(Hazi - apologies for going off topic, but I wanted to comment on an interesting post. No intention, by the way, to pursue my point on your thread, although I might want to speak to Jim again when a Brexit thread pops up.)
Jim: "As and when the UK works out what referendums are for, we'll get around to making the rules for how to implement them. So far the UK has only held referendums to try and kill an issue, rather than to actually resolve it."
Well observed, Jim. But, notwithstanding the difficulties in the "how?", there was a moral obligation in the "what for" of this particular referendum, wasn't there?
The referendum was held because Cameron understood (from the UKIP vote) that the electorate was far more divided on EU membership than its representatives. Hence - and I paraphrase - "on this issue you the people will decide, and we the Government will implement that decision".
Was and is that issue deeply divisive? Of course. Can we do one thing or the other without sipping off a sizeable number of our fellow citizens? No. But this is, or ought to be, the thing about an exceptional recourse to plebiscite (not a thing this poster supports as a normal instrument of democracy by the way) that both "winners" and "losers" should take pride in. The last time irreconcilable philosophies clashed (is that what we're supposed to call a "binary" option these days?) was the (very similar, in my view) issue of national sovereignty: is it derived by divine appointment, or by electoral mandate? That conflict was resolved not by referendum. It was resolved by civil war.
I never thought much of those Brexiteers who crowed over their (yet to be realised and still uncertain ) victory, nor of the Remainers who set about frustrating it. I approve the principle "be magnanimous in victory and gracious in defeat" and would have accepted a Remain result, albeit with a lot of sadness and a lot of bitterness.
(Apologies again for the rant, Hazi.)