The Government have made it clear that the constitutional treaty will be ratified in the UK only after a referendum.
The recession is everywhere. We need to be heard. Wouldn't it be great if there could be more referendums so we could have regular voting on specific points?
My preoccupation has been from the very beginning that I believe that the "Brexit" referendum result is the most disastrous peacetime result that we've seen in Britain.
My main worry about referendums is that you are taking a very complicated political question that requires knowledge of a bunch of background facts in the social sciences and you're handing that question to people who don't know those facts and in fact, are systematically misinformed about them.
Should National Security Issues be decided by a Local Referendum?
It is a necessary precondition for the success of a referendum that there should be broad community consensus and bipartisan support for it.
There were lots of programs over the course of the two referendums and the general tenor of them was that if Quebec were to separate, then Canada would disintegrate.
No, a euro referendum will not be part of a government programme if we get the chance to form one.
Boris [ Johnson]and Dave [Cameron] gnawed each other's testicles [during the Tory civil war which blighted the EU referendum].
No treaty should be ratified without consulting the British people in a referendum
I don't understand why Italians should be bound to Brussels's choices without being able to express themselves through a referendum.
I find it surprising, however, that many German politicians generally oppose referendums, but then when it's an EU matter, they immediately scream for a plebiscite.
Referendums are a democratic instrument, but so are decisions reached in a parliamentary democracy. I advise extreme caution when it comes to referendums. In Germany too.
There were a number of referendums in '98 that most of the things I voted for passed. That's very satisfying when you feel that most of the country is in step with your views.
Referendums have always posed a threat when it comes to EU policy, because EU policy is complicated. They're an opportunity for those from all political camps who like to oversimplify things.
