You've been given exactly what people were given Iains - if you have any proof to the contrary, please give it
The Financial Times puts it quite well (can't link to it, so I've put it up in full - well worth reading
Hope the FT s not too "leftie" for you
Jim Carroll

UK approach to referendums needs ‘overhaul’
Independent commission says vote should take place after significant preparation
Henry Mance, Political Correspondent JULY 10, 2018 Print this page85
The UK’s approach to referendums needs “wholesale reform”, and major constitutional changes should be subject to a second vote once the details have been worked out, an expert panel has concluded.
The Independent Commission on Referendums, run by University College London, is one of the most detailed attempts so far to reform the use of referendums, following the votes on Brexit and Scottish independence.
The panel said that Britain should only hold referendums where parliament would know what to enact after the vote, and where governments had first undertaken “significant preparatory work”.
That is an implicit rebuke for the former prime minister David Cameron, who refused to allow contingency planning for a Leave vote. Brexiters have blamed Mr Cameron’s approach for many of the difficulties in negotiations with the EU.
The UCL panel also concluded that referendums should normally take place once the relevant legislation has been passed. If a referendum takes place without detailed plans for change being set out, a further vote should be held once they are.
That finding could give succour to those now calling for a second Brexit vote, before Britain leaves the EU in March 2019. However, the panel made clear that its report was not retrospective, and that the prospect of a second referendum should be made clear before the first vote was held. Public appetite for a second Brexit vote varies depending on whether it is described as “a second referendum” or “a vote on the deal”.
In the past two decades, referendums have taken place on Brexit, Scottish independence, electoral reform, Welsh devolution and peace in Northern Ireland. The Brexit vote, in particular, has exposed constitutional tensions between the popular will, parliamentary democracy and legal safeguards. Yet opinion polls have showed support for more referendums in future.
UCL’s panel, which included two pro-Brexit and two anti-Brexit politicians, said that referendums should not be seen as quick-fix solutions, but as “coexisting alongside” representative institutions.

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Alan Renwick, an academic at UCL, said that citizens’ assemblies could be held before future referendums, “to consider the issues and work out what the options should be — as was done successfully before Ireland’s recent referendum on abortion”.
However, the panel shied away from other potential safeguards — such as introducing a threshold for turnout, or a ‘supermajority’ requirement for a referendum to back major constitutional change. A “simple majority is considered sufficient for electing MPs and for almost all parliamentary decisions, even those of major constitutional importance”, it noted.
Deborah Mattinson, a pollster and a member of the panel, said the public appetite for referendums followed from a decline in trust in politicians and an expectation that politics should be participatory. Young people were more likely than old people to favour more referendums, she said.