This House favours the use of referendums as a form of decision-making

My thanks to the House for what should be an engaging and hopefully enlightening debate. My thanks also for their lucid and cogent argument. My first substantive is that decision-making by referendum does not guarantee the best or even the right course of a action. As with any democratic vote - be it referendum or election - the popularity of the candidate or proposition is what ultimately determines the course of action. I repeat, it is the POPULARITY that wins, and not necessarily the best or most appropriate CoA to the matter at hand. By changing the constitution so that populism becomes thee method of decision making we would be undermining the importance of politics and the far-reaching implications of political decision-making. This would more often than not prove catastrophic. Voter turnout is low. This suggests that the electorate at large do not want to be involved in politics. Voter apathy is a sign of political apathy. What would it benefit a nation or government to defer its decision-making to an apathetic electorate? If such an electorate are apathetic towards politics, how well-informed could they be come polling day? Decisions that are made without any forethought or rationale is called gambling. I submit that political decisions that affect a country, and possible the globe, are too important to be gambled on. If referendums came to pass, there is no guarantee that that would increase voter turnout. Indeed, if political apathy is the norm amongst a majority of the electorate, it is likely that only the current lot of active voters would participate in referenda. Substantive II people typically only have their own self-interest at heart. Although the calibre of politician in a democracy may be low, they have far more insight into the consequences of policy changes than the average voter. They have studied politics. They are far better educated than the average voter and they have to consider the implications of their decisions by orders of magnitude deeper than the average voter. They simply have an overview that the Everyman doesn't possess. The Everyman would only vote on the matters which affect him personally. He would vote FOR the matters that benefit him personally and he would vote AGAINST the proposition that costs him personally, even if the cost to himself was going to pay for the benefit of another more needy group of people. Those who turn out to vote would necessarily be partisan. Whilst the Everyman will likely have a job or career and a family that he has to dedicate all of his waking life to, the politician does these things for a living. His scope is broader. He sees the bigger picture more clearly than the Everyman ever could. The Everyman has neither the time nor the inclination to research and analyse his voting decision as it applies to the game of Holistic Society Jenga in a referendum as a professional does. In sum, if voter apathy is on the increase, then why not be democratic about it and give the majority what it wants - NO political participation at all. Government should not allow the electorate the ability to make decisions on specific policy as that way even the most dubious, ill thought out but well presented policies could find their way into the constitution. By combining epetitions and referendums, we could well see the death penalty brought back to the UK. The average voter will only himself a bigger slice of the pie and will vote his neighbour a smaller slice. Such is human nature. Vote Con. Referendums are a woefully inadequate form of decision-making. We're talking about political policies that affect the whole nation here, not the X Factor, BGT or Big Brother. Thank you.