BBC Parliament to repeat EU referendum results

In % terms it was small. Statistically that's the important figure as it takes into account the number if people who voted.

It was a smaller margin than would be acceptable by a lot of other referendums which require a clear consensus

But at least we'll all get blue passports hey. That's what really matters.

Bringing it back to TV and trying to justify the last few pages of quite interesting debate the Brexit papers are quite happy to scream "FIX" when a reality show doesn't go the way they expect and a favourite is voted out, and heck I'm sure on at least on one occasion such things have been bought up in parliament as well. But question Brexit - that's treason!

I've always said it should have been a two vote process (and I said it for the Scottish Independence referendum too), with the first vote being on the idea and the second being on the reality.

Really though it should never have got to the polls without a clear blueprint in place, with policies put in place before such a vote to encourage self sufficiency as a country and make any exit far less risky. In any other walk of life a binding vote would never take place on such an unprepared motion.

Well Donald Trump WON with over twice that many fewer votes than Hillary clinton, so you know...

In terms of 33 million people voting- 1.2 million just isn't a huge margin. Certainly not big enough to ride roughshod over the country, declare it the "will of the people" and not even try to compromise. Most major consitutional referendums in the world need a much bigger margin than that to pass, 50% just isn't enough for such a massive issue with such big consequences.

And I'm sure 1.2 million wouldn't be seen as such a big margin by the brexiteers had it been a remain victory won on a pack of lies...

I remember the morning after the vote and there was that clip of Faisal Islam on Sky News saying the leave campaign told him neither they or Number 10 had a plan. It seemed horribly shocking and incompetent at the time, and almost impossible to believe, but of course the way things have panned out two years on it's obvious they didn't have a plan, and still don't, with them just writing softer and softer proposals on the back of fag packets just to be rejected by the EU as unworkable, because it's clear barely anyone involved has any real idea how the EU works.

This is why certain major issues should have rules regarding acceptable margins for deciding such issues. In the US, constitutional changes require not just a 2/3rds majority in Congress, but also 75% of all states voting in favour of it.

The minimum requirement should be a 2/3rds majority of a 75% turnout. Not meeting those criteria, either because the turnout is too low, or the majority isn't enough, should mean it doesn't happen, and by those standards, we wouldn't have gone through all the chaos that is Brexit.

And with reports that Theresa May's party might be preparing for a leadership election, as they already consider her position untenable, and other reports that she is considering calling another snap election, you can expect the chaos to continue for a while yet.

The American electoral system is broken and always has been.

The margin is large because the turnout was high. The chances of getting such a turnout again are slim to nil; if it were a low turnout, then the margin would be more defeatable and much less significant.

If that were the case back in 1975, the vote to stay in the EEC wouldn't have reached your threshold.

But we'd joined by that point, so nothing would have changed.

I don't think the threshold should be that high, but it should certainly be higher than a simple 50%+1 of the people who bothered to vote.

You do realise you're talking absolute rubbish.

The turnout was around 55%. 8 years earlier, the turnout had been 58%. Since WW2, the highest turnout for an election had been 62.8% in 1960. The lowest since WW2, was Bill Clinton's second term in 1996, where the turnout was 49%. The average turnout prior to 2016 since WW2, was 55.6%, so 2016 scores as right around average turnout. It wasn't a high turnout at all.

The record for turnout in an American Presidential Election, was the 1876 election of Rutherford B Hayes, where 81.8% of the electorate turned out to vote. So, even on a historic basis, this is low.

There's a mathematical reason why I selected that threshold. On a 75% turnout, a 2/3rds majority equates to a majority of everybody, even those who didn't vote. Getting over that point, means there can be no arguement, that it is the will of the people, unlike currently, when the maths do ot allow for anybody making that claim to have it have any validity.

Next time there is a referendum, a minimum turnout and a clear water margin percentage of victory should be declared. The EU referendum should have been 75.1+% and clear margin of +2%.

Indeed, whenever I hear a little England racis.. sorry, Brexiteer trot out that phrase, I like to remember them the correct wording should be 'the will of just over half of the British people, and even then, just under three quarters of the population'.