The first was that a complex problem was reduced to a false binary – leave or remain. Subsequently the entire country was locked into that binary: everyone must be either a ‘leaver’ or a ‘remainer’. and the possibility of there being a wide range of legitimate intermediate positions was swept aside. (If you reply ‘neither’ when you’re asked if you’re a leaver or remainer, you’re classed as some kind of nutter.)
The second flaw follows from the first. All referendums are necessarily reductive (which is why direct democracy as a system of government never got much beyond Periclean Athens): but when a referendum is about a change to the constitutional status quo, that defect can be mitigated by working out the alternative to the status quo in great detail before it’s put to the vote. Thus, for instance
- the other recent UK-wide referendum, in 2011, on a change in the voting system to a form of proportional representation, you weren’t asked ‘do you want a proportional representation voting system, yes or no’: you were asked whether or not to accept a very specific form of PR which was worked out and published in the enabling Act.
- the referendums in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland on the Good Friday Agreement ending the Troubles didn’t ask for a vote on whether or not to introduce an unspecified system of power-sharing government for the province: you were asked to accept or not a meticulously detailed form of devolved government which had been thrashed out in years of negotiation between all the parties.
- countries introducing new constitutions don’t hold a referendum until a constitutional convention etc has done something similar, and the electorate is asked to approve or not the detailed result (and usually require a decisive 2/3 majority).
In all these examples there’s no ambiguity about the result, as there has been from the outset with the Brexit referendum.
More or less everything which has gone wrong with Brexit since can be traced to these original design problems. The errors of the May government have of course made matters worse, but are not the root cause.
Why was it so badly designed? Well, Cameron’s only motive in calling the referendum was to lance a running internal sore in the Conservative Party. Since the result was (he assumed) a foregone conclusion, thinking through the wider consequences didn’t matter.
Thank you for that. I think also by reducing to a binary position you end up with demonising the other - as we see in the labelling of Remainers as stupid and Leavers as shameless elites.
Their arrogance meant they would never accept that we could leave the tyranny of the EU.
They underestimated the will power of the silent majority who do want to leave.
They can all go to hell.
“- countries introducing new constitutions don’t hold a referendum until a constitutional convention etc has done something similar, and the electorate is asked to approve or not the detailed result (and usually require a decisive 2/3 majority).”
You mean like the European Constitution ?
Which, after it was voted down, they brought back the same garbage as the Treaty of Lisbon.