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> within the margin for error

What do people mean when they say this?

The referendum wasn't a statistical exercise that sampled a subset, so the idea of "error" seems really oddly applied here.

Good question. There's a few reasons I use that phrase and I agree with you that, from a statistical perspective, it isn't the correct usage of the term:

- There was a lot of misinformation spread (on both sides of the debate). So people were voting for issues that didn't apply.

- There were a lot of protest votes from people who assumed "Remain" would win and who also did want to remain but wanted to voice disagreement with the government and/or concern about unconditional relationships with the EU.

- There options were too vague. "Remain" largely meant keeping the status quo but some read it to mean including countries like Turkey (who were extremely unlikely to ever join the EU anyways). Likewise "Exit" meant different things to different people. Some people wanted a "hard exit" (no EU trade deal). Some people wanted to stay connected to the EU but to have a revised deal. People were voting for the same options but expecting different outcomes.

And as a result of this there had been a high number of people voice regrets about the vote they had cast in post-referendum opinion polls.

Sadly we will never know just how accurately the results reflected peoples true opinions because all calls for a follow up vote had been literally laughed at. However subsequent general elections have demonstrated just how far from settled the debate was.

I can accept that there were confounding factors which may have affected the result and how enduring a picture of UK attitudes it might be. I wonder if any referendum could be 100% free of those factors?

I just object to the use of the phrase - there is no margin for error here, it forms the full picture of how the population voted, not an estimate.

People use this phraseology, and I've even seen the term "not statistically significant" bandied around as well, to try to say that no conclusions could be drawn, as if it's a scientific paper with a sample in it.

If you acknowledge the results are not a 100% reliable indicator then there is a margin for error. The key difference is whether you look at it in the context of

  "This result is reflective of what the majority _want_"

  "This result is reflective of what the majority _voted for_"

The latter isn't always the same as the former in cases where information isn't clear or where the poll options are too vague. Both of which plagued the EU referendum.

I do get your point that "margin for error" is a statistical term and it is not technically being applied correctly here. But the crux of what that term refers to does still apply to the former context above.

As for why the context matters: because every conversion that happened since focused on the former point with MPs even coining the phrase "the will of the people" yet the people's "will" was still unclear.

That all said, I don't think there is any way such a referendum would have worked on a topic as diverse and complex as our relations with the EU.

> If you acknowledge the results are not a 100% reliable indicator

But they are a 100% reliable indicator of how people would vote, because they did vote that way. And I'm really not sure it's valid to start second guessing that what people actually wanted is different to that, because you then have to second guess every vote and really, where does thaty leave democracy?

> That all said, I don't think there is any way such a referendum would have worked on a topic as diverse and complex as our relations with the EU.

Very much agreed.

> But they are a 100% reliable indicator of how people would vote, because they did vote that way. And I'm really not sure it's valid to start second guessing that what people actually wanted is different to that, because you then have to second guess every vote and really, where does thaty leave democracy?

Normally I'd agree. But as I said, there were concerns going into the vote that the options were too vague and as a result opinion polls post-referendum showed that a considerable number of people voted for options that didn't support their opinion.

This wasn't a typical poll where you vote for a party to entrust or a narrowly defined set of options. This referendum was vague and poorly defined. In cases where that's been a problem in Europe those respective countries have then responded with second referendum after communicating clearer information, reviewing the poll options and taking other measures to ensure they accurately capture public opinion. Instead the UK called a general election and as a result muddied the conversation even further with topics like education and healthcare.

andy_ppp 1925 days ago

I see angry Europhobes on Twitter being responded to with "you won get over it" quite a bit these days...

tim333 1925 days ago

There were more remainers than leavers at the time of the referendum. It's just the young ones couldn't be bothered to vote. I mean I know that's how elections work but the "leave is the clear will of the people" stuff was guff.

Hitton 1925 days ago

I think it was fitting, considering how UK joined the EU in the first place (look up Maastricht Treaty if you don't remember it).

No it's not fitting. You don't make trillion pound economic, social and political decisions based on the whim of a popular vote. At least not unless you have powerful allies in the media and a personal interest to gain. Which is the real crux of the referendum was about. It was never about us regular folk and entirely about the self interests of those in charge. We were just pawns in a much larger game of power.

Let's back that claim up with some examples:

Why the referendum was called in the first place? Cameron never wanted a referendum but did so as an attempt to unify the Conservative party because with the right wing opinions fragmenting between multiple parties the Tories were starting to lose dominance (more parties within a set demographic on a first past the post electoral system means fewer votes for any particular party within that demographic). When the Conservatives had a near monopoly in the centre and right wing policies it meant that left wing parties could never catch up due to how fragmented they are (Green, Labour, SNP, local independents, etc) so left wing voters have always had to vote a little more tactically and go for the party most likely to win in their area and hope for a coalition. So the original goal for the referendum wasn't about addressing European issues but instead about monopolising the right wing vote which was getting fragmented by nationalist parties. Cameron assumed it was an easy win and that he could curb the tide of MPs leaving his party for more nationalistic counterparts. He's even gone on record stating this and how it turned into an epic own goal.

With regards to whether we would have been better off in or out of the EU -- frankly that's one argument I don't want to get drawn into because, frankly, nobody actually knows. Most of the arguments on both sides of the debate were FUD and the most honest point anyone made was "it's complicated and we don't really know for sure."

aembleton 1925 days ago

All of the parties apart from the SNP promised a referendum in their manifesto. The Green party and the Liberal Democrats had it in theirs for about a decade.

The referendum was advisory, so it would have been possible for parliament to vote not to enact article 50. But parliament voted for it.

> All of the parties apart from the SNP promised a referendum in their manifesto. The Green party and the Liberal Democrats had it in theirs for about a decade.

Not all the parties did. Labour, for example, also didn't. The Greens have always been fiercely pro choice so a referendum falls within their remit and LibDems have often flip flopped around the issue of Europe depending on what seems the most popular alt-vote at the time. Then you have the right wing parties who are naturally nationalistic. But many of the left-wing nationals (like SNP) were pro-Europe.

This is all moot though because my point wasn't who supported the EU but rather the Tories motives for the referendum.

> The referendum was advisory, so it would have been possible for parliament to vote not to enact article 50. But parliament voted for it.

Indeed. But that is another tangential point too. I do have opinions as to why it wasn't treated as an "advisory" vote but those are just opinions so I'll refrain from clouding the debate.

aembleton 1925 days ago

> I do have opinions as to why it wasn't treated as an "advisory" vote but those are just opinions

I'd like to hear them!

Thanks to your comment I re-checked the Labour party manifesto for the 2015 general election and you are right. They do mention a referendum but only in the case of a transfer of power from Britain to the EU:

"Labour will legislate for a lock that guarantees that there can be no transfer of powers from Britain to the European Union without the consent of the British public through an in/out referendum."

thinkingemote 1925 days ago

The same argument has been heard from Trump and his followers. Stolen votes, manipulated people.

What we need is respect for democracy.

> The same argument has been heard from Trump and his followers. Stolen votes, manipulated people.

I wasn't complaining about stolen votes. Nobody was suggesting election fraud had happened with the EU referendum.

Manipulated people, sure. But there is evidence of that with many of the claims made during the campaigns being proven false (like the Brexit bus slogan and like many of the ads reported here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-44966969). There is actually a lot of documented evidence about the misinformation that happened during the referendum on both sides of the debate (https://constitution-unit.com/2016/08/23/fact-checking-and-t...) but it didn't seem to make any difference because you'd often see the same FUD repeated (both for and against Europe) when chatting to people -- be it social media, TV/Radio call in shows or regular face to face conversations with family and friends, etc.

The question of our EU membership was such a complex one that even many experts were littering their statements with caveats and disclaimers. So it wasn't really a topic I'd have expected the layperson to be informed enough to make a good judgement of. And the targeted ads on platforms like Facebook, plus the aforementioned deliberate misinformation campaigns did little to help the situation. So I do think it's fair to call out the result of the referendum as being within a margin of error.

I do agree there have been parallels between the EU referendum and Trump's campaigns (both of them in fact). But you also do need to be careful not to dismiss the credible claims of bad practice because some egotistical oaf also happened to make wild made up claims too. There's definitely a sliding scale of misinformation where some items aren't technically inaccurate but are worded in a way that intentionally misinforms the reader (a practice often seen in click-bait headlines) but on the other end of the scale you'd have statements that are very clearly bullshit (like the Hillary child sex ring "scandal").

It's fair to say the last 5 years has been a real low point for my trust in the democratic process.

> What we need is respect for democracy.

I agree but that respect has to be earned from the campaigners rather than blindly given by the voters.

CodeGlitch 1925 days ago

When Trump was first elected, the Democrats were calling foul play and blamed Russian influences saying it wasn't a valid election.

I may be wrong, but hasn't Russian interference been more or less proven now? Trump couldn't be tied to it, but it seems like it was there.

CodeGlitch 1925 days ago

Perhaps - I'm not American so I've not been following it that closely.

My point was that the first side which started claiming faulty elections wasn't Trump.

I think that's probably not true either - Trump was claiming fraud at every turn, in the republican primaries as far back as Feb '16 - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/03/donald-trump...

He also made repeated claims of "large scale voter fraud" in the lead up to the presidential election of that year.

I also feel there's a real difference between "we have evidence Russia's been up to something, and think Trump may be involved" and "Everything that goes against me is stolen! You can't trust anything!"

> I'm not American so I've not been following it that closely.

Neither am I, but from what I can tell the Mueller report came back saying it didn't have enough to pursue, or really link Trump, but something was definitely up. Various Trump supporters went to jail over that report IIRC as well, having lied. Very murky dealings.