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Referendums: A 'yes' or 'no' vote offered to the public on…
Referendums: A 'yes' or 'no' vote offered to the public on a single issue
How they have been used since 1997:
For Devolution under tony blair 1997
To consider replacing FPTP in 2011 (AV referendum)
No result: 67.9%
Scottish independence referendum 2014
To give the UK a vote on leaving the EU 2016
Yes result: 52%
They have been used more commonly in devolved bodies compared to the UK (only 3 in the UK).
Why they are called
Respond to public pressure: In 2015, growing public pressure for a Brexit referendum and the growing popularity of UKIP led to David Cameron calling a brexit referendum.
To solve party division: The conervatives were divided among 'leavers' and 'remainers' and the clear result defined them as the party for leaving the EU. (Although they were further divided over what type of brexit to take place)
An agreement between parties: 2011 AV referendum was part of a coalition agreement between the Lib Dems and Conservatives.
Legitimise constitutional change: Legitimised Boris Johnson's decision to go ahead with brexit. It did now however legitimise other decisions like the reform to the Supreme Court.
Drawbacks:
Referendums can be ignored, wasting the publics time.
MPs such as Dominic Grieve described the EU refrerendum as an 'advisory referendum', showing it does not solve party division.
Simplifies 'yes, no' decisions
After the brexit referendum, it was still unclear what type of brexit would take place, whether that was 'hard' or 'soft'. This led to further party division.
Public lack political knowledge
It was unclear to lots of people in the brexit referendum what the economic impacts. YouGov polls show that a third of people that voted 'yes' in the referendum think Brexit has been a failiure.
Benefits
Gives the public a choice on important constitutional change