Perhaps because it was very clearly billed as a non-binding referendum, which would only have an advisory impact at best?

That the politicians took a basically 50/50 result and have used it to _remove_ the EU citizenship of everyone in the UK is beyond taking the piss.

Was it though? It seems to me that many very clearly consider it to be binding, though ridiculously the actual meaning is ambiguous.

Errr yes? That was the whole point. The general concept I had of it was along the lines of "Lets see what the general opinion is, so if there's a large majority one way or another we'll know if we need to look into it".

The non-binding bit was so they didn't have to _commit_ to actually doing anything, just in case.

That it was in actual fact a plebiscite to those who actually understand this nuance isn't relevant to the "Brexit means Brexit" hordes who don't. Or to your friends and neighbours looking on aghast ...

Another factor is complacency on the part of those that would have voted to remain: polling leading up to the referendum showed a clear remain win.

(I should point out that I'm not suggesting that the result of the referendum isn't pro-Brexit, but that the numbers don't support the case for a so-called "hard Brexit")

[0] https://whatukthinks.org/eu/questions/if-there-was-a-referen...

[1] https://yougov.co.uk/news/2018/03/29/where-britain-stands-br...

Many are "unhappy" with how the EU is presently being run but nobody would want to "leave".

The confusion around Brexit emerges from just how poorly the referendum was run. It was a choice between "remain" which can only be a vote for the status quo (unsatisfactory for many) and "leave" which is open to so many interpretations as to be useless.

But to call Brexit a "referendum" in any constitutional sense is talking it up a bit. It was a plebiscite. An actual binding referendum against a written constitution would have to provide actual wording; rather than just a single word.

Ironically the actual things to object to the EU about like their godawful internet policy proposals aren't on the radar.

Anyway UK has parliamentary supremacy so a constitution would be empty words without changing that. I would say that the policy seems very dangerous but constituions are messy in terms of getting ease of change right - especially in such an legal body. Imagine if nasty old bits like not allowing Jews to inherit property got embedded.

Seems like a strawman, but I guess if that were the case it would have been amended out years ago ...

> An actual binding referendum against a written constitution would have to provide actual wording; rather than just a single word.

I don't disagree for any philosophical reason, but this is very easy to abuse for anyone that favors the status quo. The most notable example I can think of is the republic referendum (to remove the queen as head of state) here in Australia. Deciding the form of the republic was done first and the constitutional changes to do just that was the only question put to the public, splitting the Republican vote.

On the other hand the EU has a bit of a reputation for voting until the plebs get it right, so I can definitely see the case for binding referendums.

The UK does have a constitution, it's simply not codified into a single document. Parliamentary sovereignty means that Acts of Parliament are part of the constitution, and so any referendum's result cannot be binding, which may partly explain why they weren't seen as part of UK politics up until recently - there have only ever been three national referendums, one on EC membership in 1975, on changing the voting system in 2011, and leaving the EU in 2016.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referendums_in_the_United_King...