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?

"the majority of postal voters were older and statistically more predisposed to leave the uk"

I haven't seen any demographics on postal votes, is this right? In the 2015 GE, postal voters were much more likely to vote than in person voters (86% returned their ballot vs 64% or something in person)

No I don't.

Fantastic letter which has been sent to all MPs. Really worth a read.

www.nchlondon.ac.uk/2016/07/01/professor-c-graylings-letter-650-mps-urging-parliament-not-support-motion-trigger-article-50-lisbon-treaty-1-july-2016/

I hope history will remember the lot of them as the conniving, over privileged, self serving weasel shits that they are.

^ this

no

There shouldn't have been a referendum if he believed the economic damage would be disastrous. By agreeing to a referendum it suggests a no vote was a legitimate option for the country.
I think conservative remainers should have voted differently if they truly didn't want to leave the EU.

Absolutely not, completely irresponsible, it’s split the country by age and by region, trashed our reputation and threatened the economy. What’s the point of an expensive education at Eton if it produces idiots like Cameron and Johnson? Thanks Figment and crossroads for the links to thoughtful pieces by intelligent grown-ups.

No

He let the odious Farage and UKIP and the far right of his party get to him.

People were forced in to making a decision they really weren't qualified to make, which will have consequences it was (in part) difficult to forsee (very easy to forsee some of the consequences sadly) which resulted in a protest vote about national issues rather than global politics.

He's an idiot. His mother must weep when she thinks about how much money they pissed up the wall on his education.

Anyway what shall we have a referendum on next?
Quantitative easing?
A return to the gold standard?

This is his political epitath. He will be torn apart in the history books. One of the most monumentally stupid miscalculations in British history.

No he should not have. The country has split apart because of the overweening egos of two Eton school boys trying to score prestige points. I am just amazed at the media bias which should be tearing them - and the conservative party for allowing this debacle - apart, but are instead making it a complete Corbyn failure, making him the total fall guy. In my opinion Boris should never have even been a contender for leadership. And if there's any justice the conservatives will be voted out in the next election. But I won't hold my breath. I am now totally disaffected by politics. The cynical power grabbing way politcians are behaving in the wake of this debacle disgusts me to the core.

I agree with you, Errol.

no

it's the crux of the whole thing

This could never be decided by referendum. People do not have access to good information or the means to evaluate it

Roughly 20% of voters would have cast postal votes, meaning that they had already voted well before any of the higher profile campaigning got underway

I wonder how many of these postal voters would have possibly changed their minds had they voted later or on the day.

Yes, and it should have happened before Maastricht. Most people who feel this way knew how they were going to vote without the preposterous campaign.

No, I don't believe in referendums. We have a parliamentary democracy. It was an abdication of responsibility. If there was a referendum to bring back hanging people would vote in favour, encouraged by the tabloids

1. There should have been a referendum before Maastricht. John Major failed the country by not giving us this choice.
2. People in this country have been calling for a referendum since then. We even had a Referendum party at one point (in 1997 GE, maybe at other times?) which UKIP evolved sideways from. The Tories were out of power between 1997 and 2010.
3. I believe that the referendum was in the Conservative manifesto in 2010, but wasn't enacted because of the LIb Dem coalition. It was therefore nothing to do with UKIP. I don't know if it was in their manefestos in 1997, 2001 and 2005? It may have been.
4. The arguement that the electorate aren't clever enough to vote in a referendum doesn't hold sway unless you don't believe we are clever enough to chose MPs and therefore the government either.

Regardless of the outcome, I've been questioning why we were having a referendum on this ever since it was announced.
I thought Paxman summed it up well in an article I read earlier this week:
"Going for a referendum on the country’s geopolitical state as if it was a council regulation on dog-fouling was a very big mistake."

Wrt (4) there, BurnTheBlackSuit:
What in your opinion is the point of representative democracy?

&We have a parliamentary democracy. It was an abdication of responsibility. If there was a referendum to bring back hanging people would vote in favour, encouraged by the tabloids*

^ this

I can't believe that we are going to go ahead with such a massive change to our constitution and to our lives on the basis of last week's ill informed, based on lies, and populist vote. I really hope parliament comes to its senses and holds its own debate and vote regardless if the apparently massive mandate that 37% of the electorate gives the government to massively fuck our lives over. I feel constantly sick and anxious.

This letter which has been sent to all MPs by a professor, puts it very calmly and articulately.

www.nchlondon.ac.uk/2016/07/01/professor-c-graylings-letter-650-mps-urging-parliament-not-support-motion-trigger-article-50-lisbon-treaty-1-july-2016/

We have a parliamentary democracy. It was an abdication of responsibility. If there was a referendum to bring back hanging people would vote in favour, encouraged by the tabloids

This bit was meant to be in bold.

No he wasn't. It was a huge gamble on his part and it backfired spectacularly.

It was a huge gamble and Cameron will almost surely go down in history in ignominy. Eventually some sort of order will emerge, but it's most likely to take a generation to do so.

Cameron and Johnson won't be the ones to suffer - they are already extremely wealthy men, so will easily ride out a recession, if that comes.

I think that there is a reasonable argument to be advanced that the disquiet expressed by many - both politicians and electorate - about membership of the EU was a distraction, and that calling a referendum was a way of lancing that boil. There was a real risk that this disquiet could otherwise have been expressed in a much stronger vote for UKIP at a general election and, in general, it's not good for the country as a whole for politics to be dominated by single-issue protest parties. If that were Cameron's rationale for calling the referendum, I can see that it is a defensible position. I had personally welcomed the referendum; I had seen how, in other countries, properly run referenda had resulted in a more informed and engaged electorate. There is no defence for Cameron calling a referendum without setting out proper rules of engagement beforehand on how the campaigns should be managed, on civilised and truthful debate, and on what a valid result would look like. I don't hold these views because I'm a sore loser, weeping into my prosecco. I voted remain, because the trading deal we had with the EU was one of the most one-sided deals (in our favour) that any trading nation has managed to negotiate - but for me, personally, a Brexit is a massive payday. I hold these views because I see it as being in the interests of the country as a whole that we have an engaged and informed electorate who feel that their voice can be heard, whatever their opinion. That's the minimum we should be asking for as citizens, frankly.

However, we have now had more than two decades of the Conservative Party's internal bickering about membership of the EU, and my belief is that Cameron called the referendum as yet another sticking plaster to hold together this dysfunctional family. The great appeal of the Conservative Party historically has been that it is a broad church but when reasoned debate is replaced by bickering and backstabbing, the only honest thing to do is to split and for each faction to stand by its own beliefs.

If the true reason for the referendum was to prefer the interests of the Conservative Party over the interests of the country as a whole, then Cameron should be ashamed.

too early to say
this is just the immediate fallout, no one can predict how it will all pan out and what the rest of the world will ultimately do in response

the end result may be something no one can envisage right now

He was downright stupid to let it get this far. Public is not educated/informed/bothered enough to worry about complex issues like these and he handed them the power to vote. Absolute idiocity