A referendum on referendums produced an unusually divided debate: Yes won by 289 votes to 213, yet the No side supplied twice as many opinions and several of the floor’s more respected objections. Even the strongest Yes case began, “Yes, but with some serious guardrails.”
The winning argument was less a demand to replace Parliament than to give voters an escape hatch from it. One Yes voice defended “Giving people a way to force a vote on major issues”, while a more buoyant supporter reduced the principle to “The more direct democracy the better.”
No voters were more prolific and more specific about the hazards. The floor’s most-respected No case asked “what is considered a major issue?”, while another warned that “Every Referendum takes years for a society to calm down”; the two sides were often answering different questions, with Yes discussing access and No discussing consequences.
The named example, net zero, largely disappeared from the arguments. This was chiefly a constitutional quarrel about representative government, misinformation and whether a public vote would bind anyone afterwards: as one No voter put it, “A referendum they can ignore is not a voice.”
The chamber voted to open the door; its arguments were mostly about who gets to hold the key.
31 Opinions
We all saw how Brexit turned out. The public can't be trusted with such binary choices. That said, the current crop of politicians can't be trusted either.
We have a Parliamentary democracy, if you don't like the way it's turning out don't keep voting for the same idiots - there's always a bin man.
Referendums rarely make for good policy they should be for major constitunial changes
A manifesto contains numerous plans and ideas for parties, it would be silly to think if you voted for one that you agree with all proposals. So once a year 2 or 3 important questions should be put out to public.
It already does, it's called a general election. A nation that has already proved its inability to discern reality from populist propaganda posing as nationalism/ patriotism and is now having a change of heart, is insufficiently mature to choose wisely and so drive national policy.
At the present time there's too much propaganda. Also, MPs are supposed to consult with constituents & act in their best interests. It's literally their job to do it.
As we learned with the Brexit referendum there is far too high a risk of misinformation and of presenting complex matters as some sort of binary choice. A more sensible way of gauging public opinion would be through Citizen Councils that can genuinely discuss complex issues and advise parliament
A waste of time & money. Those in power would ignore or delay results /set up public enquiries, blah blah - they already ignore well supported petitions to Parliament That said, just because a majority of people think it’s best doesn’t make it the best decision for the country! We need a far higher standard of elected representative, making best decisions for UK & implementing. What we get is political posturing, policies changing with each change of minister!
A cautious ‘Yes’. The fact that as the Labour Party systematically is demolishing the UK culturally economically & industrially many still vote Labour is perplexing. Unlike Brexit where the establishment played all manner of games( & still lost) the trick is to prevent unfair funding by the govt & to ensure that both sides are unfettered. Given our corrupt Civil Service I think it’s a tall ask. Sadly I have no faith that politicians will play fair & they hate the public!!
We do not need referenda if I had my way i would ban them to force politicians to act on the square by doing what they say and using general elections to make change. Eg Brexit was badly handled by useless people and even more badly implemented by even more useless people on a less than satisfying 52%.