Legitimacy of the Brexit referendum

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/12/legitimacy-of-the-brexit-referendum

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The government’s response to the petition for a second referendum states that “The European Union Referendum Act received royal assent in December 2015, receiving overwhelming support from parliament. The act did not set a threshold for the result or for minimum turnout.” In fact, nowhere in the act is there any definition of the status of the referendum or any stipulation as to the way in which its results are to be evaluated. This seems to me to suggest that the referendum is a nullity and represents yet another example of the catastrophic failure of governance that the Westminster system allows to happen all too often. So we lurch, ill-prepared, from one crisis to the next.

Reading the debates and discussions as the bill passed through its stages reveals that no MP at any time raised these vital issues. Even the most humble club or society has provision in its constitution for such procedures to be followed. Indeed, the government is hell-bent on imposing the most stringent threshold and turnout requirements on trade union ballots. Until we get a written constitution and a reform of the adversarial nature of parliament to allow more focused scrutiny of legislation, we shall be destined to see endless repeats of this sorry state of affairs.Paul GarlandSaffron Walden, Essex

• In “Britain is changed utterly. Unless this summer is just a bad dream” (9 July), Ian McEwan calls the EU referendum “a creature imagined into being by the Conservative party alone. It, not Ukip, offered the referendum; it fought it, it won as well as lost it.” It’s true that the referendum was a Tory initiative, but I am surprised that neither McEwan nor any of the commentary I have read since the vote mentions the overwhelming cross-party support for it in parliament.

The European Union Referendum Act of 2015 passed the Commons 544-53 on second reading. The House of Lords also approved. Only the Scottish Nationalists opposed the bill; other parties, even the Liberal Democrats and the Greens, agreed not just on holding the referendum but on structuring it as a single vote, a one-day plebiscite requiring only a simple majority nationwide to pass – no supermajority, no “multiple lock” recognising Britain’s constituent parts, no later confirming vote and no requirement for a detailed prospectus of the leave position.

Any of those parties or their leaders could have said at the time that this was a careless and dangerous way to proceed. Why didn’t they? And what responsibility does that give them for the resulting mess?Jeff SmithBrno, Czech Republic

• I am one of the numerous barristers who turned down the invitation to sign an open letter to the prime minister advising him (or her) not to activate the article 50 procedure to leave the EU (1,000 barristers say parliament must take final Brexit decision, , 11 July). Barristers are of course entitled to submit any letters they wish to the prime minister, but we need to remember that – outside our own professional area of the law – barristers, collectively and individually, possess no greater wisdom or insight into the affairs and government of our country than any other citizen. Unfortunately the letter comments on what are essentially political rather than legal matters, and as such has no greater significance than the views of the regulars at the Rovers Return.

The suggestion that there must be primary legislation to trigger article 50 is not supported by any legal argument and ignores the fact that the referendum and its question was set out in primary legislation. Since the electorate has given a clear answer to the question “Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?” the government has been given statutory authority to leave the EU through the article 50 procedure.

The rule of law relies ultimately on acceptance by society. If the electorate believe that their democratic will is being thwarted by the sort of legal trickery proposed in the barristers’ letter then the results could be very dangerous.Neil AddisonLiverpool

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