Holding the 2016 EU referendum required an act of parliament. All the parties except for the SNP voted to hold the referendum.


The 1975 referendum was on continued membership in the EEC rather than whether to join the EEC. As in 2016 the referendum wasn't legally binding but it was understood that the government would accept the verdict. in 1975 Labour claimed that the Conservatives had negotiated poor terms to join and they would renegotiate better terms and then hold a referendum on continued membership. No supermajority was defined for the 1975 referendum just 50%+1 was sufficient to win.


Obviously Cameron & Co thought it would be a straightforward exercise for remain to win the 2016 referendum. The reality is that the leave vote has been 20 or 30 years in the making.

Yep. All those silly stories about one size sausages, prawn cocktail condoms and banning double decker bananas eventually did the trick.

Couldn't work out WHY the opposition parties voted for the ending of the 5 year fixed term parliament until it was revealed that if they hadn't May was going to propose the removal of the Act from the statute books. It was not widely publicised that it was 'Election or end of Fixed Term Parliament' but did offer an explanation of the weird behaviour.

Duplicated post

The source of many of those nonsense stories? One Boris Johnson, during his time in the 1990s as the Telegraph's correspondent in Brussels.

Were it not for his entirely self-serving decision to back Leave, the vote may well have gone the other way. I blame him almost entirely for Brexit.

On a more serious note...

Have you booked your favourite armchair for the 8th? You know, the one that reclines and only collapses if you laugh too loud now that you've put on weight?

And the fridge. Have you thrown out all those over-healthy vegetables that only your wife likes and filled it to the brim with beer hoping that the neighbours don't visit?

Have you invited anyone who'll listen to join your facebook blog.. or have they all disowned you and declared you as an unfriend because you've been boring them to death with election drivel?

Have your children told you to shut up, keep quiet and take the RV out of the province and never come back?

Have you pasted images of your least favourite candidates on the dartboard for a round of mock executions?

Have you hidden that rusty air pistol, just in case the cat can't take any more?

Have those aqueaky noises in the night gone away because all the mice have left home?

In short, have you become a boring f**t with your incessant election claptrap? I know I have.

I would give Cameron equal billing.

The reality is somewhat more complicated....

https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...-eu-referendum

https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...ain-votes-stay

Good articles, but I don't think the reality is any more complicated. Cameron opened Pandora's box and Johnson encouraged and validated a choice of exit. It wasn't obvious (at the time) that the working class would vote Leave, but it was certainly a possibility and risk.

If the politicians hadn't treated them like lower life forms and instead had respectfully explained the national and regional economic, political and sociological consequences of the referendum rather than suckling on the teet of foreign property speculation, the result might have been a bit different.

Good God! Politicians treating the populace as thinking individuals? That is revolution in the making.

Interesting that in the film 'Shooting for Columbine' (which compared US and Canada re gun crimes and I would HIGHLY recommend watching) the director comes to the conclusion that only by encouraging fear in the population can politicians hope to control an educated population, hence the doom and gloom of political announcemenst and the fast werosion of privacy and human rights.

Bowling, innit?

The explanations were out there, for anyone who cared to read or listen. Although successive government actions towards the working classes (not addressing wage compression, for example) will have played a part. However, that's all by the by, the point being made was that Cameron demonstrated spectacular ineptitude by permitting the vote (especially on a simple majority).

T'is indeed. And the "director" is a bit of a household name too.

And just to make sure, here's the sun and mail front pages today.

Of course, the media doesn't influence the voters at all, oh no, they're just doing this as a public service.