. But it confirms what critics of referendums have long maintained: they settle nothing. Consider the three referendums held under David Cameron's premiership. The vote on whether to scrap the first-past-the-post (FPTP) electoral system in favour of the alternative vote (AV) resulted in a massive defeat for reformers. Yet in the years since then, large swathes of the Labour Party (though not yet the leadership) have embraced the policy of electoral reform, and lifelong opponents of FPTP were not remotely deterred by the fact that just under a third of the electorate voted for reform in 2011. The 2014 independence referendum in Scotland settled nothing , despite a convincing win for the pro-UK campaign. The demands for a rerun referendum were in full swing barely a year later, months before the shock result in Cameron's third referendum – on EU membership – gave nationalists a plausible (though unconvincing) excuse for another vote. In what way did Leave's narrow victory in 2016 'settle' the issue of Britain's place in Europe? No sooner had the ink dried on the official result when bereft Remainers were taking to the streets to demand a chance to reverse the country's decision. Parliament was engulfed in three-year-long chaos as the opposition parties, in alliance with a compromised Speaker, sought to frustrate the government's plans to honour the referendum result. All of which proves the point: referendums aren't just an abnegation of the parliamentary process, a cop-out for politicians too craven to make a decision on their own, but are, in general, useless for achieving at least one of the desired outcomes for which they){kind=link}
Only a settled and significant majority for a specific change should be considered a persuasive argument for politicians
A recent YouGov poll has some bad news for anyone hoping that political life in Britain might calm down at some point in the next few years. The survey revealed that almost half of voters believe there should be another referendum on EU membership in the next decade. Not that any mainstream political party is taking such a finding seriously (yet). But it confirms what critics of referendums have long maintained: they settle nothing.
Consider the three referendums held under David Cameron’s premiership. The vote on whether to scrap the first-past-the-post (FPTP) electoral system in favour of the alternative vote (AV) resulted in a massive defeat for reformers. Yet in the years since then, large swathes of the Labour Party (though not yet the leadership) have embraced the policy of electoral reform, and lifelong opponents of FPTP were not remotely deterred by the fact that just under a third of the electorate voted for reform in 2011.
The 2014 independence referendum in Scotland settled nothing, despite a convincing win for the pro-UK campaign. The demands for a rerun referendum were in full swing barely a year later, months before the shock result in Cameron’s third referendum – on EU membership – gave nationalists a plausible (though unconvincing) excuse for another vote.
In what way did Leave’s narrow victory in 2016 “settle” the issue of Britain’s place in Europe? No sooner had the ink dried on the official result when bereft Remainers were taking to the streets to demand a chance to reverse the country’s decision. Parliament was engulfed in three-year-long chaos as the opposition parties, in alliance with a compromised Speaker, sought to frustrate the government’s plans to honour the referendum result.