Referenda, as with all things, need safeguards

Perhaps the biggest failures of the referendum advisory opinion poll campaign were the following omissions :

But those two sections of Briefing Paper 07212 seem not to have been read, or if they were read, they seem not to have been understood; and if they were read and understood, why are they being ignored? Section 5 expressly and explicitly says that the referendum is advisory, consultative, and not binding on the government or parliament. Section 6 says that if there were any question of a referendum being binding or mandating, a simple plurality of votes would be insufficient – that is, a majority is not enough: it has to be a super-majority. Why is all this being so blatantly ignored? Why? Which MP or government minister will give an answer and a reason?

I guess no-one wants to market it as "vote in this opinion poll and we may or may not listen to you". Fair enough, really. But why oh why did they instead implicitly say, "vote in this opinion poll and we'll definitely go with the result, regardless of how small or transient the majority is" ? Instead of one silly extreme, they chose the counter-extreme which was equally silly.

We should not have had a referendum on this in the first place, because you shouldn't give people a choice to vote for shooting themselves in the economic kneecaps. It was only there for Cameron to secure his historical legacy anyway (well, look how that worked out). But if we did insist on one, we could have done a much better job.

Section 5 would make the whole thing pointless and no-one would have voted for it. Hence it wasn't widely reported. Section 6, however, is much more interesting. Having chosen to circumvent section 5 and make the referendum legally binding - which should have been subject to full Parliamentary approval as with all laws - the government should then have voted on the level of the majority needed to secure a change in the status quo. Consider the hypothetical extreme scenario that it was won by a single individual vote. Would this not be obviously an incredibly stupid decision to let the next few decades be decided by an infinitesimally tiny majority ?

Of course it would. A majority of 4% of the voters is much more significant, but as the levels of "Bregret" clearly indicate, it can in no way be seen as decisive. That's 4% of the voters, mind you - not a majority of the electorate at all. It's not sensible to presume that those who didn't vote had no preference one way or the other because that preference is always going to be dictated by one's own biases. Nor is it sensible to make a decision with major economic and political implications unless there was a very clear majority. Hence the referendum should have been considered advisory unless there was a much, much more decisive result - say 60% of the whole electorate (not those who actually voted). Even then, added safeguards would be needed because it's not inconceivable that voters might have decided differently six months later. We could, for instance, have been given the option to vote again based on the status of the exit negotiations a year down the line (article 50 isn't itself legally binding, as the author of A50 attests to).

That's ignoring the fact that reducing our relation to the EU to a simple in-out choice makes absolutely no sense, because decades of economic and political ties just aren't that simple, and the fact that the campaign lies were more blatant and extensive even than in the usual standards of political campaigns. If you insist on people voting for big decisions, it's imperative that they be given the correct information. Without this, a vote makes no sense.

Why, you might ask, do I not insist on similar safeguards for regular votes ? Because voting for a political representative is not the same as voting for a decision. If I choose my MP, I choose someone to negotiate and compromise on my behalf. I do this partially because I like their stated policies and partially because I think they will best represent my interests - that is, doing what will improve my conditions. I don't expect to get everything I want, but I do expect them to mostly act in my favour most of the time. That can sometimes mean doing things I didn't actually want them to do but nonetheless actually help me in the end. Most day-to-day votes are of much lesser importance and subject to negotiation anyway, and are generally easier to repeal - not so when we're talking about breaking relationships with a massive economic bloc that have been forged over decades.

But no, it's all "the will of the people", and democracy must be treated as an absurd absolute. Yay.

What will happen if parliament votes not to trigger Article 50? Answer: the pound will rise and stocks with them; businesses will breathe a huge sigh of relief; tens of millions of UK citizens here and abroad, and EU nationals in the UK, will join their sighs of relief with that gale; companies that had decided not to invest in the UK, and students who had decided to go elsewhere, will reconsider in the UK’s favour. And the world – currently thinking that the British have taken complete leave of their senses – will begin to recover its respect for us.

http://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/articles/ac_grayling_on_why_now_is_the_time_for_mps_to_derail_a_disastrous_brexit_deal_1_4779842