Prime Minister May’s latest Brexit drama — seeking to delay until late this month the next vote in Parliament — is but the latest indication that she fails to grasp the point. She wants more time to get a deal in Brussels. She still seems to be under the idea that having a deal is better than not having a deal. What has become clear with every passing day, though, is that leaving the EU without a deal is the best solution of all.

Which is why British voters chose independence in the first place. We just re-watched Elizabeth II promise that referendum in her speech of 2015 in a packed House of Peers. Before going over to Westminster, Elizabeth seized as a hostage the vice chamberlain at the time, Kris Hopkins (no joke). The idea seems to be that she needs to hold someone hostage against her safe return to her palace.

Once seated, Elizabeth sent over to the Commons the Usher of the Black Rod to convey her command that they “attend” Her Majesty “immediately” in the House of Peers. So the whole Commons schlepped over to find a spot to stand. There they craned their necks to get a look at their sovereign. Some cocked their heads, others pulling on their collars as the Queen told them what’s ahead

“My government will renegotiate the United Kingdom’s relationship with the European Union and pursue reform of the European Union for the benefit of all member states,” Her Majesty said when she got to the topic of Europe, and then: “Alongside this, early legislation will be introduced to provide for an in-out referendum on membership of the European Union before the end of 2017.”

That was how it was put by the woman who doesn’t want to be the last independent — i.e., sovereign — monarch of the United Kingdom: First negotiations, then an “in-out referendum.” Negotiations failed, and the question went to the people, “Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?” The unambiguous, undeniable, irreducible, unalloyed answer was “leave.”

Mrs. May’s flailing around for an interim delay is but the latest effort to dilute that vote. The referendum did not ask whether they wanted to have strings attached. It asked voters whether they wanted to leave. What they actually voted for was a no-deal Brexit. Their monarchy had been sovereign for a thousand years before the Brexit referendum, and they wanted their independence back.

Why does all this matter so much? Why has it riveted the world? It’s because it has become a challenge not only to Europe but to the rest of the Western leaders who went along with what Europe was up to. They included Secretary Clinton and President Obama, who tried to put Uncle Sam’s thumb on the scale by speaking out against British independence.

Their idea — fantastic, in retrospect — was that it was actually better for America if Britain stayed in the EU. Mr. Obama threatened that if Britons voted for Brexit, he would move Britain to the end of the queue of those hankering for a trade deal with America. President George Washington and Chief Justice John Jay, who wrought the Jay Treaty, would be rolling over in their graves.

As for the Sun, we’re no big fans of rule by referendum. We’re partial to republicanism. Yet once a country goes directly to its people, bypassing representative bodies, the Sun is in the camp that favors respecting what the people say. Disrespecting a referendum is worse than rule by referendum. If Brexit is foiled, the British people will be taken for granted for generations. European mischief will wax.