Quote Originally Posted by Burney View Post
An absurd argument. People vote in general elections for a variety of factors. People didn't want a UKIP government because UKIP is a madhouse and would have screwed up the running of the country. Not voting for UKIP does not invalidate an individual's anti-EU feeling. There was a democratic deficit on the question that the blunt object of a referendum was the only way to meet.

And as for this



This is an argument for technocracy, not democracy. That is precisely what the Leave vote rejected. Your 'intelligent people' simply means 'people who will agree with me and whose decisions will suit my interests'. That is not democracy.
Putting away the windup - you don't think that this:

'Decisions as important as Brexit should be taken by intelligent people on the back of extensive quantitative analysis and consideration of public opinion.'

almost perfectly describes our 'democracy'? We don't currently elect people (Corbyn aside most of them are rather intelligent) to not only take decisions for us, but to ensure that the process used to take those decisions involves as much rational, objective, quantitative analysis as possible? I think that's exactly what MPs do all the time, and it's what the public expects.

And the only way that Brexit was going to happen was to circumvent that process, in this case via a referendum. And surely there is an argument to be made that since our democracy works this way now, a decision as important as Brexit is precisely the sort of decision which should be taken this way and not one that should be exposed to a one off vote and all the flaws associated with that approach.

And I could turn your argument about criticism of the referendum really meaning that we don't like a process that results in an outcome we disagree with around. Are you really that happy to govern by referenda, or are you just happy that this one went your way?