If as you say referendums are just as politicized and flawed as any other form of governmental process, then my question still stands why are only those peoples who vote against EU integration forced to vote again, why not those who vote “Yes”. One assumes that given your argument you would agree that the Spanish people (for instance) might have made a mistake and voted the wrong way after their flawed and politicised referendum? Or is the argument that a referendum only becomes politicised and flawed after the people have rejected the required result by voting against the elitists plans.

Of course the separation and insulation of the elitist class by the removal of the power of the voters, is not just exposed in the rejection of unwanted referendum results, but also in the triangulation of policies between our own political parties.

One of the basic requirements for democracy to exist is choice, the reduction of choice produced by the fact that a very great deal of our government is decided in an external arena and then encased in, if not exactly concrete certainly in the glue of the EU Aquis , has restricted the freedom of political parties to working within EU rules and imposed the agreements of previous governments on future parliaments and on the polices a political party can offer to the voters. Well factually, a political party can offer any policy is wishes what it cannot do is to guarantee that it will be able to deliver that policy once elected, if that policy would mean breaking an EU agreement made by a previous government.

So the disenchantment of the voters with a political elite is cause by a clear and growing impression that we can no longer control our own government and in reality it makes little difference which party hold power, the gap is cause by a political elite which mouths democratic symbolisms but rejects democracy.

Of course the political elites are blind to this and so therefore will continue to invent reasons why the public are disenchanted with the political process; people are voting less, too difficult to vote, make voting easier, postal votes, polling booths in super markets etc. No people are voting less because they are realising voting makes no difference to government polices.

http://julienfrisch.blogspot.com/2008/11/nosemonkeys-perspectives-on.html

A decision made through referendum only means increased democratic legitimacy of that decision, not necessarily that the decision was a better one. For example, in Sweden 1955 83% of Swedes voted to keep left lane traffic. But less than ten years later in 1963 the Swedish riksdag voted to move over to right lane traffic anyway. It was unpopular, but I bet you cannot find a single Swede who disagrees with that today. Not a single person.

In the United States referendums are politicized constantly. After living here now for a couple of years, it has just left me with a complete distrust for the entire process altogether. Just recently in California permitted gay marriage through a supreme court decision ruling in favor of equal rights. Religious groups did not like that, so they organized and put up a constitutional gay ban up for referendum. And because they organized their side better, they managed to get it banned. So just because a majority of people voted in favor of banning gay marriage, does that make the decision of removing equal rights for minorities more correct and proper? Absolutely-freaking-not.

“The elite proposed to the people a choice that was effectively no choice at all. People were called to ratify the inevitable. Both the media and the political elite presented the choice as one between knowledge and ignorance, between expertise and ideology”

There is no choice, the democratic voice of the people, if it does accord with the wishes the elites, is maligned as populism.

The answers are all there if you would care to look, instead of falling into the abyss of reasoning concocted by the very elites who refuse to accept the democratic choice of the people, and thus must invent some method or other in order to circumvent democracy.

For instance why is it only Ireland that is being pressured into holding a second referendum on Lisbon why not Spain, why has no population ever been invited to vote a second time when the vote yes to further EU integration?