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Comment by leot | Hacker News Reader

What's stopping Britons from having another referendum?

It is not legally binding, so nothing. But who would take responsibility of organizing that, disregarding the opinion of the majority of the British people? And what do you suggest, having a non-binding referendum until Remain wins?

Out is out.

I don't know, that's not exactly what happened in Ireland with the Lisbon Treaty. When the first referendum didn't get the results "expected", they forced a second referendum after much campaigning and the results were different. Democracy at work? Bureaucracy at work? Who knows.

The 18th and 21st amendments to the US Constitution come to mind.

This decision feels very much like it's on the wrong side of history, but perhaps that's just the denial.

It is not the wrong side of history. It is just that history has a penchant of breaking havoc every now and then.

We'll start feeling the riples of this in a couple of years. What a huge mistake!

It's not really a majority though. If I polled 100 people and said to you the majority said leave, how many would you estimate that is? 75-90 perhaps?

This result seems to be 52/48 so it's incredible that such a monumentally important decision is to be made from this interpretation of a majority.

That's just how referendums work: better to have 48% of unhappy people than 52% of unhappy people. You will never have 100% agreement anyway.

If there was a concession from the EU on free movement, I'm somewhat doubtful about that though.

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