For the sake of improving discussion on Brexit, we need to go back to the start, to the origin of the problem: Brexit was a proto-referendum. In one of my articles I talked why Remain MPs, no matter how painful that my be, should revoke Article 50. By now this is very controversial move which, I can imagine, causing great fear in many MPs who already voted to invoke Article 50, but, for the sake of going out of this crisis – which new general election probably won’t solve – they need to prepare ground for the second referendum, but in order to prepare it, they need valid argument. 

Why Brexit wasn’t proper referendum and why Britain in the future shouldn’t hold new one if MPs are not 100% sure they will bind to the result? 

Britain is actually mimicking referendums. And it’s in position for doing so because referendums are not binding. In that sense, as I already mention in previous article, the British could vote in referendum to remove Earth from the Solar System, and that kind of referendum, without any cynicism, would be equally legit as Brexit, and the request to MPs to implement it, would be equally legit as well. 

If Britain want just to mimic referendums, at least they need to copy the whole process from the countries where referendums are binding. And that means only one thing: referendums can be hold only with already proposed legislation, in which voters would just replace the role of MPs for specified vote. The tricky part about referendums is, you can reject anything endless times, but the problem is if you confirm something which is not defined, like Brexit. In that kind of circumstances, MPs and government are in the position to assume – not process – the will of referendum, which is, as we can see, the case of interpretation, political struggle, populism. Referendum didn’t decided anything, it just opened endless political chapters for interpretation. 

In countries where referendums are binding, the fix is easy: you can vote only for already prepared legislation. If referendums are binding, you need legislation first. This is the first step before any referendum. In referendums where results are binding your confirm or reject. This is making those referendums – which is the main pillar and the main purpose for any referendum – unambiguous. That’s why Britain need confirmatory referendum. In Britain, the referendum was just an expression of desire, and nothing more. That’s possible because they are not binding and they don’t need to satisfy any legislation. That’s why discussion need to come back to origin of the problem, otherwise the British public is dealing with symptoms only, not with the cause, and the cause is not the will to leave EU, but the referendum which is ambiguous, and that’s unacceptable, like undefined variable in math or algorithm: you can’t get any kind of tenable result. 

Public in UK will go in endless loop with no conclusion, if discussion isn’t placed on the origin of the problem: this kind of referendum caused ambiguous result, because of its nature, and thus, another referendum with unambiguous result is needed. Not Leave or Remain, but Yes or No, For or Against certain law.