While the above is specifically against Benji, I think allowing people (including me, btw) to vote on something like this is a very bad idea. There is no way most know, or are able to learn, enough to make a competent decision.
Democracy is not just about being allowed to vote, it's also about responsibility and accountability. We can, and perhaps should, elect our leaders, the idea being that they are competent enough to handle this sort of thing and if not, we'll pick someone else the next time. The idea is that THEY are competent enough to handle the big decisions that we simply cannot, or that they in turn can nominate experts who can.
A referendum to decide on those matters, however, is never about responsibility since the people are easily swayed and susceptible to all kinds of horror stories and irrationality, and once they've voted they'll just go back to whatever they were doing, without any accountability or responsibility whatsoever. It's everyone's fault and it's no-one's fault. The question itself is a simple yes/no and so there doesn't have to be a thorough analysis of anything, just an instinct or a feeling, a quick vote, and that's it.
The idea that a referendum is the ultimate form of democracy and thus must make sense is an illusion. You might as well allow the general population to vote on treatment options for the sick in a hospital.
Witness the "morning after" the Brexit vote, when many leave voters rather uncharacteristically realised that they had been lied to and admitted it, thousands of them going out in the streets to protest. It's unheard of right after an election, which is as it should be because the idea of democracy should actually not be to vote on government decisions but to vote on a government to do it in their place.
So if you want to be upset with me for not wanting the general population to vote on this sort of thing, go right ahead. Benji has illustrated rather well why the idea is so bizarre in the first place.
But what makes you think the politicians are A, more informed and B, representing your best interests?
Not much, actually, and this is the main problem with democracy. Generally, the politicians we have--just as those in the UK--are less than well-informed and ill suited to decide on most things.
Here, while you vote for a person (there are names on the ballots, and we choose people on three levels, from the local to the national), generally speaking you vote for a party whose ideas are as good a match as possible for what you believe in, and then hope for the best.
Their saving grace, frequently, is that they can actually appoint experts to study the issues at hand before doing anything and so, unlike a referendum such as Brexit where the decision is made over night by people who never have to be accountable, the hope is that slightly wiser and less rash decisions can be arrived at. It all happens over a longer period of time and the decision-makers remain accountable for their actions. Do a few sufficiently bad decisions and you on't have an office after the next election.
A referendum that messes up a country much like Brexit has--the short-term effects are in plain view and the longer term ones are becoming clearer as we speak--has no such advantages and so the very same people who made the last bad decision can be asked to make a new one.
No accountability.
It makes sense for specialized experts to make decisions within their field when it's a question of specific knowledge, like what treatment will cure a certain disease. But whether a country should stay part of the EU has far-reaching consequences over a broad range of disciplines. Questions of economics, foreign relations, global trade, immigration, domestic policy, etc. Each one is a field specialized enough to have its own formal program of study. Political leaders can't possibly be an expert on everything. They may have advisors, but their time is carefully regimented and information is filtered by staff who have jobs on the line and pressure to tell them what they want to hear.
Nobody may be forcing the populace to do their own research, but look at the debates that have been flourishing between people of all intelligence and education levels. People want to be informed and they want to have a hand in their own destiny. It's passing the buck to blame them for the sensationalized crap in the media. Somewhere somebody is making an executive decision about what to air.
"People want to be informed"?
I have to disagree. Some, sure, absolutely, but all too many, no. It's an issue that is an emotional one because it has been made to be about independence and the EU having superstate ambitions, and rather than taking a few steps back, people talk about the EU having some ridiculous regulations in place over the size of bananas (which *is* silly and pointless and stupid, but of little consequence if you look at the larger scheme of things) and let that be the deciding factor.
It's the same with immigration and so many other issues. People let their emotions do the work.
On the second point, political leaders are no less subject to bias than an average citizen. They're taking into account what will further their careers, what will get them more votes, how they are being funded by special interest groups. The vote is a simple yes/no, but that means the largest political parties take black and white sides. Taking the vote away from the population takes away an individual's power to have a nuanced position, for example to have voted one party into office based on a campaign issue unrelated to the Brexit question, and then later to disagree with the stance that party has taken on Brexit.
Agreed about the politicians--they are as biased as you and me. Which, again, strongly speaks for not having referendums that are allowed to be decisive. The decision is reduced to a yes/no matter over night, without any nuances left, and the politicians, already as biased as we are, are forced into being black and white rather than at least being allowed to use panels of experts, debating the issue in the all-important legislative bodies, and so on.
Now, the default is not to have a *legislative*, governing, debate on what is perhaps the most important decision in decades in the UK, and so what is left is to pick a leader whose is supposedly only to implement that rash decision while minimising damage.
Besides, the point has been brought up that the popular vote is not legally binding. Nothing happens until the government submits the official withdrawal notice to the EU. Why would you give up even an unofficial vote?
It's not legally binding but it could equal political suicide for those MPs who do not accept it, bringing out the worst in a democracy, namely the immediate fear for losing your job.
There is the fact that in the UK, legislation can only be repealed by other legislation, so it could well be that the PM cannot legally invoke Article 50 without a Parliamentary decision on that 1972 Act that governs the current state of things.
phobia.