Quote Originally Posted by Burney View Post
Ignorance does not - can not - constitute sufficient reason to deny someone a vote, I'm afraid. And on matters of national self-determination such as Scottish independence or Brexit, there really is no alternative to referenda. The EU was a special case in that there had been a profound democratic deficit on the subject for decades. There was a total failure by all the main political parties to represent a deeply-held Euroscepticism in the country and the inevitable result was the rise of a single-issue party able to create sufficient pressure on votes to force a referendum.
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?