In reply to john yates:
The flippant answer would be that I wouldn't have any reason to be vociferous, since we wouldn't have a shothole in one foot and still be intent on tying ourselves to a rail track
More seriously though, I believe you are mistaken if you think I have been vociferous in claims about the validity of referendums. They can be a vital asset within a democratic framework and play an important role in maintaining constitutional integrity. I happen to work in the field of international elections and it's very clear to me that in this case the referendum did not conform to good practice international norms, principally in two ways:
1. Constitutional change should require a higher threshold than a simple majority. At the very least it should require 50%+ of the entire electorate, rather than the turnout, but most usually in modern constituencies it is expressed as a two-thirds majority of those casting ballots. In reality, if the vote had gone marginally the other way, the outcome should have been similar, i.e. there is no clear mandate for fundamental constitutional change unless a very clear majority of people want it.
2. If two options are presented, the implications of each need to be clearly explained. This was reasonably clear, almost trivially so, on the Remain side. But Leave campaigners were arguing a wide variety of often mutually exclusive outcomes, meaning that most people voting for Leave would end up with something they weren't hoping for. It sounded simple enough,'Do you want to stay in the EU?' Yes or No. But that's like asking people if they want to change the national anthem, and then being surprised, after a majority said Yes, when they ended up with an anthem they thought was worse than the one we started with. Ah, but you voted for change, so you need to start enjoying the theme tune to Dad's Army.
So you'll see I'm not 'vociferous in [my] claim about the validity of referendums', but I do have huge and substantiated qualms about the validity of this one.