zlacker

Brexit isn't quite a counter example until they invoke Article 50, before then it's unclear whether the will of the people will be respected.

>>fleitz+(OP)
The will of the people is unclear, was unclear, and probably will be unclear for quite some time. A result so close to 50-50 is a coin toss, that's not the will of the people. That's a clear sign that it's a complex issue, more questions (more data) should be in order.

But no, let's divine the will of the people from tealeaves instead.

>>pas+S8
Well, at 52-48, it's clearly more the will of the people to leave. Not massively so, but a bit more than to remain.

Now, what do you do with that? Britain could have required some level of majority before making that change (60-40? 67-33? 75-25?), but they didn't. On the other hand, they could have made it a binding referendum, and if I understand correctly, they didn't do that, either.

But one of the big reasons people wanted to leave "the unpopular and undemocratic European Union" (as wjnc said), was that when people voted "the wrong way" (as determined by Brussels), that vote got ignored. If this vote gets ignored/sidelined/not implemented somehow, for the 52%, that's going to be pouring gasoline on a fire.

>>pas+S8
I do not understand this comment. It would be a coin toss if we were talking about random chance, but nobody flips a coin when going into a voting booth.

All that can be truthfully said is that N people wanted to stay, and N + Y wanted to leave, where Y is a small number. One of the negative sides of democracy - sometimes more people wind up disappointed than others, but the only thing that matters at the end of the day is 50% plus one person.

>>Karuna+uY
I think the point is that it's unclear what a leave vote means - particularly in regards to EEA/Single Market membership etc.

>>Animal+FR
No, that's noise, that's "so close to 50-50", it's ridiculous that we're even talking about it.

Even if most of the voters give their best effort to think this through, for a lot of them that wasn't much, other than what UKIP barfed into the air and into their minds. Now a lot of them are having second thoughts.