Brexit and the Problem with Referendums

Government policies aren’t normally decided through referendums. There are good reasons for this. And one of the main ones is that such referendums could easily result in a bunch of policies that are inconsistent — or even completely incompatible — with one another.

The obvious example is that ‘the people’ might vote for lower taxes, whilst simultaneously voting for increased government spending and a reduction in government debt. And good luck with trying to achieve all three of those objectives simultaneously!

So, instead of referendums, the UK has an electoral system in which each of the competing parties is supposed to present a coherent policy agenda — a set of policies which are at least consistent with one another. Come election time, one party will usually be selected to get the chance to enact their particular policy agenda.

It’s not about individual policies. It’s about a complete set of major policies that are supposed to work together as part of an overall strategy.

That policy agenda may not have (and probably will not have) the support of the majority of people. It’s usually just the policy agenda that happens to be the most popular one out of all the competing policy agendas available to choose from in that particular election.