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The reason for the "once in a generation" promise is that it is widely recognised that holding regular referenda on non-reversible decisions biases in favour of
by mnw21cam 4y ago
The reason for the "once in a generation" promise is that it is widely recognised that holding regular referenda on non-reversible decisions biases in favour of the non-reversible option.
Let's imagine for example that genuinely 55% of the population want to remain part of the UK, and so remaining should win given a completely fair and accurate measure of the population's mood. However, every measurement varies for a variety of reasons, for instance what outrageous things some random politician has said in the last few days. If we were to hold a referendum every year, then you'd be bound to hit a year at some point fairly quickly where the random variation pushes the result over the 50% leave threshold. This would trigger the non-reversible transition, and the referenda would stop happening.
There's a reasonably strong argument for this reason that non-reversible decisions should require a greater than 50% majority. That's why amendments to the US constitution require a 2/3 majority vote to pass.
- mvc 4y ago> There's a reasonably strong argument for this reason that non-reversible decisions should require a greater than 50% majority Cool. I like the idea of that. Other things that seem non-reversible... - building nuclear plants/weapons - burning fossil fuels - dismantling the NHS Let's have a 75% majority required on any of that and I'll happily remain in the UK.
- dale_glass 4y agoI think that's much better dealt with a greater than 50% majority requirement than with any kind of timing requirement. There's no reason to believe that a time requirement is a good protection against random politicians saying outrageous things. In fact it probably makes things worse because it gives obvious timelines for a campaign, so whenever the possibility opens up it pretty much guarantees all the outrageous politicians coming out of the woodwork.
- mnw21cam 4y agoYeah. The problem with requiring a greater than 50% majority is that politically the side that wants the change to happen will complain that it's unfair.
- synu 4y agoDoes the UK really run these kind of referendum based on a simple 50% majority? That seems like a recipe for chaos (if true).
- messe 4y agoAll referenda in the UK are advisory, and non-binding. Parliament doesn't technically have to abide by their decisions at all, but it would be damaging politically not to do so.
- kibwen 4y agoBrexit passed with 51.89% of the vote, so apparently.
- synu 4y agoWell that seems quite silly. You'd think you'd want a majority for a big, hard to reverse decision like that, otherwise it will oscillate back and forth.
- true_religion 4y agoWell not really. You do want to bias for dissolving a union. If half the population is against it, it doesn’t matter if it’s 51% or 49%, it’s unpopular enough that it is tearing your nation in two. Imagine the US civil war came down to a vote: “Sorry, 50.1% are in favor of slavery so we’re just going to keep practicing it in all of America”. Would the 49.9% be happy to live within that union? How about vice versa? The division is too deep.
- synu 4y agoIf each 50% happens to be more or less perfectly geographically distributed, sure, but if not then you've just recreated the same problem twice (now something approaching 50% of each new division wants to immediately undo what you've just done).