Quote Originally Posted by Peter View Post
Yes, to answer the point above first I think it is laughable to accuse me of wanting to abandon democracy. We have a representative, parliamentary democracy that does not necessitate the use of referenda. It is a choice taken by our representatives and is nothing to do with democracy whatsoever. They were perfectly able to take this decision themselves but chose not to do so. One can argue that it is fairer to hold the public vote, and it may well be. But please dont take some moral high ground on democracy. Its unbecoming and irrelevant.

The referendum was an electoral ploy by the PRime Minister to fight the UKIP threat in Tory constituencies. THat is all.

There is arguably as much pressure for a referendum now as there was initially, if not more. THere is plenty of evidence to suggest that people were not aware of the consequences of their vote. Why should we not hold a second referendum on the exit plan?
That's the slippery slope with referenda, when do you stop? I agree, there should be no need for them in a representative democracy, if people wanted Brexit that badly, they should have voted en masse for Farage.

Decisions as important as Brexit should be taken by intelligent people on the back of extensive quantitative analysis and consideration of public opinion. And with the exception of UKIP, all major parties considered the option and rejected it because there wasn't a strong intellectual argument for it. Sadly, a power hungry conservative PM exposed us to the vagaries of a one off vote and we are now about to pay the price for it.