Let the people fail to decide

REFERENDUMS are supposed to get citizens engaged in politics and make governments responsive. If they worked, Europeans ought to be feeling particularly satisfied with their democracies. For referendums are on the rise. Not counting Switzerland, which has always run lots of them, big plebiscites are three times more common in Europe now than they were in the 1970s (see ). Britain is preparing one on withdrawing from the European Union. Dutch campaigners have just won a referendum against the EU-Ukraine association agreement, and plan to take on EU trade treaties with Canada and America. Italians are to vote on changing their constitution, and Hungarians on the EU’s refugee-sharing scheme.