When governments make decisions that you disagree with, you are not "disenfranchised." You will have had your say in who governs, and next time round you can vote them out. There is no democratic imperative that ensures that both sides of an argument are represented in parliament. Millions of people agreed with Enoch Powell's call for repatriation of blacks. The fact that no major party backed him does not mean that those millions were disenfranchised. Millions of people would like to bring back hanging. The fact that there is no parliamentary appetite for it doesn't mean that all those people are disenfranchised. The fact that there is no split along party lines for legalising fox hunting with dogs doesn't mean that thousands of hooray Henrys are disenfranchised. You have the vote and things don't always go your way. Not since I was a little lad collecting numbers for the Labour Party polling stations, except for a couple of years when I lived in Poplar, have I lived in a constituency that had a Labour MP but that doesn't mean that I've been disenfranchised (or that I've always lived in posh areas). You're disenfranchised, or at least have yet to become enfranchised, because you're under 18 for example, when you're prevented from voting at all. The referendum result was a complete disaster and I was devastated by it, but, as I was allowed to vote in it, I'm not disenfranchised by the outcome. Your complaint that no major party wanted out of the EU rings hollow now that no major party has either voted against having a referendum or against Article 50. You're hardly fighting my corner for me, are you, about the fact that, according to your stance (not mine), I've been disenfranchised? To take your argument to the absurd, no major party is in support of making free chip butties available on street corners at Saturday kicking-out time, a policy I could find myself fighting for (and losing). Doesn't mean I'd be disenfranchised, no matter how foolish tbe decision to reject the policy.   Resort to a dictionary.