Explain three criticisms that have been made of Referendums

A referendum is aa single-issue vote which can be either binding or advisory. Firstly, they have been criticised as they can be said to undermine the representative democracy of the UK. This is because instead of elected and informed MPs making the decisions, direct democracy is used and citizens with little expertise are left to make the decision. This is exemplified by the fact that the most searched question on the day of the ‘Brexit referendum’ being “what is the EU?”. Secondly, issues voted for in referendums are often sensationalised or made too personal, meaning that the issue is not debated well enough. An example of this would be the AV referendum which many have argued became instead a referendum on Nick Clegg. Finally, referendums are said to over simplify issues. Reducing very complex political issues to a simple yes/no format is often said to be damaging as people are forced to make a binary choice. For example, the Scottish independence referendum asked “should Scotland be an independent nation?” this binary choice forces a drastic decision and leaves little room for the median voter.