> Isn't this my argument? You're saying that the country won't be back in the EU in your own lifetime, and that's something that's okay to decide on a mere 2% majority from a clearly poorly-handled referendum?

I believe it was just under 4%, not 2. Correct me if I'm wrong.

But yes, we both agree that this is a very important decision with long term repercussions.

> That the UK, a centuries-old nation, is fine to split up because the public wasn't paying enough attention at the time and had a short-term grump?

That has not occurred yet although I agree it's likely. Which doubles up on the historic nature of this result. I don't know if you know many Scots personally, but the general feeling in Scotland for some time has been to leave the Union, it's not a new idea prompted by the Europe Referendum and shouldn't be used as a primary argument against it because it very well may have in the past or would have in future, happened anyway.

You're assuming that the British public aren't intimately aware of this already, which seems suspect given the Scots already tried to make a getaway recently. Perhaps you're right, perhaps you're not.

> That a confirmation referendum isn't a good idea, even though the Leave party maintain that this is the clear will of the people - if it is, what is the harm in repeating it?

To lighten the mood a bit while being on topic:

http://imgur.com/kkvl16L

This has been very entertaining for my clan who are chortling like hobgoblins. If you're discombobulated look up the Lisbon Treaty on the Wiki.

To get to your question: The harm is that the stakes are too high.

A rego failing to go in favour of the original result would be seen as a betrayal, a revolutionary action by the working class. Here I am without humour. Britan is on a knife edge right now and that would tip the scales. We're at the point where people will be getting killed if things go sideways and I don't think the middle class fully grasp this yet.

> The money that Farage isn't going to give to the NHS after all, that could be used to finance the second referendum :)

It's good you have a mind for efficiency. Sadly braying mobs armed with clubs notoriously find economic arguments passe. This is really the point I believe HN is missing the most. This isn't about economics. It was about economics, for decades, which is why this is an understandable misjudgment. But now the working class has turned political and unlike college summer marxists, they won't turn back easily. You can't buy them off, they've become radicals.

> When the stakes are this high, pedantry is absolutely warranted.

Very well, pedant away, but remember what they say about picking up pennies in front of steamrollers.

A discrepancy here or there is nothing in comparison to the endorphin rush of defeating one's class enemies in one fell swoop! Remember that the working class has much less to lose in comparison to all those losing out right now, George Soros looks particularly pale these days and he's not the only one whose bets just went sideways.

> If it actually is 34% of the GDP, then it doesn't matter if it's 'declining'. It's still an 800lb gorilla.

True but I'll remind you that many valuable areas of the economy are quite small portions of the overall economy. Size isn't everything and especially not in an era where valuations are artificially high thanks to quantitative easing programs.

Suppose that interest rates climb and banks collapse. Bad for the economy? Nothing of the sort, it should have happened years ago. How else is a young person in Britain going to be able to afford a shelter. That alone offsets most working class people's concerns.

They don't have a stake and hence they are not stakeholders except in the very long term which I am confident neither of us know much about.

Still, I do believe the finance has some role to play in an economy, don't get me wrong, it's just that I believe it to be overly inflated with respect to its real life importance.

> not a stable place to do business... that's going to send lasting shockwaves around the world.

Yet the highest index relative to the others in Europe. Studies consistently show people prefer being wealthy relative to others instead of being wealthy in absolute terms.

> ... destroying the UK in some sort of class warfare revenge snit is going to hurt everyone, regardless of class.

We'll see! I don't think the EU was necessarily destined for great things economically the way some people seem to assume around here.

A more philosophical way to view all this is that this is a political correction in the marketplace of ideas.