“the act of singling out one issue on which to hold a referendum is artificial, random”

Only if you let it be. What we need is a political consensus on what kinds of decisions require referenda, and to apply that consensus to all such decisions. I would support one that says significant constitutional matters concerning institutional structures and the divisions of power always require referenda.

In Scotland, we said we didn’t support Scottish independence. Referenda, as James said, should be about confirming a decision a government _wants_to_take_. We didnt’ support the independence referendum because we dont support independence, not because we dont support referenda!

In Scotland, the fiasco of the May 2007 Holyrood elections led to the LibDems refusing to work with the SNP unless the latter dropped their election promise to hold a referendum on ‘independence’. I’d like to think that this was a principled decision, based on opposition to populist gimmicks, rather than a convenient sop to Labour, but I have my doubts.

I’m not in favour of referendums willy-nilly. But there is a world of difference between that and, where there is clear public demand, holding the occasional ballot on a specific issue. More to the point, if you don’t have that then all too often the “expression of individual opinions” which you pay lip service to is run roughshod over.

The People’s Veto system that Chris Huhne campaigned on during the leadership election could not be described as “government by referendum” in a million years. What it offered was an important check and balance.

I disagree. Democracy depends not only on the expression of individual opinions, but on the functioning existence of the stable processes and institutions necessary to implement those opinions. Government by referendum is populist demagoguery masquerading as democracy.

But there is nothing undemocratic about the idea of ratifying or annulling certain specific decisions by referendum. The issue is how you decide which issues should be decided in that way and which ones shouldn’t be. I think we can all agree that having an ad hoc approach of saying it should be used for EU treaties but nothing else is daft.

tinter: I think there’s a lot of truth to that, although I struggle to sympathise with Field, Stuart and Pfooey as they’ve always been arch modernisers. When Blair was dismantling Labour democracy, they were cheerleading at the sidelines.

At a deeper level, we are in no position to profit form this, as our own position on Europe is untenable. Government by referendum is profoundly undemocratic, and we should say so.