alt Hacker NewsIt was virtually 50/50 and should not have proceeded. The bar to leave was set too low. 2/3rd better, and larger turnout should have been mandated. 16 year olds should have voted. The campaign to stay too weak. Mass confusion. Some particularly pernicious lies on the leave side too convincing. Brexit wasn't 100% going to happen, it was more like...
Leave 17,410,742 51.89% Remain 16,141,241 48.11%
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Turnout was about 72%, so really it was (approx) Leave 37%, Remain 35%, Don’t Know/Care 28%.
Also worth pointing out that the hard Brexit we got, where we left Schengen and abandoned much of our cross-European programmes, was almost unthinkable, and not seriously considered by the media. Whenever it was brought up, it was decried as “project fear” by those who pushed for it.
I dunno about 2/3rds, but there should definitely be some kind of supermajority required for things like joining or leaving the EU.
Even a 55% requirement would be a lot better than a simple majority imo.
> The campaign to stay too weak.
That's not an argument, that is not liking the result.
“In a 52-48 referendum this would be unfinished business by a long way. If the remain campaign win two-thirds to one-third that ends it."
- Nigel Farage, May 2016
Were these conditions implemented in a referendum to join the EU?
But that's the point of democracy, whoever was interested in the isue, went out to vote, kids are too young to vote, and more than half of people interested enough to go out, voted to leave.
You personally might have wanted to remain and wanted to raise the bar, but that's undemocratic, you can't just change the rules when you don't get the outcome you wanted.
I'm not from Britain, honestly I don't care what you guys do, but a majority of voters decided in a way they did, and you have to respect that.
You could flip that argument. The bar set to remain was too low.
As for 16 years old voting, I'd argue the age to vote should be raised to 21.
> Some particularly pernicious lies on the leave side too convincing
Both sides lied, both sides exaggerated.
The referendum to simply leave or remain would never have happened if UK Parliament went to the public more often with referendums about various treaties such as Maastricht, Amsterdam and Rome. Giving people the illusion of choice would have been enough.
The UK seems to be an outlier for an arrogant Parliament that thinks it knows best, in spite of public sentiment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referendums_related_to_the_Eur...
"We lost, let's change the rules"
> The campaign to stay too weak.
I can definitely support that. It seemed to basically boil down to "you dirty proles aren't going to stop poor Tarquin going on Erasmus are you? :'("
The failing was the one and done nature of it all.
The vote should have been, should we entertain this idea?
If yes, a second referendum on what Leave actually means when it comes to the final decision point.
Y'know the same way that any remotely functioning democracy would approach something this large and nebulous.
Iceland being just the most recent example.
Instead the vote was "life carries on as is" vs "something changes", with no clarity of what that change is.
Given the state of the UK post austerity there is no surprise the vote for "I don't want more of this" was so high.
That's the incredible failing of the UK democratic process here, Cameron foremost.