Why shouldn’t the UK make greater use of referendums?

Some would argue that Parliamentary sovereignty, and the flexibility of our constitution, is an important asset.
Elected representatives are expected to make informed decisions that are in the long-term national interest.
If governments make poor decisions, they will be held accountable at the next election, and a new government can address the mistakes. However, referendums lack this flexibility.
The real meaning of voting ‘yes’ or ‘no’ in the 2014 Scottish Independence referendum was often far from clear.
Would an independent Scotland be able to use the pound? Would it be a member of the EU?
These questions were not given clear answers, making it very difficult for voters.
Similarly, both the ‘Remain’ and ‘Leave’ campaigns in the 2016 EU referendum made claims that fact checkers have found to be extremely misleading.
Well-researched predictions were often been presented as objective facts, which made it very difficult for confused voters.
At times, unrelated issues can also dominate referendum debates.
At times, the 2011 AV referendum centred on the fact that the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg supported the reforms, rather than the actual merits of AV/FPTP.

The government can control the timing, the question, the options on the ballot paper, and the threshold for victory.
The 2014 Scottish independence referendum was a yes/no question on independence, even though many Scottish voters wanted a third option for ‘greater devolution’.
This was arguably because the First Minister of Scotland, Alex Salmond, favoured a ‘yes’ vote, while the Prime Minister favoured a ‘no’ vote.
Referendum campaigns are unlikely to be evenly resourced and can be dominated by elites. In the 2011 AV referendum, the ‘yes’ campaign spent £2.2 million, but the ‘no’ campaign spent £3.4 million.
Critics argued that such a financial imbalance makes it unlikely that voters hear a balanced argument.
In the 2016 EU referendum, the ‘Leave’ campaign argued that the ‘Remain’ campaign had an unfair advantage, because the Government and the full weight of the civil service supported it.
Although collective responsibility was suspended, the civil service was banned from helping Eurosceptic cabinet ministers with activities connected to the ‘leave’ campaign.

Referendums cannot settle controversial issues forever. Referendums on creating a Scottish Parliament and Welsh Parliament were both defeated in 1979.
However, this did not settle the issue.
Referendums were held again in 1997 and this time the devolution plans were approved. But again, this did not settle the issue.
A referendum was held in Wales in 2011 to give the Welsh Assembly further powers over legislation, and in 2014 Scotland only narrowly voted against independence, which has encouraged the SNP to already call for another referendum.
While the result of the 1975 EEC referendum has stood for over 40 years, this did not stop Eurosceptics from campaigning to leave, and EU referendum was held in 2016.