the Brexit mess out”.

“On reflection“, she said, “I wonder how any responsible government or administration could have got us into this pickle”. She expressed her concerns with “what is more or less assumed to be a binding, once and for all, constitutional decision of the people” being based upon such a “small majority”.

“Can we all have been so dumb as to have sleep walked into this?” Beard concluded.

Yesterday, Cambridge MP Daniel Zeichner announced that he would oppose Brexit in Parliament, saying his vote would “reflect the overwhelming result in Cambridge”.