Regardless of the outcome of the EUref and your position on it - Do you think Cameron was right to even call a referendum in the first place?

[AdrenalineFudge]

Just curious? I think he could have still won the election without calling a referendum on the EU. The whole issue of 'shy' tories coming out in force to elect the Conservatives as the major governing party.

That said, it was the first time a new generation would be able to decide on their future in the EU - make what you will of exit polls in that most people who will have to deal with the consequences voted to remain but do you think that the referendum was needed in the first place?

Sounds like just another moan from the losing remainers

Not really, many of us were loudly saying this before last Thursday. We elect the MPs to make these hard decisions for us, to send this to the electorate and not ensure they were informed on the actual issue is ridiculous. I'd have felt the same way had we been winning remainers, or had I been a winning Brexiteer.

I don't.

It was however in their manifesto

No. It was a very clear attempt to win votes at the last general election.
Cameron will go down in history as the man who broke up the UK and removed the Great from Britain.

He did it to solve the huge rift in the Conservative party.
If remain had won he would have shut them up once and for all.
Unfortunately it didn't.

Definitely not.

No. DC did it thinking it would lance the boil of eurosepticism that has bedeviled the tory party for decades, and defuse UKIP. He presumably thought that a healthy majority would vote Remain, and that would be that out of the way for a few years. It obviously never occurred to him that his bluff would be called, or else the referendum would have been a simple yes/no majority vote with no clue as to what Leave meant. Of course, during the campaign the consequences were spelled out by numerous experts - how could he have predicted that the 'project fear' meme and gove somehow turning 'expert' into a dirty word? And of course he didn't know when he promised the referendum what boris would do - even boris didn't know.

I think it was a 'put up or shut up' - that had worked for Major, but he was only gambling his position not the future of the country and perhaps the EU.

Probably what he should have done is to call a leadership election for the tory party, against a europhobe, with the clear understanding that the party should then align whichever way - if anti eu then go into the next GE with a manifesto pledge to leave during the next parliament if they had a majority.

Wrong to call it.

Before calling it, wrong not to have commissioned a strictly impartial analysis of the fiscal and social outcomes of Remain and Exit.

Having called it, wrong to not include checks and balances such as thresholds for turn-out and majority.

Having not got the intended result, wrong to get ready to go home and leave someone else to clean up the mess.

Our DCs, who fortunately were able to vote on their future, are all currently busily renewing their Irish passports!

Yes, it was the right thing to do.

Yes and we should have been asked before signing Mastricht in 1992.
I have been waiting all these years to say No.

It will go down as one of the most stupid political blunders in modern British constitutional history.

In all honesty, do you not think that an opt out from ever greater Union was a good concession?

In all honesty cant you look at the original sign up terms and see how words have been interpreted to mean something else entirely.

No it wont figment.

Helmet - not true. I went to an interesting comparative lecture on this at kings before the referendum. Harold Wilson made exactly the same mistake for all the same reasons - hoping to make the issue go away once and for all. And ...

1 he lost the election to Heath
2 the issue didn't go away as planned.

So Cameron should have read up first.

I think he was thinking of hoe own political career fist second third and fourth ... then the country as a by product. He only allowed the referendum to be in the party manifesto because he understood that UKIP may otherwise take marginal seats at the election.

If he had any honesty as a politician he would have refused to include a referendum in the manifesto and fight the election on what he actually believed in. I can only hope his future is far from rosy.

Did Harold Wilson make referendum an electoral promise and then lost election?

He would have had a referendum if he'd won then?

What wasn't true what I said?

(Very woolly on the seventies here!)

Ah ok so it was him who called it - also hoping to put the question to bed finally but it cost him the next election?

So the not true bit was shutting them up once and for all? I didn't say I thought that but surely that was dcs plan, no?

Yes he was right to call it.

Without it anyway, UKIP would have become huge with many seats won at the next election, and with Farage at the helm.

I strongly believe that if we don't come out now as promised, that's what will happen. UKIP support will rise sharply.

I think if it wasn't happening now, it was inevitable for the near future.

No. He shouldn't have called it.

He just wanted to win the general election by appealing to the right.

There was no need. He could have just run honestly or lost to his opponent gracefully.

He didn't.

Here is a thoughtful piece which touches on this and other aspects of the referendum.

www.historyandpolicy.org/opinion-articles/articles/the-eu-referendum-result-in-historical-perspective

No he shouldn't. We elect leaders for a reason, to lead.

Dickhead.

I think we should have had a referendum but it should have been done properly with any requirements on turnout and margins specified and a neutral commission to oversee it and provide accuracy. There should also have been proper plans in place for both outcomes rather than the chaos we have now

I hope this is remembered as Cameron's legacy, his arrogance and hubris has caused this and he does not deserve to be remembered well

No. It was a huge mistake.

Putting a countries economy in to the hands of the general public is never a wise choice, regardless of the outcome.

I'm Irish and used to referenda, but we have a constitution and would vote on clear wording/insertions, and have a referendum commission which ensures households have unbiased information from both sides.

For the UK, to vote on this monumental decision without such a commission, and with a history of representative rather than direct democracy seems foolish in the extreme.

The impression I got is he did it to try and neutralise the UKIP vote which was threatening marginal seats.
I think without the referendum promise, the threat was UKIP would have gained more prominence