“And we come back to the fundamental absurdity of having a referendum in the parliamentary state….”

Pulling back a wee bit from the madness that is local Republicans quoting the Northern Ireland Office as though it was some kind of Holy Writ, someone shared this on my FB stream tonight…

Britain faces a simple and inescapable choice – stability and strong Government with me, or chaos with Ed Miliband: https://t.co/fmhcfTunbm

— David Cameron (@David_Cameron) May 4, 2015

Then there’s this from Peter Hitchens on why despite being a dedicated Eurosceptic, he refused to take part in Mr Cameron’s referendum on EU Membership…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lk4x7tf-wc&feature=youtu.be&t=4m31s

Remember, because this wasn’t a general election, the Leave campaign didn’t contain anybody who would be responsible for implementing it, if it won. As soon as it was over, the Leave campaign just dissipated like mist in the wind and there was nobody there to take responsibility for it. And the government which mostly contained people who never wanted to leave in the first place were left with the job of doing what the referendum told them to do. And we come back to the fundamental absurdity of having a referendum in the parliamentary state.

It’s well worth listening to the whole thing…

Mick Fealty

Mick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty