Other countries, e.g. Switzerland, that use referenda have rules about super-majorities, campaigning and spending, when and if they will become law and so on. Ensures that you don't get vague hand-wavy referendum that is campaigned as "we'll get a deal easily" morphing into WTO terms hard brexit some painful time later.
At least elections have the veneer of election law behind them. Referendum nations have a similar veneer behind referenda - to decide whether it was fairly arrived at, etc. Switzerland not long threw out a result because the electorate had been given some sort of misleading information in the campaign.
Anything would be better than how we did do it, really. :)
Well there's your problem! That's a vague reference. To a lawyer, it might obviously refer to the voter's decision with respect to the immediately preceding question. To the average UK voter, it might also refer to her decision that she wants blue skies, decent food, and a personal unicorn pony for everyone. It's hard to vote against unicorn ponies.
[EDIT:] Apparently parent just pointlessly made up something, to which I credulously responded. Sorry for the distraction.
And yes, 350M came from the Office of National Statistics, which is pretty solid.
I'm not sure what we're arguing about at this point. The referendum was advisory, that's the legal status of any decision made in it - the government chose to implement the result, but it was at full liberty not to as well. That's irrelevant at this point because things didn't go down that path 3 years ago.
It seems you think people didn't believe the government was going to implement what the people decided.
The people were told the government was going to implement what the people decided.
If you agree with the latter then let's move on with our day.
All I am saying is that now that we know that is the reality on offer, that the British people should get to vote on it. Since no-deal Brexit will lose at the ballot box, I can understand why its supporters want to avoid such a vote.
> Do you want Britain to remain or leave the EU?
With the accompanying pamphlet stating:
> The government will implement what you decide.
This includes the government negotiating with the EU. If the government must accept any deal the EU offers (because someone dislikes No Deal being on the table) then the EU will offer the worst deal possible, and has done so (the current deal has been rejected by parliament three times).