It wasn't binding so the normal procedure and checks around a referendum could be ignored. Like disenfranchising the British citizens living in the EU.
It was just an exercise in testing the mood of the nation, don't you see? Just like a general election, if the electorate vote the wrong party, it is perfectly fine to just ignore the result.
The vote was non-binding due to the sovereignty of parliament [1]. It means that if a war broke out or the economy crashed, they would not be forced to continue at great detriment to the UK. But it doesn't mean that the vote was a mere suggestion - anybody who suggests such doesn't understand democracy.
Fair enough, the "advisory" nature of referendum in the UK does have clear reasoning that i wasn't fully aware of. However the idea of it being "advisory" was itself exploited, and used to make people think that Brexit would't happen anyway, even if the vote was to leave.
My suggestion was not that the referendum shouldn't stand because it was "advisory", but that there should have been rules applied around a referendum that could affect peoples lives so much. But, there are no such rules it seems, the majority in the Commons gets to decide that.
Which is why (almost a million?) British citizens in the EU were not allowed to vote, which doesn't seem very democratic.
And Europeans who were born in the UK and lived their entire life here.
It was a referendum of the the right sort of British citizen.
> However the idea of it being "advisory" was itself exploited, and used to make people think that Brexit would't happen anyway, even if the vote was to leave.
It could be argued also the other way, maybe people didn't engage or chose to continue because they were led to believe it wasn't possible to leave the UK.
> My suggestion was not that the referendum shouldn't stand because it was "advisory", but that there should have been rules applied around a referendum that could affect peoples lives so much. But, there are no such rules it seems, the majority in the Commons gets to decide that.
I think it was fumbled because nobody involved in enacting it were actually supportive of it, and the semi-permanent state (i.e. civil servants) were largely not in support.
> It was a referendum of the the right sort of British citizen.
I have more general thoughts about this, I think a country should be very careful about who or who can't vote.
Does that mean when a government is elected by a low turnout, that it is also not democratic? The current UK government was elected on a 59.7% electorate turnout [1], whereas Brexit was decided based on a 72.2% electorate turnout [2].
Democratic isn’t binary, it’s a spectrum. And I said it’s not a good example of a democratic vote, not that it is undemocratic. It’s closer to the undemocratic end of the spectrum. Though that turnout number is actually way higher than I remember, 70% is actually very high!
I don't know how it can be argued towards the undemocratic end of the spectrum, it was possibly one of the most democratic processes the UK has undergone in a long time?
