Quote:
Originally Posted by mrmistoffelees
Manifestos/campaign pledges are valid until the acquired result is achieved. The leave campaign is a good example of this.
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Not true. Failure to adhere to a previous manifesto is a frequent source of political strife during a government’s term of office and causes problems at the following election. Governments typically try to at least look like they’re following them. And when they try to do something unpopular that wasn’t in the manifesto, governments frequently find the Lords become more obstructive, because the convention that the upper house does not obstruct the Commons is weakened when the Commons itself weakens the convention that election manifestos are taken seriously.
However, besides all that, the referendum campaign was not an election and there were no manifestos nor were there any campaign pledges. Nobody was running for office. The referendum was a battle of ideas and the same British government was committed to adopting, as policy, whichever outcome prevailed.