Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris
An abstention is an abstention - it is a decision not to voice an opinion, for whatever reason, for or against. It isn’t uncommon to hear those who are on the losing side in a vote try to co-opt the abstainers to their side of the argument, on the basis that those people didn’t support whatever was proposed, but that really won’t do. An abstention is an abstention and that’s it. You can’t use it to infer anything, with the single exception of votes where a quorum is required, in which case the rules do effectively make an abstention into a vote for the status quo.
We do not use quorums in British public voting, with one exception, that being the 1979 Scottish devolution referendum, where one was set, and devolution did not happen, despite there being a yes vote, because the quorum was not met. The result was a running sore in Scottish politics that wasn’t truly healed until Labour re-ran the referendum at its first available opportunity, in 1998.
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Your argument is based on the predicate that the referendum design itself was appropriate. I and many others disagree with this position. National structural changes should necessitate a supermajority (or quorum in your terminology above) to supply a mandate that can be viewed as authoritative and representative. What we had in 2016 was neither in my opinion.
You can and probably will say I am wrong and that is your right and I respect that. You cannot, however, say I do not have the right to say it. Posting replies with dunces hats, words like "pathetic, traitor, loser, anti-democratic," just reveals the anger felt at being presented with an opposing point of view. Anger not originating from some sense of democratic idealism, rather anger at the prospect of something so long waited for being taken away.
Engineering a referendum that was based on a pure arithmetic majority with no minimum turnout was always going to be divisive. The fact that 1 vote, or "Bob in Essex" if you will, would decide the future of a country for a generation is laughable. It shows why we do not do referenda often in the UK, we are rubbish at them. The irony here is Parliament demands a supermajority (66%) to hold a General Election and I think that the Tories imposed a similar requirement (50%?) for union strike action.
It is perverse that a supermajority is seen as appropriate for Parliament and for Unions but when the structural & macro-economic future of the country is at stake, no chance, let's just roll the dice.
What is depressing and even disturbing is the level of vitriol and anger against the people in this country who disagree with the result and how it was achieved. I mean "traitors, etc.", really?
Politicians make bad decisions and Parliament makes bad laws. The good news is that, living in a Democracy, we have the processes to undo bad decisions and repeal bad laws.