Can a referendum be valid if won on lies?

I suppose it might have been more sensible to try and gauge the mood of the nation before announcing the date of the referendum?! If it appeared hostile then surely a bit of work from our politicians talking to people in all walks of life, even those racists, sexist, homophobics, uneducated (them in particular!) might have made these morons see things differently! initial complacency played a part in this vote, never underestimate a moron!!!

I have not t looked up the numbers or percentages of the last referendum so I accept what Niggly says that two thirds - 66% voted to join which means that 33% did not - that is a convincing majority. Had this last referendum had such a decisive result I doubt that anyone would say otherwise and would just accept the result. It was not like that - 4% of those that voted is a very small amount and we know that 28% did not vote at all - many because they seemed to admit they failed to understand it all and had no idea of what to vote. They in fact did not vote for any change - when taken into account the percentages of people who definitely did wish for a change looks a bit different.
It is also questionable if the EU rules for a referendum were adhered to - some lawyers are looking into that I believe. No politicians are totally honest - I accept that - but for so many blatant lies to be told must be a win by deception. Athletes from the Olympics have had their medals taken away due to use of drugs - winning by deception - this is equally serious and the number of people it will affect directly is vastly more. Maybe we need a new law about elections and how economical politicians can be with the truth in their manifesto.

Are there such things as EU rules for a referendum?

My understanding is that there is nothing in British constitutional law about referendums(a?), which is why it's now being challenged.

As far as I understand (and could be wrong) a referendum is only advisory, so there are no rules. Therefore, it's a political rather than a legal matter. It would be a very brave (and foolish) government, however, which ignored it completely!

Yes, Sadly I think there should be, but at the moment there are none, you can't introduce some retrospectively! You could argue that the 28% who didn't vote at all didn't vote to leave or equally to remain, cancelling out their vote. You can't say whether it would have tipped the scales one way or the other, as you can't categorically say how they would have voted at the time despite what they're saying now..
Athletes have a clear set of moral rules which they have to adhere to, referendums and elections don't. For the record I and DH voted with enormous enthusiasm to join the Common Market all those years ago, and it was with enormous sadness and regret that I felt overwhelmingly, forty years along the line that we needed to leave. A bit like a marriage that started with so much promise hope and good will, and that has now become completely sour to the point of divorce.

It seems that there are EU rules which have been in place for some years but I have no idea whether they are advisory or compulsory - I assume they are advisory or we would have conformed. It was somewhat cavalier of Cameron to be so certain of victory he went with the first past the post system when most others in Europe have not. He should have learned his lesson from the GE results which landed him in this mess!

'The paradox of article 50 can be characterised as follows:

Leave Supporter: “We want our own Parliament to be sovereign on matters to do with the EU!”

Response: “Like on whether to Leave then?”

Leave Supporter: “No.”

Those who campaigned Leave so as to uphold Parliamentary Sovereignty are now unhappy at prospect of Parliament being sovereign about whether to Leave.'

We have parliamentary sovereignty, and that's what was voted for. Lots on here have said they wanted their sovereignty back. That means there should be a debate in parliament after MPs have agreed what they want, or have been told what they can have by the EU. MPs can still say that's not what we wanted so we will not invoke article 50.

They could, but parliament is the servant of the people so to go against the will of the people makes a mockery of democracy. Why have a referendum if you are only going to accept a majority that you approve of?! Bye bye democracy and hello dictatorship.

I think that this referendum has caused a lot more upset and upheaval than any other form of election the UK has witnessed. This time people are petitioning Parliament in their thousands and writing to their MPs etc - not normal behaviour for British people at all. So how do the MPs decide what is truly the will of the people?
Naturally the Brexiters will say obviously the referendum result that is the legal one -but many lawyers etc disagree with that argument - still very complex but no doubt it will all come out in the wash.

nigglynellie

You mean as they did with the Ireland referendum some time back.

Don't agree with you, vote again and again and again until you toe the line. Democracy, pah, only on 'my/our terms'.

The Irish Referendum needed a percentage of the population to actually vote (75% I think) and the result needed to be 60/40%. The first referendum did not have the numbers so was held again. The strange thing was our referendum did not have this sort of stipulation.

It's called representative democracy.

If it were a proper democracy, there would not be all the trouble there is in the Labour party at the moment. MPs would do as their constituents wanted.

Exactly, this is the downside of true democracy, it can work against you as well as for you unless you have built in safe guards such as percentages to make sure, as much as you possibly can that you get the result you want. Good idea to have, like 1975, a few opinion polls just to get a bit of an idea of public opinion before allowing the people to have a vote. Not really democracy at all in the true sense of the word, what's happening in labour is, but like the referendum, giving the 'wrong' result. How arrogant of parliament when MP's voted to allow a referendum just to assume that the result would go their way without any fail safes. No good crying about your own stupidity after the event, the rules were as they were and what's done is done, you can't with hind sight alter anything otherwise it can happen again and again in the future whether we like it or not and makes a mockery of democracy and parliament.

If half-a-dozen more than 50% of the populationvoting for something automatically made it law, then a few weeks later half-a-dozen more than 50% of them voted for the opposite and the law changed again, legality would shift back and forward like a Wimbledon volley, on the basis of a tiny majority each way.

The proportion of people succeeding in reversing an important decision can't just be set at "more than half" because of the natural variation ion voting patterns from one day to the next.

55/45 is one reasonable split, 60/40 is an even more positive indication of the desire for a permanent reversal. These are figures generally used by organisations making sweeping changes to a constitutuion - and it is often more than that, and has to be of the total membership, not of those who are keen enough to take the trouble to vote.

Yes, but on this occasion it was first past the winning post, just like a running race! These were the rules at the time of voting. You can't change them after the event and try again just to get the right result! No point in voting for anything if the rules and the result can be changed because it's the 'wrong' one. The rules should have been carefully thought out in the first place, and only MPs can be blamed for not doing this fairly obvious task.

Exactly! The structure was flawed, because the answer was assumed from the start.

Exactly! A lesson here, never be so arrogant as to presume anything!! MPs across the house were guilty of this glaringly cavalier attitude! Bottom line it's not the fault of the old, the young who didn't vote or the uneducated racist morons, the blame lies fairly and squarely with out of touch blinkered MPs who allowed this method of first past the post to be accepted without any apparent inkling that it might go wrong. Unbelievable really!!

Were MPs across the house given a say about the way this referendum was set up or was it just announced by David Cameron without consulting any of them?