devilish
Juventus fan who used to support United
- Joined
- Sep 5, 2002
- Messages
- 62,161
That's just not logical nor practical. If you are holding a referendum on a hugely significant and divisive issue (which in Brexit's case will change the established order for the past 40 years), it is standard practice for almost any relatively established democracy to require a supermajority (60% or 66%) as well as a minimum voter participation (that was met in the Brexit vote, to be fair).
I have not heard anyone question Trump's legitimacy even though <50% voted for him, for example (not on that front at least) because the rules were clear up front (even if they are hugely skewed to help Republicans).
Otherwise, you end up with a situation where a solid % of the population is very dissatisfied with this decision that will determine the direction of the country for years and years. Even more so in the case where the younger generation who will have to live with the decision for what is their whole (or most of their) life.
I agree. However, let me say that this issue shouldn't be solved with a referendum.
Referendums are strange beasts. In Malta we had one against hunting. Hunting is a thorny issue there and while there's a strong minority of hunters with a well organized lobby, the rest of the islands loathe them. We were 100% sure that if we somehow managed to bypass politics we'll be able to control their practices more. Its started really well, with polls giving us a healthy lead of 10 points. Then, the big guns kicked in by getting endorsements from extremely popular politicians and the issue changed completely. Hunting took a very minor role and the referendum become more about giving a trashing to unpopular politicians who stirred away from endorsing the hunters (which was interpreted as them being anti hunting). We ended up losing the referendum.
I can see some parallels between this referendum and Brexit, with Boris giving legitimacy to the cause and voters being eager to give a thrashing to unpopular politicians who imposed austerity on them. Not to forget the many emotions surrounding it (like making the UK great again and getting control) that drove people to vote against the EU despite having nothing to do with the UK's relationship with the EU.