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First I was reminding people of the proposed Tory Trade Union legislation, designed to make it (almost) impossible for a legitimate ballot to result in legitimate strike action,
where the 'Apathy (non-)vote' would be used to frustrate the result.UK GE politics with it's FPTP, has allowed lazy politicians to thrive on apathy, creating many blocked constituencies, where there is no crushing (true) majority, but no likelihood that all opposition votes will ever focus on one candidate and dislodge the incumbent.
The referendum was/is different. There is no current tense for judging referenda, as we just don't have them often enough.
Cameron was intensely indulgent by not setting minima to structure expectations. If that drives participation, I'm all for it. If there are a shy/silent majority of brexitters who crush Remain by a clear. true majority, I shut up, and wonder how i misjudged my country.
SamW upthread shows there are just 34 out of 382 areas where there is a clear mandate.
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mespilus
I honestly doesn't work like that.
When it comes down to a general election, there is an argument that even a majority vote can lack a mandate if they don't command the support of the majority of the voting population. For instance, it could be taken that a portion of society is sufficiently disaffected by the political process that they don't wish to engage with it. These people, along with all those that did vote but for other parties are therefore saying they don't want to governed by the party that has been returned to power. However, that argument is actually pretty flimsy.
A similar argument simply doesn't apply to a referendum. This is because it is asking a question on what national policy should be regardless of which party is in power in government. The 30% that didn't vote have to be presumed to not be sufficiently interested in the issue to express an opinion. Therefore the extrapolated results are:
36.4% Leave
33.6% Remain
30.0% Not Bothered.
That 36.4% is your mandate right there.
Even if 50.1% of a turnout of 50.1% voted leave, giving us:
25.1% Leave
25.0% Remain
49.9% Not Bothered
You still have a mandate to Leave because you can't act on Not Bothered. Those non-voting people have to be presumed to not object to either outcome. The people who did vote still have that right to have their views represented in the House of Commons. To argue that there is not mandate because less than 50% of the voting population support something is expecting that everyone has an opinion on a matter and that simply isn't reasonable. You're allowed to not have an opinion and abstain from expressing one if you want to.