[skissane]

> I am still stunned that Brexit was left to a 50% + epsilon referendum.

In Australia, a constitutional referendum requires a double majority to pass: both a majority nationally, and a state-wide majority in a majority of states (so at least 4 out of 6).

Unlike Australia, the UK has no written constitution, and is a unitary state with devolution instead of a federation. Still, Brexit was undeniably a constitutional-level issue, and taking the constituent countries as the analog to states, they could have adopted the same "double majority" rule in the UK for the Brexit referendum. And if they had, the referendum would have failed: it got a majority nationwide, but in only two out of four constituent countries (England and Wales but not Scotland and Northern Ireland).

A big problem the UK has – which Brexit has arguably only worsened – is its extreme lopsidedness – one of the constituent countries (England) is over 80% of the population, so a big enough English majority on any issue can override the will of the other three constituent countries. And yet there are essentially no constitutional provisions to protect against this. Adopting a "double majority" for the Brexit referendum would have been a small step in the direction of doing so, at least by establishing a precedent.

[0] The fact that it was legally non-binding is not an issue: the legislation could have simply specified the conditions under which the referendum would be "deemed to pass", and require some appropriate government official to make a formal declaration as to whether those conditions had been met or not.

[blibble]

no double majority was required to join (no referendum at all...)

requiring a double majority to leave would the definition of stacking the deck in your favour

[skissane]

Yes, but the UK has evolved a lot since 1973.

In 1973, the UK was much closer to a pure unitary state – there was no Scottish Parliament, no Welsh Parliament; the existing devolution in Northern Ireland (the Parliament of Northern Ireland) had just been abolished the previous year and the attempts to reinstate it in 1974 and 1982 proved to be short-lived failures. By 2016 there was a devolved Scottish Parliament, a devolved Welsh Assembly (designated a Parliament in 2020), and a devolved Northern Ireland assembly.

I think the evolution of devolution (pardon the pun) is a recognition that the UK needed stronger protections for Scottish/Welsh/Northern Irish rights against the English supermajority, and a "double majority" for constitutional-level national referendums would be a step further in that direction.

[zo1]

Wow I never thought about the "joining" stage of this whole brexit topic. If that's the case then that adds a whole new level of dysfunction to "democracy" as a concept.

It seems like democracy really is an experiment representative of our hope of human cooperation, and yet I'm constantly reminded that the way we actually implement and enact is very far from that ideal.

[switch007]

It wasn't the EU that we joined in 1973.

The UK joined the EEC, a very different institution