>Also an American, but from the outside I don't see how a majority desire can be so objectively determined beyond a vote.
My personal opinion is "majority" wins isn't necessarily a proper majority. Given how our Congress votes party line on most things, and the ratio is more or less 50:50 Dm to Rep, a 66% majority seems minimal for passing any law unblemished with party bias.
With 72% of registered UK voter turnout, Brexit won with only 52%. That's not a mandate for anything except perhaps another vote after clarifying what it would actually mean and how it would actually happen.
In the United States we require super majorities to amend the Constitution. 2/3 of Congress and 3/4 of the state legislatures.
Something as important as Brexit should require more than 50.1% to pass. But it was actually non-binding anyway so the government could just ignore it.
The referendum was enacted as part of an elected party's manifesto that promised to implement the result.
After the election, parties voted to enact Article 50.
After enacting Article 50, the parties that campaigned in the following general election on a promise to implement the decision to leave were overwhelmingly successful.
Ignoring the referendum would have been a poor decision.
If that applied, then major changes to the structure of the European Union such as Maastricht or the Lisbon treaty should also have required the >50% vote.
My personal opinion is "majority" wins isn't necessarily a proper majority. Given how our Congress votes party line on most things, and the ratio is more or less 50:50 Dm to Rep, a 66% majority seems minimal for passing any law unblemished with party bias.
With 72% of registered UK voter turnout, Brexit won with only 52%. That's not a mandate for anything except perhaps another vote after clarifying what it would actually mean and how it would actually happen.