Britain doesn't have a long history with referenda. The first one was back in 1975 on remaining in the EEC as it then was. Now, when Wilson called that vote, did he do so out of a genuine sense that the issue was so important that only 'the people' could decide the issue once and for all? Like hell he did. He called it because the party was hopelessly divided on the issue and a referendum where he allowed his MPs and cabinet members to campaign on whichever side they pleased gave him a way out, a safety valve. Thus our first referendum was an act of political expediency, not principle, high or otherwise.

However, that Labour government got the taste for them and called another one on the issue of devolution. Unfortunately, the result of that only caused a sore in the party that took until the 1997 referendum in Scotland and Wales to heal. So the idea that a referendum in one point in history 'decides' an issue for all time is obvioulsly false.

Another false idea, although one advanced by Tony Benn among others is that 'the people' are sovereign and that as an MP he only borrowed their sovereignty. Sadly, that's nonsense, but an appealing nonsense. In Britain, it is the monarch in parliament assembled who is sovereign, not the people. Don't forget, we are not citizens in the democratic sense; we are subjects under the crown. Final authority always rests with the queen in parliament assembled. Now obviously, in practice that means that whatever parliament decides is de facto what the monarch decides, but the point remains - the people are not in our country sovereign. So if there was a referendum on an issue, parliament cannot be bound by its outcome although it would pay a political price for not doing so. Furthermore, future parliaments cannot be bound by any previous referendum. Now, if folk want to challenge this, fine. But it seems to me that the solution to this is to become a republic and then the people can be sovereign and Tony Benn's comforting fiction can then be true.

There are also considerable practical problems with a referendum. Let's take the present fuss over the EU Treaty / Constitution as a case study. How on earth do you come up with a question to put to a referendum? Presumably, it would have to be something on the lines of 'The government has agreed a Treaty with Britain's partners in the EU affecting the way the EU works. Do you agree with these changes? Yes / No.' What if you agree with half of it. How do you vote? What about if you agree with 75% of it? Or 30% of it but think that's the most important bit? The point is that a referendum forces things to be framed as a simple duality, a yes / no framework. Most political decisions aren't like that. On the EU Treaty, a better approach would be a sort of line item veto with a seperate question for each article. I'm not sure the factory in Keswick could make enough pencils to mark all the papers for that one! Finally on the EU Treaty, a referendum assumes that the people are competant to decide the question; that they have the knowledge. I'm pretty sure I don't and I'm a political geek.

Another objection is that people don't vote on the issue on the paper. They might use the referendum to give the government a kicking, or send the government a message about something else. The idea of defeating the government in  a referendum is an appealing one for opposition parties, even if they agree with the government on the issue on the paper. So, a referendum doesn't contribute to good decision making.

There's also a question of social justice. However low the turnout gets in a GE, the Labour Party can, even if it doesn't always do so in practice, seek to look out for the interests of the worst off in society. In a referendum, the decision is taken by those who show up. Those people will be disproportinately better off, better educated. In short, the people who already hold power in this country. You can be sure that if you campaign on the doorstep in a referendum campaign the folk telling you that they don't really understand the issue will be the worse off in society. They will also be the ones who don't vote. However much they have an interets (in the sense that the isue will affect them directly) in the issue, they will not affect the outcome. There can be no protection of that interest by elected MPs in parliament if the decision is taken by referendum.

So, in summary, the arguments against referenda area s follows:

1. Parliament is sovereign not the people.
2. Complex questions cannot always be simplified to a yes / no referendum question.
3. Voters may not understand the issue or the consequences of their decision.
4. People may not vote on the issue, but on other considerations.

It seems to me that it is for governments and parliament to decide questions. As the people we choose our representatives and we retain the right to lobby and demonstrate our views to those representatives. A referendum is an indication of the failure of that process or a lack of faith in it by politicians. Demands for a referendum are just cynical political point scoring and should be dismissed as mere froth. If we believe in parliament, if we believe in democracy we should let parliament decide. If we don't like it ,we can elect a new parliament at the appropriate time.