From: Steve Shaw - PM
Date: 13 Oct 17 - 06:49 AM

Well you cast your vote in both. In the one you are choosing who you want to represent you and run the affairs of the parish/town/county/nation. Next time round you can change your mind or vote again for the same lot. Or you can vote tactically. There are various ways of deciding who’s won. In this country we have an unfair first-past-the-post system. In the other we are either voting for an irrevocable (more or less) decision to make a significant change (no next time round) or a reversible decision (another referendum is perfectly possible) to keep the status quo. Which is why an unqualified first-past-the-post setup is simply not right for referendums.

I think you're confusing 'first past the post' with 'simple majority' voting.

The main problems with 'first past the post' is that it is used for general elections and will result in one group getting many more MPs (who each just get first place with a small portion of the population) than their overall 'vote-share' would suggest.
The alternate to this could be 'proportional representation'.

For a referendum, the only question is what percentage of the total vote is obtained by either side of the question. The referendum will set out what percentage is required for one side to be a decisive winner. 'proportional representation' would have no benefits here. We can't pull the UK 52% out of the EU. We needed to decide whether to be in or out. 'Tactical voting' would have no effect. The only sensible thing to do is to vote for the outcome that you would wish to see.