Talk:2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum/Archive 1

One-sided

This article looks almost entirely at the withdrawal side of the argument, and says nothing about the people and groups who support the UK's continued membership, or about the arguments against withdrawal. It looks like it was written by eurosceptics. I propose working on some additions that would make it more balanced. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Juno2010 (talk • contribs) 12:11, 31 October 2013 (UTC) Juno2010 (talk) 13:16, 31 October 2013 (UTC) Juno2010 (talk) 13:16, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

This seems to have reversed since this comment was written. I'm pro-EU but 'Xenophobia against Europeans' and 'Inaccurate statements about European Union membership' sections are not neutral and clearly lean to a pro-EU stance. I'm going to go ahead and remove those sections and hope that someone can make relevant points for and against in a more neutral way. Wight1984 (talk) 16:26, 09 June 2015 (GMT)

Move proposal

This article is (rightly) a subarticle to Withdrawal from the European Union and is mainly about the concept rather than the term. It is not primarily a lexicological or etymological article about the word Brexit. I would therefore suggest that it be renamed (moved) to Withdrawal from the European Union by the United Kingdom, a more encyclopedic description of the concept. Would this be controversial?

I would also suggest that the contents of Withdrawal from the European Union#United Kingdom be merged here (and summarized there). --Boson (talk) 00:16, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

As the article creator, I support both proposals. I was actually intending to do both things yesterday, but I got caught up with work and family. (Some things are more important than Wikipedia.)

Please note that Wikipedia:Be bold applies here, especially when the article is (or was) a brand spanking new stub.

Incidentally, I was intending to move it to UK withdrawal from the European Union (or United Kingdom withdrawal from the European Union), but I'm happy with Boson's proposed Withdrawal from the European Union by the United Kingdom too. --Mais oui! (talk) 06:40, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

I would be just as happy with United Kingdom withdrawal from the European Union; I see the advantages of both. So, if nobody else chimes in, it's up to you. --Boson (talk) 12:52, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Lead

I find it strange with the title of this article that we launch straight in with "Brexit and Brixit ("British exit" or "Britain's exit") are neologisms that refer to the concept of the United Kingdom ceasing to be a member of the European Union." Surely we should be discussing first and foremost what United Kingdom withdrawal from the European Union is. To my mind it should begin something like "The argument for the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union is a political stance supported by groups and individuals who are opposed to the United Kingdom's membership of the European Union." Brexit and Brixit belong further down, with a mention at Wiktionary. Any thoughts? Paul MacDermott (talk) 22:06, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

I agree. I don't think the neologisms need to be in the lead at all. This resulted from a page move. I have now changed the first sentence. --Boson (talk) 22:47, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Looks ok now. Paul MacDermott (talk) 22:06, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Polls

Hi, I just wanted to know what people thought should be done about the Populus poll numbers. The source emphasises a weighted yes/no voting result prediction whereas the table shows the raw results. I think both sets of numbers should be included somehow. My question is, should the voting prediction be shown as the main result in the table and the raw numbers mentioned in the notes box or the other way around? --U5K0'sTalk_{Make WikiLove not WikiWar} 20:22, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't think it's really a weighted result, it's just one which excludes undecided voters. A weighted poll result implies that the pollsters adjusted the result to account for the over or under representation of a given social group. We could (like ITV) re-calculate the table to exclude undecided voters ourselves but I think it's preferable to leave the table as is. — Blue-Haired Lawyer ^t 00:17, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Oh, right. Didn't notice that. Sorry.--U5K0'sTalk_{Make WikiLove not WikiWar} 00:34, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Hi,

For the table under "Proposed Referendum Question 2015" it's not entirely clear what the "yes" or "no" vote stand for. The previous paragraph leaves it particularly unclear. Please, add a clear question so that we know that "yes" stand for "stay in", not for "yes, get out". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 158.169.40.9 (talk) 07:41, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

move 'criticism' further down

It should not be first, I'd do it but I can't cut/paste on my tablet. Would someone oblige, pls.

BTW, we need to be a lot more careful about giving unsourced personal opinions. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 21:09, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Why does this part of the article even exist? It simply contains arguments for Britain staying in the EU when, as far as I can tell, there is no section discussing the arguments in favour of withdrawal. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.242.250.126 (talk) 14:48, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Proposed by a sitting government

The 1975 referendum was proposed by Labour while in opposition. Standard & Poor's are making the point that no government has ever proposed a referendum while in office. I guess it's a fairly subtle distinction, but it could be made clear. Does anyone else think it is worth adding? TwoTwoHello (talk) 08:50, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

I suppose the point could be made, though I think it is probably misleading to put it under "precedents", since there has been an actual referendum (which makes who the proposal came from in that case less significant). That also means that "sitting government" has to be stressed more, in order to avoid confusion, but that may be problematic, given the different meanings of "government" (particularly to an internetional readership), the temporally limited nature of "government" in the intened sense, etc. If mentioned, it would perhaps be better to put it later, after actually discussing the referendum (outside the lead). --Boson (talk) 12:16, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

I don't think S&P are being that unclear, they're just wrong. They're saying that while some political parties have proposed leaving the EU when they were in opposition, they didn't pursue the policy once in government. Labour did indeed first propose having a referendum in opposition, but in government they went ahead passed a bill and had the referendum. It was a significant enough event. I don't think any other country has had a referendum to leave the EU so I think it deserves a mention. Btw strictly speaking the current referendum proposal isn't one of a government at all. It was proposed by the Conservative party as a private members bill. It is their and not the government's. — Blue-Haired Lawyer ^t 16:21, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

And strictly speaking, the 1975 referendum was on membership in the European Economic Community, not the European Union (which didn't even exist in 1975), so S&P's statement is correct. That being said, I think the 1975 referendum is significant enough to be worth mentioning. TDL (talk) 17:07, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

Proposed page move

This article's title is too generic and could in theory cover any number of campaigns in the UK to leave the EU. In contrast most of it's content relates to the current controversy in the UK. The Referendum Party isn't mentioned, for example. I'd suggest moving it to a title more specific to the current referendum proposal. Perhaps "Proposed referendum on United Kingdom membership of the European Union"? I suspect this article will ultimately develop into an article about the referendum itself. A generic topic article could then be created if anyone wants to. — Blue-Haired Lawyer ^t 22:50, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

I agree. Since the article predates the referendum proposal, some of the text might need changing. For instance, the Terminology section probably needs to be renamed and modified to present a brief introduction to the situation before the referendum proposal. The suggested title also has the advantage of including the word "proposed". Till now the title might have implied that withdrawal was a done deal (since article titles normally designate something real if they don't include a word like "proposed"). --Boson (talk) 18:23, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Just lending my support for this move after the fact. A very imaginative improvement to the article. --Tóraí (talk) 22:50, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

European Union (Referendum) Bill

I'd like to propose merging the article European Union (Referendum) Bill into this one. As far as I see it the articles are about the same subject matter: the proposed referendum. We do not normally have articles on private member bills. While this bill has received its fair amount of attention it is within the context of the proposed referendum. — Blue-Haired Lawyer ^t 17:54, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

I am the article creator, for reference. I understand your view, but have to disagree with the proposal. You're right that PMBs don't often have articles written about them here, but as you are no doubt aware, this is no ordinary PMB. It has tacit (actually, pretty bloody obvious) Government support. It has made it through the Commons, something 80%-odd of other PMBs rarely do. It is likely to become law OR at the very least, influence future law as no other similar Bill has done for some time. By keeping the separate article, we are surely giving an audience exactly what they need - the background in one article, and the 'meat' in another? Why reduce an entire article on such a significant Bill to a sub-paragraph below the line, when it could be used to provide far much greater detail? doktorb _words^deeds 19:43, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

I think wait. This article has only recently been renamed. If the bill becomes law then it will warrant an entry of its own (in the same vein that it appears all acts do). If it doesn't then I think it will deserve merging as a being something that was part of the larger story. But for now, let's wait and see what happens to it. --Tóraí (talk) 20:16, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Focus?

Lots of good material in this article, but I find its focus (and thus title) confusing. Is it about the UK's possible exit from the EU ("Brexit"), is it about the Conservatives' proposed referendum on the EU, or is it about all proposed referendums on the EU? If the article is about referendums, material on the legal aspects of EU exit can be omitted and left in the separate article on that. If the article is about the specific Conservative proposal, then we need more on the details of that, i.e. that it would occur after some sort of re-negotiation of powers, and the polling section is irrelevant as it is not polling for that context. If the article is about all referendum proposals, it needs more history, e.g. on the Referendum Party.

I also find the list of supporters and opponents confusing. Who gets in? Given all UKIP oppose, why then list certain UKIP politicians and not others? Ditto the LibDems. Bondegezou (talk) 06:28, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

There is also the complication around supporters and opponents that there are two intertwined but distinct questions here: should we withdraw from the EU, and should we have a referendum on the issue? With a referendum still only a possibility, there are those who are in favour or opposed to holding a referendum, and then there are those who, if we have a referendum, are in favour or opposed to withdrawal. There are some, including the Conservative leadership and several in Labour and the LibDems, who support having a referendum, but oppose withdrawal. Generally those in favour of withdrawal want to see a referendum, but they don't necessarily see it as necessary. I've not checked, but as I understand it, were UKIP to win a majority in the Commons, they'd just take us out of the EU without bothering with a referendum first. So, when this article talks about supporters and opponents, it needs to be careful about what it means. Bondegezou (talk) 08:05, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

• The article's focus has changed over time. Currently, it's meant to be about the specific Conservative proposal to have a referendum in 2017. For a time it seems possible that the Labour Party would also propose a referendum. Perhaps the title could be change to better reflect this?
• I don't see any reason to completely exclude discussion of the process of leaving the EU. Precedents and the lack of them seem relevant enough.
• I would agree with removing individuals who support/oppose the referendum proposal.
• I would also agree with removing the previous campaigns section. This is a holdover from when the article's title was "United Kingdom withdrawal fromt he European Union". And as you point out notable campaigns are still omitted. — Blue-Haired Lawyer ^t 15:45, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

I feel we'd be better with a broader article on Brexit, within which there is discussion of Cameron's proposed referendum. Making the article specifically about the proposed referendum seems likely to date it and makes things complicated as you keep having to differentiate between those supporting exit (who may not feel a referendum is required before exit) and those supporting having a referendum (who feel that's the best way of deciding the matter, but want the UK to stay in). Bondegezou (talk) 10:12, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Opinium polls

Hello. I've just come across an EU Referendum tracker on Opinium's website. This appears to include a number of polls not listed in the wikipdia page, but I've not been able to tie the graph, to the voting intention poll archive. 86.2.12.245 (talk) 08:35, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

Figures from opinion polls don't add up to 100%

For example : 20–21st May 42% 37% 16% 6,124 42%+37%+16% = 95%

Is there something I'm missing?

Some of the polls also have a 'Will not vote' category that isn't displayed. -- M2Ys4U ^(talk) 16:00, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

TV debates

I'm not sure this is the correct place for the TV debates to be mentioned, as they were not technically about this proposed referendum, but were more a part of campaigning for the European Parliament election, 2014 (United Kingdom).Lacunae (talk) 15:07, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Weightings in polls

Given that the most of the polls (i.e.YouGov's) don't weight by likelihood to vote, I have changed the Nov 9 2014 Survation entry in the table to use the figures from the table which is not weighted by likelihood to vote so that the figures are comparable.

I believe that where a pollster gives both figures that we should use the one that is weighted 'normally'. Thoughts? -- M2Ys4U ^(talk) 18:29, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

Most political polling weights by likelihood to vote, because that best predicts the result. Polling for a hypothetical referendum is different, however. The solution, I think, is to add footnotes or explanatory text to explain the choices made, whichever way they are made. Bondegezou (talk) 11:41, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

Standard Polling and renegotiated Polls order

I strongly believe these two sections should be switched rounds. Renegotiated should be after standard polling. It puts it in a better context and limits confusion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by R0439564 (talk • contribs) 16:54, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Support for the same reason and less party political. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 20:59, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

Why the censorship?

What is it about the reference to Flexcit that requires its instant removal? This is naked censorship. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.186.67.67 (talk) 12:09, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

We aren't here to promote people's WP:BLOGS. I can't find any mention of this "FLEXCIT" plan you are writing about in any WP:reliable sources. If it's only been published on a blog without any coverage by legitimate sources then it's WP:original research and not notable enough to mention in the wiki article. TDL (talk) 14:34, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

You are making the false assumption that the EU Referendum blog is not a "reliable source". The work is a self-published expert source, which Wikipedia says "may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications". The author is "an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications". It is also co-produced by an established think-tank.

You should not in any case have deleted the entry, without explaining why. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.186.67.67 (talk) 15:23, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

Actually, it was explained to you three times: [1], [2], [3]. In the future, you should really read the explanations you get and not keep making the same edits without explaining why.

I see no evidence that Richard A. E. North is "an established expert" of international law. (A PhD in food-poisoning surveillance certainly does not qualify.) Do you have any reliable sources which describe him as "an established expert" of international law?

Also, please read the rest of WP:BLOGS: "if the information in question is really worth reporting, someone else will probably have done so". If this "Flexcit" proposal is so notable, why can't Richard North get anyone else to write about it? Why does Richard North need to promote it on wikipedia to get it noticed?

Finally, you should read WP:COI. You should not be using wikipedia to promote your blog/proposal. TDL (talk) 00:56, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

I see no reason why you should decide to make the qualifying criteria for discussion on the EU, expertise in international law. Richard North is an expert in EU politics and history, and easily verifiable as such. Secondly, in common with many, you misunderstand the nature of a PhD. This is a research degree - the qualification is thus in research - the subject matter is not of concern. Further, the degree was gained over 20 years ago ... then and since, Richard North has been actively engaged on EU politics and research. Third, if you insist on imposing oppressively rigorous criteria, you will yourself (wiki) end up being irrelevant. Can you seriously suggest that nothing has happened by way of response to Cameron's referendum proposal for over a year? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.186.67.67 (talk) 09:09, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

"you misunderstand the nature of a PhD" - No I do not. I have earned a doctorate myself, so rest assured that I am intimately aware of what is involved. PhDs do not make one a world expert at everything involving research, as you seem to suggest.

"you seriously suggest that nothing has happened by way of response to Cameron's referendum proposal" - Of course not, and clearly this is a straw man and false dilemma. New updated information on proposals should be included, but only if they are notable. This is a serious encyclopedia, and we can't and shouldn't include every proposal ever made on a blog. This "FLEXIT" plan has got absolutely no coverage in the media.[4] If no reliable sources are not paying attention to your proposal, then why should wikipedia? We aren't here to promote your blog/proposal. TDL (talk) 14:55, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

So it would seem Wiki is claiming it is not here to inform people and is censoring FleXcit! Despite it being the work of a widely published author and a well known and well informed commentator of the EU. Dr. Richard North has had many articles published in the media and is a regular public speaker on the subject of the EU. May I strongly advocate Wiki is not only there as a source of education and should act responsibly in avoiding being seen to be prejudiced on issues. Reference to FleXcit as a responsible and comprehensive publication, unlike the brief and ill considered BreXit essays, should not be a matter of judgement by propaganda from Wikipedia pundits! I have deliberately refrained from giving my sources with a link to the 400 page eBook on the internet on the detailed subject of Britain's eventual withdrawal from the EU provided by FleXcit, which might break your rules and lead to censorship of my submission. G.L-W. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.170.55.160 (talk) 01:12, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

At the moment, it fails the wp:notable test because of lack of notable secondary sources that describe it. If that ever happens, it will get a [proportionate] mention. But not before. Same rule applies to my pet theories too. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 22:24, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

I've added a brief description of Flexcit to the Richard A. E. North article. It is notable in the context of its author, and also in that Flexcit originated in a submission to the IEA Brexit prize - I linked the IEA website as a reference. - Crosbie 10:53, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

'Criticism' section

The criticism section is a collection of apparently factual information, which seems to have been assembled to demonstrate the benefits of Britain's EU membership. None of this information is specifically relevant to the proposed referendum. If we are to have a criticism section, it should specify critics. As it stands, there is no reason for this section to exist. I will remove it in due course. - Crosbie 16:10, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

I think a discussion in the article on the arguments in favour and against withdrawal are necessary to put the subject in context. How else will readers understand what the dispute is all about? Perhaps it just needs some balance by expanding the arguments in favour of withdrawal?

Also, Brexit redirects here, and we have no other article on United Kingdom withdrawal from the European Union, so there doesn't seem to be anywhere else at the moment for a discussion on the wider debate on EU membership. TDL (talk) 03:44, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

What about splitting this article (maybe not quite yet, but in a while?) into one on United Kingdom withdrawal from the European Union/Brexit that considers the broader issue and the history of debate, and another specifically about the expected referendum now the Conservatives have won the 2015 election? Bondegezou (talk) 08:33, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

There is a need to tell readers what arguments in favour and against withdrawal exist. However, it is not obvious this is the correct place to make them, as Bondegezou suggests. More importantly, Wikipedia *itself* should not make the arguments - it should report the criticisms of notable parties, and the reported criticism should be explicitly and directly critical of British exit of the EU. Currently the 'Criticism' section states 'Britain would have to continue implementing European Union Law relevant to the Internal market, but would no longer have the authority to influence its formation.' The given source says 'During the decision-making process on the EU side, the EEA EFTA States have little or no formal opportunity to influence the Council or the EP'. This is WP:SYNTH - there is no criticism in the source, but it becomes criticism in the article. In this case, I am sure that notable parties *have* made this criticism of British EEA membership, but the criticism of these notable parties should be found and attributed. I see for example, Norway's position in Europe is not the right one for Britain, from 'British Influence', so I may try to substitute this - Crosbie 18:25, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Done. Immediately after that we have 'The EEA agreement does not cover the following policy areas: common agriculture and fisheries policies, customs union, common trade policy, common foreign and security policy, direct and indirect taxation and justice and home affairs'. By including this in the criticism section, we imply it is a failing of a proposal to exit the EU. Again, the source does not present this as a criticism, but as a statement of fact. Indeed, this same factual statement could be presented as a *recommendation* to exit the EU by some proponents of exit. Again, by limiting ourselves to sources specifically critical of UK EU exist we avoid this problem. I am inclined to simply remove that sentence. As it is not explicitly a criticism, it is hard to substitute it with a suitable sourced criticism. - Crosbie 19:09, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

I have no objection to a broader article dedicated to Brexit, but as Bondegezou implies above, 4 paragraphs really isn't enough to justify a WP:SPLIT. And even if it was, this article would still require a WP:SUMMARY section of the new article. I'd suggest being bold and expanding the section until it is large enough to justify a split.

I certainly agree that Wikipedia should not be making arguments itself, but I disagree with you that we should present facts as the opinions of critics. We should present facts as facts. For instance, that EFTA EEA members must adopt legislation with minimal influence on their content is a straightforward consequence of the treaties that can be easily sourced. See for example this from the EEA: "the Agreement grants them no formal access to the decision-making phase in the EU, and they thus have limited ability to influence the outcome of this process" and "EEA EFTA States adopt legislation which has been decided without their participation". This is not an "argument", it is a fact. I fail to see how referring to McIntosh's article is helpful. It's better to just present the facts. The way you have written it makes it seem like this is but some theory of a critic. (Compare this with the NYT example at WP:INTEXT.) Where we include some analysis (ie the benefit to the economy), then that of course this requires attribution. But uncontroversial and straightforward facts are better presented as such.

I agree that the list of policy areas outside the EEA is not a "criticism". However, it is directly relevant to the previous sentence. It's purpose is to clarify that the point does not apply to the other policy areas. Much of the section isn't actually about criticisms (ie the paragraph on the Commonwealth FTA), but rather possible outcomes. I've retitled the section to "Consequences of withdrawal" to address your concerns, and so that we can stick to facts rather where possible rather than a for-or-against argumentation. TDL (talk) 00:58, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

TDL - I haven't looked through your last edit in detail, but a 'Consequences of withdrawal' is exactly the kind of section we *should* have in the article, and the title better fits the content that was there. As you have done, it makes more sense to change the title than change the content. If there is a need to include any specific criticism of the referendum plan itself, this can go in the existing 'responses' section. - Crosbie 04:10, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

I agree, change the section title. By the way, if there is to be a real 'criticism' section, what is it critising? The referendum? If not, then this is not the article for it. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 14:00, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

European Commission on British economy

I have removed the following: 'According to the European Commission the single market brings between £30 billion to £90 billion into the British economy' sourced to http://blogs.ec.europa.eu/ECintheUK/the-uk-and-the-eu-budget-the-facts/. As far as I can see, the relevant quote from the source is 'overall, the UK government estimates that that the single market brings in between £30 bn and £90 bn a year into the UK economy: or between five and fifteen times the UK net contribution'. There were multiple problems here.

• The claim is attributed to the European Commission, and is indeed hosted on the European Commission website. However, the claim is made in a blog. It is not clear this blog carries the authority of the European Commission.
• It is not clear what is meant by 'brings in'
• The source itself is *not* making this claim - it is attributed to the UK government
• If this is attributable to the UK government, it would be better directly attributed to an attributable UK government source so we can directly verify it.

On top of all this, there is no point to the statement in the context. The context is a discussion of ways in which Britain could remain in the single market despite exiting the European Union, therefore the costs of leaving the single market are not of relevance at this point in the text. - Crosbie 04:15, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Agreed that the claim and source are too vague to be useful.

As for the context, the point is to motivate the rest of the section: why might the UK want to leave the EU but stay in the single market? This isn't obvious. If we could find a better source (say contribution to GDP or even public opinion polls) this would be helpful to motivate the remainder of the section. TDL (talk) 23:27, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

NO! This article is about the referendum, including arguably the case to have it, NOT about the pros and come of EU membership. We should not clog this article with that information. Take it to another article. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 21:49, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Labour supports Referendum

From the end of may 2015, Labour has changed its position and now back the referendum. Look the news to get more information. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.25.238.87 (talk) 12:37, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Request for deletion of section 'Consequences of withdrawal' as off topic and flame bait.

The article is about the referendum only. IMO, the arguments pro and con continued membership belong in another article, not this one. If it is left here, the article will become clogged with recording every opinion on the topic made in the next two years - and this talk page clogged with arguments about equal time, 'censorship', etc., etc.
I propose that the section Consequences of withdrawal be deleted. [It may be moved elsewhere]. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 22:12, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Oppose - No credible article about the referendum can be written without a discussion on the national debate on the subject. At the moment we have 4 short paragraphs, which hardly qualifies as "clogging". If and when this content becomes large enough to justify a WP:SPLIT then of course a new article could be created on the larger debate. But even in that case, this article would require a summary of the broader concept article. Under no circumstance could the referendum article not explain the subject of the referendum.

Compare this article with Scottish independence referendum, 2014 for example. Much of the content in that article is about the debate and consequences of the referendum, not simply the mechanics of the referendum. TDL (talk) 05:14, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

Oppose For similar raesons to TDL. This article should definitely cover the arguments behind the referendum choice, obviously in a neutral way. I have long felt that this article is trying to do too many things, so I would be happy to see a split of some sort (maybe the general topic of Brexit and its history, including polling, versus the details of the forthcoming referendum). Bondegezou (talk) 16:12, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

• Comment. This isn't a properly-formatted Wikipedia:Requests for comment. To comply, it needs the RfC template (to ensure that outside input is actually requested), and the question itself needs to be neutrally worded. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:24, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

• It's somewhat premature to be having a proper RfC, so I've removed to from the header. (As AndyTheGrump pointed out it requires a template.) The substance of what a LEAVE vote would mean is of obvious relevance to this article and should be kept. If anything it should be expanded. — Blue-Haired Lawyer ^t 17:26, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
  • I never intended a formal RfC! I just wanted to take soundings before going ahead with deletion, as I guessed it might be controversial. I guessed correctly! I accept that there is a consensus to retain and will not delete. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 20:42, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Majority

Is for exiting the EU just a majority needed? Or is there a need for 2/3- or 3/4-majority? Is there a minimum vote turnout? --2A02:908:C30:EBE0:2048:783D:5387:8407 (talk) 14:00, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

The legislation is still working its way through the legislature, so nothing is 100% confirmed yet, but the plan is just a straight majority will be needed, with no minimum turnout requirement. Bondegezou (talk) 14:10, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Title

Can we please drop the word "proposed" out of the title place now that we know that the vote is going to take place. Thanks (46.64.3.128 (talk) 21:28, 26 June 2015 (UTC))

Strictly, it remains a proposal until the Bill receives royal assent. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 22:12, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

British citizens living in the EU - how to vote

Do Brits living in the EU get to vote in the referendum? If so, how? Where do they register? When must they register? Surely this information should be included in this article. 213.114.5.127 (talk) 09:38, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

The bill has not yet passed so while we have some idea of who will probably be allowed vote, it's a bit premature to be detailing specifics in the article. — Blue-Haired Lawyer ^t 17:19, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

True. But once the bill has been passed, as the idea of an article is to inform and educate, then such information should be included. 213.114.5.127 (talk) 20:06, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

Agreed. Bondegezou (talk) 11:46, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

dates/polls

It makes no sense to make a chart sortable if you can not sort it! The dates won't be sorted correctly. --2A02:908:C30:EBE0:D825:8A15:136:15B1 (talk) 14:45, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Rename

Hi DylanMcKaneWiki, your rename of this page and United Kingdom European Communities membership referendum, 1975 was reverted because it was contested. If you still would like to propose that the page be renamed, you can follow the instructions at Wikipedia:Requested moves to initiate a formal rename discussion. Thanks. TDL (talk) 03:49, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

@Danlaycock: TDL, the talkpage of "United Kingdom European Communities membership referendum, 1975" has not moved and needs to be fixed through RM. Δρ.Κ. ^{λόγοςπράξις} 04:05, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

It has been taken care of now. TDL (talk) 11:52, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

"Referendum question 2015" means what exactly?

For 2015 opinion polling, the article as it stands has two subsections - "Referendum question 2015" and just "2015". What is the reason for this? We don't even have the text of a referendum bill yet, let alone know what the wording of the question is going to be, so how can we have a section that claims to give responses to a non-existent question. This needs to be cleaned up. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 22:39, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

Intro sentence

Why is somebody permanently deleting my version of the intro sentence? The new question is "remain or leave" and not only if England shall remain in it. -- 212.186.0.108 (talk) 07:10, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Somebody deleted all my Pros of a withdrawal. --212.186.0.108 (talk) 07:11, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Uh, the first sentence says exactly that: "...remain a member or leave the European Union..."

And I removed your list of "Pros of a withdrawal" because it was an unsourced, many weren't actually "pros" (ie "No participation on TTIP, CETA or TiSA" could be a pro or con depending on your perspective) and is mostly just a list of your personal grievances against the EU. If you want to include this content, it needs to be sourced that it is a significant debating point with regards to continued EU membership. TDL (talk) 12:20, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

The "grievances" are those of every righteous person, not only me. And I've wrote to e.g. death penalty, that it's only a pro if one is against it. Nevertheless the article needs a list of pros and cons for withdrawal or remaining. --212.186.0.108 (talk) 13:04, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

The article should say what reliable sources have described as the pros and cons, but we must avoid original research. Bondegezou (talk) 13:06, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

If everyone else shares your opinion, then your WP:BURDEN to WP:VERIFY these arguments with WP:RELIABLESOURCES should be quite simple. But unless and until you provide sources for the arguments you are making they are OR and cannot be included in the article. TDL (talk) 23:51, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

4 Sept Survation poll

The table is currently using numbers from Table 9 of the PDF. 40% vs 39%.

These are not the correct numbers. Table 10 includes likelihood to vote, these are the headline numbers declared by Survation. 40% vs 43%.

I've amended the table twice to reflect this. A user called 'Danlaycock' seems to disagree with my choice, and reverts the numbers to table 9.86.2.12.245 (talk) 08:43, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

It looks like the Mail wanted a headline which said that the leave side were ahead and Survation duly obliged. We also appear to be listing the same poll twice. As far as I can see the Sep 5 and the Sep 3-4 poll are actually the same. — Blue-Haired Lawyer ^t 14:21, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

No, read the methodology at the top of the pdf. Table 9 is the correct one to use as it is the result of the public opinion poll. Table 10 represents an attempt to predict the result of the referendum by weighting opinions based on self-reported likelihood to vote. So if someone says they are 10/10 likely to vote their opinion is multiplied by 10, someone who said they were 5/10 likely to vote was multiplied by 5, etc. While this might be an interesting analysis, it ceases to be an "public opinion" poll and becomes a "projected referendum outcome". People who don't plan to vote have opinions too. I have no objections to including referendum projections in the article, but they shouldn't be misrepresented as an "opinion poll" when they are not. TDL (talk) 14:40, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

The methodology seems very dubious to say the least. I agree that its not an opinion poll and should not be included in that section at all. I even have doubts it should be mentioned in any way at all, given how the figures have been played with until they have the outcome that the Mail was looking for. - Galloglass 17:29, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

It is entirely normal to weight such polls by likelihood of voting. Go look at the articles for the last UK general election. All the polling for that election is reported in Wikipedia using figures adjusted by likelihood to vote. That's because that's how reliable sources report such polls. We should absolutely be reporting this poll and doing so in the standard way, using figures adjusted by likelihood to vote. Bondegezou (talk) 08:15, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Polling should be in a separate (dedicated) article

As with the Scottish referendum, I think the polling should be put into a dedicated article (with a summary here) This article is already long-ish and should not be dominated by polling data. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 12:59, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

Agreed! Bondegezou (talk) 16:39, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

Politicians campaigning independently to leave the EU

We've had a number of additions to this section based on individuals having previously expressed Eurosceptic views, some of which have been subsequently excised. I think we should be careful of rules on original research. This section, indeed this article, is not about who is or is not Eurosceptic: it is, as titled, about politicians campaigning independently (i.e. separate to their party's position) to leave the EU in the forthcoming referendum. We cannot presume that because someone previously voiced Eurosceptic views (or vice versa, with Europhile views) what they will decide to do in this referendum campaign. I suggest individuals should only be listed here when citations explicitly support their position vis-à-vis this referendum. (Obviously, as we get closer to the referendum happening, we should see many more relevant citations.) What do others think? Bondegezou (talk) 13:42, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Again, the Scottish referendum should be a reasonable guide. List of endorsements in the Scottish independence referendum, 2014 collated individuals and organisations who expressed a clear preference (and a few that publicly abstained). Jmorrison230582 (talk) 14:09, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Deleted section "Let Britain Decide"

I deleted this text from Response (to the referendum bill)

Let Britain Decide is a political campaign by the Conservative Party that seeks a referendum on the UK's relationship with the European Union, set up in June 2013 by ex-Party Chairman Grant Shapps; this movement aims to force an In-Out vote commitment on EU membership from both major parties and the Lib Dems.

because it obviously predates the Bill and is clearly not a response to it. I suppose it could be relocated the History but question its historic notability. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 17:45, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

References

Recent moves

I have restored the long-standing title, as it is in accordance with the naming guideline WP:NC-GAL#Elections and referendums (although minus a year as a date has not been set yet). Please do not move it again without an RM, as any move is potentially controversial. Thanks, Number 57 10:22, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Requested move 17 November 2015

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: not moved. Clear consensus against. Jenks24 (talk) 14:21, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

---

United Kingdom European Union membership referendum → United Kingdom and Gibraltar European Union membership referendum – The name of the present title erroneously suggests that Gibraltar were somehow otherwise a full and integral part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland but outside of England and Wales, and Scotland, and Northern Ireland, whereas it is not and has never been so. Gibraltar is treated as (as if it were) a full part of the United Kingdom, for (but only for) the purpose in terms of the membership of the United Kingdom in the European Union and in the European Economic Area. As far as the United Nations and the rest of the World are concerned, the United Kingdom (sovereign) and Gibraltar (non-sovereign) are effectively two separate Countries, but they are not independent from one another either! -- Urquhartnite (talk) 13:02, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose. Unduly pedantic, and it is the UK state is the member of the EU - it's not as if it is a dual membership of "UK and Gibraltar". Proposed move would also make this article title inconsistent with European election articles, as Gibraltar votes in the these as well (South West region, to be specific). Jmorrison230582 (talk) 13:43, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Hold on a second! National referendum of this nature is (or at least it would be, hopefully) constitutionally-speaking purely national in character and nature, under British (and Gibraltar) law, or, under the laws of the United Kingdom (and also of Gibraltar). It has got absolutely nowt, or sweet Fanny Adams to do with the EU, the European Parliament, EU law or European elections! The are going to be no separate regions in this coming referendum! Anyway, please, stop hectoring generally or me particularly (or worse) just for the sake of it! If you are that uninformed about constitutional law in the United Kingdom ... Anyway, life ... -- Urquhartnite (talk) 14:18, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

You are lecturing about your supposedly superior competence. Answer me these questions: 1) is the UK a member of the EU? 2) is Gibraltar a member of the EU? Assuming that you know the correct answers, please explain why Gibraltar should be in the title of this article. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 14:27, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Urquhartnite, do you have any reliable sources to support your thesis or that suggest there are any issues with the current naming? I haven't seen anything to suggest this is a real problem. Bondegezou (talk) 15:37, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

• If it were really true that Gibraltar was not part of the United Kingdom then the UK leaving the EU wouldn't affect Gibraltar at all. The reality is quite different. This is because for the purposes of international law Gibraltar and other British overseas possessions are merely self-governing parts of the United Kingdom.^{1 (para 4)} — Blue-Haired Lawyer ^t 15:39, 17 November 2015 (UTC)
  • Thanks, BHL. We now have a reliable source contradicting Urquhartnite's thesis. In the absence of any support, I say we leave the article title as is. Bondegezou (talk) 19:08, 17 November 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose. Indeed. Far too pedantic. -- Necrothesp (talk) 16:34, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

---

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Formal party policies

Until a few days ago, the section "Formal party policies" had a cautionary intro saying that no party other than UKIP has already declared its policy irrespective of negotiations, that we only have opinion pieces by leading members to indicate which the party leans, not its formal policy. None of the citations support the claims that we are now making. I don't want to do something as disruptive as tagging the whole section as uncited and every citation as 'not in citation given', but we need to repair this error sharpish or look foolish. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 19:29, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Most of those citations seem reasonable to me. Can you be more specific? Bondegezou (talk) 22:43, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Let me be more specific: I think the current citations are variable in quality. Here's a quote from the citation for the Scottish Green Party: "Scottish Greens have voted to launch a campaign to argue for the UK to stay in the European Union when the date for the planned membership referendum is set." That seems completely clear and explicit. The citation for Plaid Cymru says, "Plaid Cymru will continue to make the case for Welsh membership of the European Union." That seems fine too. On the other hand, the one given for the SDLP doesn't really say much on this topic and looks inadequate. (I'll tag it now.) Then you have others that are a bit inbetween those extremes: the citations for the SNP, for example, clearly have Nicola Sturgeon and Alex Salmond as campaigning for Remain, and they sort of say that that's SNP policy generally, but they don't quite say that as explicitly as one might want. Bondegezou (talk) 23:01, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

When and only when an unequivocal statement giving the party's position appears on the party website [or other reliable source], we cannot claim to know the formal party policy. I think it is OK [but it is marginal] to infer the probable policy from the statements of leading members, provided' we begin the section with a disclaimer to that effect. Not otherwise. For example, the Labour Party policy was unclear for as long as the Tories tossed in ideas about deleting workers' rights. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 17:57, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

So, which citations do you think are acceptable and which not? I presume you're OK with the Scottish Greens and Plaid Cymru examples above, but you might not be with the SNP one...? Bondegezou (talk) 22:26, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

Yes, the GPoEW and PC are clear and properly cited. The SNP one is an inference from the leaders, like the LP. Going on what leaders say leads to the conclusion that the CP is 'formally pro-remain too' (do we have a citation for 'formally neutral'?). All I'm saying is that we are jumping the gun a bit but reasonably so - provided we make it clear up front what we are up to. I'm now going to put the cautionary note back.--John Maynard Friedman (talk) 21:48, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I don't think the current wording works at all. It appears to say that we're serially ignoring Wikipedia policies! On what are reliable sources and the use of primary sources, and on original research. I suggest instead we cut back the table so it only includes those parties where we are satisfied the citations are sufficient, possibly include some additional rows ("reported to be leaning..."???) and then have a section written in prose to describe the situation of significant parties if it is not clear. We shouldn't be trying to force things into a box if they don't (yet) fit into simple categories. For now, I'm going to remove the introductory text and remove from the table the 2 parties we agree where the citation is inadequate (SDLP and SNP). Happy to consider all the other parties in turn! Bondegezou (talk) 23:06, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Are these citations sufficient, or not? For SNP: [5] and [6]? For Labour: [7]?

Meanwhile, these citations are useful on terms of what some individual MPs will do: [8], [9]. Bondegezou (talk) 00:00, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

We are seriously ignoring wp policies! The only citations we should use when stating the "formal party policy" are those that give the URL of the party website; otherwise it open to doubt. For this reason, the SNP citation you give does 'not' qualify because the source is The Scotsman. Likewise your Labour citation is The Independent, not the Labour party. I can see an argument that these are wp:reliable sources and the wp:verifiability not truth rule should apply, but if we are to accept these then we need to drop the word 'formal' and say 'indicative' instead. I'll do that now.--John Maynard Friedman (talk) 17:41, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

No, I believe you misunderstand WP:RS: Wikipedia explicitly favours secondary sources (like newspapers) over primary sources (like party websites) -- see WP:PRIMARY. I'm sure party websites are allowed under WP:PRIMARY, but we should not be privileging party websites over reliable secondary sources as far as I can see. If reliable secondary source citations report something, then we can report it: we don't need to use words like "indicative".

If the citations are insufficiently explicit, then I'd rather drop them entirely than label them "indicative". If a party's position is complicated or not yet settled, then let's write text describing that and not try to squeeze the party into a table.

Given we're at loggerheads somewhat, I would appreciate input from other editors to help find us a way forward! Bondegezou (talk) 19:46, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

I would also welcome other views. The point I was trying to make about the newspaper articles is that [as far as I can see] none of them actually say 'this is official X party policy'. They are interviewing leading members and then possibly they - certainly you - are inferring the party policy. That qualifies as WP:SYN and we should not use it without a health warning. For example, you would equally have to infer that the Tory Party policy is 'remain' because that is as reasonable inference from what Cameron and Osborne are saying (if we ignore the Aunt Sally 'demands'). If we are saying 'this is party policy', then only a primary source will do. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 16:36, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

As far as I understand Wikipedia policy, we cannot have a rule that privileges a primary source above secondary sources. If a reliable secondary source says, "this is official X party policy," then that is OK.

That said, some of the current citations are not as explicit as they could be. I've already removed SNP and SDLP from the table because of that. If you think some of the remaining citations are insufficient in that regard, please do tag them or remove them &/or we can discuss them here.

In summary: if you think only a primary source will do as a citation, I think Wikipedia policy is against you, but I will raise this issue at WP:NORN. If you think specific secondary source citations have been over-interpreted, then let's consider them on a case-by-case basis. Bondegezou (talk) 14:27, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

We may be converging at last. I am not demanding primary sources in principle: what I'm saying is that the secondary sources do not actually say 'this is official the X party policy' but only 'this is the view of this leading member'. If we extrapolate the official policy from such views, that is wp:SYN. But if and when a secondary source says 'Party X says stay!' (or go!), then that is usable no argument.--John Maynard Friedman (talk) 22:57, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Yay, convergence! I agree that "view of leading member" is not sufficient and should not be included in this table (but could be included in the subsequent section on individuals). Bondegezou (talk) 10:53, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

More

Is this good enough to say that the UUP have yet to declare either way? Although that also has the DUP as yet to declare and we've got them done as for leave. Bondegezou (talk) 17:40, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Inclusion of parties (Respect, BNP) in "History" section

Some editors have been removing these parties from this discussion on the grounds that they no longer have elected representatives at UK or European level. I think this is mistaken because the issue that is being discussed (the political argument during the last parliament as to whether there should be a referendum) was conducted during a period when they did have representation (Galloway was an MP from 2012 to 2015 and the BNP had an MEP or two from 2009 to 2014). Jmorrison230582 (talk) 19:46, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

User:Edjones1 seems to be editing under the misapprehension that "Respect have never, never held a seat at the House of Commons". Why can't some people show even a basic level of competence? [10] Jmorrison230582 (talk) 20:42, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Agree with the above. Bondegezou (talk) 21:25, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

At issue are the wp principles of wp:fringe and wp:notability. At the time covered in the history, whilst it could be argued that BNP and Respect were fringe, their possession of seats in Westminster or Brussels/Strasbourg made them notable then, and thus the citations are valid. However, the phrase "have supported" is a 'recent past tense' [if such exists officially?] and thus sort of implies that they are notable today. They aren't. I hope that, by my deleting the word 'have', they are unambiguously history.

(BTW, we've all made minor errors at some stage, so wp:please don't bite the newbies). --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 22:24, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

"Politicians campaigning independently" sections

Would it not be better to have a simple list of endorsements one way or the other, such as with the Scottish independence referendum? Jmorrison230582 (talk) 13:49, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

I guess it depends what you mean? Do you mean having a spin-off article? Sure, in time that would be sensible. Do you want long lists of politicians... I think that gets silly if the politicians are merely repeating their parties' position. Bondegezou (talk) 15:11, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

I think that such a list would get unmanageable very quickly, with all sorts of minor celebs creeping in. If, as it now seems very likely, the official Tory policy will be 'Remain', we can dispense with the present weasel wording. The original concept for this section was to list those MPs who are defying the party line - currently and prospectively mostly Tories. My opinion is no change. If there is to be a section on endorsements, it should be separate as per the media ones. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 15:21, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

As indicated above, I have made a u-turn on this proposal. The list has already become unwieldy and it is only going to get worse. At least a list like the Scottish referendum endorsements can be structured by serving MPs, former MPs, fellow travellers, minor parties, industrialists etc. I now support the proposal. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 16:30, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Conservative Party politicians

Since the Conservative party policy is now that there are to be two equal and opposite policies, we really need to consider whether it is useful or even valid to have any Tory MPs in this section [which was designed to list MPs campaigning against party policy]. Carried to its logical conclusion, we will end up with a list of every member of the parliamentary party on one side or the other, totally bogging down the article in trivia. IMO, we should remove all Tories from this section. Comments? If we must have such a list then IMO it has to be a separate article as proposed above by Jmorrison230582. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 20:26, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

International responses

Added new section, with the US as the main one: United States - the US representative, Michael Froman, declared that the United States is not keen on pursuing a separate free trade deal with Britain if it leaves the European Union, undermining a key economic argument of proponents of those who say Britain would prosper on its own and be able to secure bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) with trading partners The US ambassador for the UK, Matthew Barzun, said that it is in US interest if Britain remains a part in the EU, adding: "we would love a strong UK in a strong EU".--146.199.153.137 (talk) 00:51, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

References

This section is a bit too Americanocentric. Is the United States the only country commenting on a possible change in trade relationships?

"Discussion" Section

The title suggests that this is to be an even handed "discussion" of the pros and cons, but it is a rather poorly researched and one sided discussion leaning towards exit. I think it should either be renamed as something like "arguments for withdrawal" and then a similar section headed "arguments for remaining" added, or otherwise it should be deleted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.231.214.170 (talk) 11:40, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

This section was unambiguously editorialising, contrary to wp:npov. It is not the function of Wikipedia to be a partipant in the debate. Accordingly, I have deleted it. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 19:18, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Counting Areas

I have added a section on the counting areas that will be used in the referendum. The format to the section is very similar to the 2011 referendum age and also the 1975 referendum pages and is deliberately done so for continuity although I have changed the necessary information as required. The information is gathered from various documents from the electoral commission and is not simply speculative but fact and as I am no good with adding references I need to ask for one of you just to add the references hence while stuck up a citation needed tag. I really look forward to developing this page further. (46.65.177.0 (talk) 21:01, 15 January 2016 (UTC))

Urgent REMAIN/LEAVE results template issue!

United Kingdom European Community (Common Market) Referendum 1975

Choice	Votes	%
Result not yet known
Valid votes	25,848,654	99.79
Invalid or blank votes	54,540	0.59
Total votes	25,903,194	100.00

I have just tried to change the normal referendum results template just to see how easy it was to change the response from YES/NO to REMAIN/LEAVE and found that this template does not work when you change it and the temple using the 1975 result as a example presents itself as shown above. We need an urgent resolution to this because this referendum will not not based on a yes/no answer and the template needs to be able to reflect this as remain/leave will be on the ballet papers not yes/no to the question. As the referendum could be as early as June 2016 a resolution needs to be found very quickly. (MOTORAL1987 (talk) 15:14, 19 January 2016 (UTC))

Dont worry there may be a straightforward solution, look at what I found from 1997

Referendum results

Choice	Votes	%
Remain in the European Union	1,775,045	74.29
Leave the European Union	614,400	25.71
Valid votes	2,389,445	99.50
Invalid or blank votes	11,986	0.50
Total votes	2,401,431	100.00
Registered voters/turnout	3,973,673	60.43

The template which I provided you with is from the 1997 "yes yes" referendum in Scotland and I've change the wording but kept the numbers to use as a example to give a good idea to reflect the options that will be presented on the ballot paper of this referendum as like this time around that referendum was not a yes/no answer however there is no place for the title at the top, maybe this is a good time for a new standard referendum results template to be developed which is a lot more flexible especially given in many counties now more complicated questions are being put before people along with possibly a space for even a flag to display the country where it was held like the standard election result template. (46.65.177.0 (talk) 15:31, 19 January 2016 (UTC))

Separatism

Another editor has added separatism to the See Also section. I cannot see the relevance myself: separatism would be about part of a country wanting to become independence, not about a whole country withdrawing (or not withdrawing) from a supranational body. What do others think? Bondegezou (talk) 21:19, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

"" Such groups believe attempts at integration with dominant groups compromise their identity and ability to pursue greater self-determination.[12] However, economic and political factors usually are critical in creating strong separatist movements as opposed to less ambitious identity movements" Sounds like it fits pretty perfectly,Iamnotacylon (talk) 14:34, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

Can you show any reliable sources discussing the EU referendum in terms of separatism? Bondegezou (talk) 14:39, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

additional England/Scotland/Wales/NI and Gibraltar Pages?

Because of the complicated political make up of the United Kingdom now I would like to very unusually propose that for the referendum we have five regional pages under the following

• United Kingdom European Union membership referendum (England)
• United Kingdom European Union membership referendum (Wales)
• United Kingdom European Union membership referendum (Scotland)
• United Kingdom European Union membership referendum (Northern Ireland)

Most especially: United Kingdom European Union membership referendum (Gibraltar)

The reasons I give is because say Scotland and Wales are more favourable to European union membership than other parts of the United Kingdom and especially with regards to Gibraltar which has an entirely different political make up done to the United Kingdom and we need a page to reflect the political views and sides to which the political parties will take over in Gibraltar. Also it will enable a much better record to be kept of this remarkable referendum stays within the United Kingdom by taking it down to each of the four nations and Gibraltar most importantly if all else is rejected must have Gibraltar included as much as possible. (46.65.230.225 (talk) 14:50, 30 January 2016 (UTC))

I wouldn't say that's actually an unusual step at all, there are country/region specific pages for general elections.

[[11]] [[12]]

The fact is that the campaign that takes place in England and the perceptions of the referendum and arguments will be different from the one that takes place in Scotland which will be different from the one that takes place in Wales etc etc.

I think so long as this page remains one that provides a broad overview / holoistic view of the referendum campaign then it will be fine in the way the page [[13]] does.

Iamnotacylon (talk) 15:04, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

Since the referendum is all UK, it is not at all obvious that such a split is needed. It is not as though the current article is bogged down in large 'by nation' sections - they don't even exist at all. As for the position of Gib, well there is no prospect of us having an article called United Kingdom European Union membership referendum (Colwyn Bay) (CB has has a similar population) so why on earth would anyone think that we would have one for Gib. Doubtless we will have a section in this article in results by nation/region and I suppose Gib will qualify for a footnote in the South West England region. I opose this proposal.--John Maynard Friedman (talk) 15:25, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

oppose – I agree that separate articles for the different nations is currently unnecessary. There is no sign of the material required to fill such articles. However, the proposer does have a point in that the context of the referendum and its implications may turn out to be different in different parts of the UK. For instance, it has been mentioned in the media that a "Leave" outcome could trigger a second Scottish Independence referendum. The political situation in Gibraltar is unusual because of its fractious relationship with Madrid. We will need to be aware of developments outside of England (which may struggle to get much coverage in the mainstream media) in case anything important arises from them, and be ready to create sections within this article as appropriate. Polly Tunnel (talk) 15:49, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

As I mentioned the UK general election despite being an all UK vote has separate articles to go in-depth about the political situation which is different though it's all the one election, the same is bound to be true of this referendum, the proposal is not to abandon this page to write separate pages, it's to write the separate pages to compliment this one and add detail that will almost certainly be missed especially when discussing the non-England parts of the campaign.

E.g. Gibraltar is actually on the European Mainland, that's bound to effect how such a campaign is conducted, Scotland has literally one UKIP elected representative and support for the EU has been shown to be far beyond the rest of the UK, Northern Ireland could face border difficulties with Ireland depending on the outcome and that will be a key perspective of Northern Ireland.

These are all different perspectives that will inform the EU campaign in these places but will be largely missed if they must be made to fit a single article that will for the most part end up being an account of the EU campaign in England.

Iamnotacylon (talk) 16:07, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

• I think it would be preferable if we started subsections discussing each region on this article first. It would be fairly easy to justify an article for Gibraltar as it has a entirely different political system (unlike Colwyn Bay) and is supposedly not even part of the UK. — Blue-Haired Lawyer ^t 16:14, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

Oppose - this is clearly a UK (incl. Gibraltar) referendum that will be fought on a UK-wide basis. A specific results article will, when they're in, provide detail not only to the four countries (and Gibraltar) but also down to voting areas in Great Britain. Sumorsǣte (talk) 11:30, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Oppose: see no need for this whatsoever, nor do I see sufficient reliable source citations to support such sub-articles. Bondegezou (talk) 15:12, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

How about a compromise?

• Have a separate page for Gibraltar has there does seem to be some support for that and considering Gibraltar is part of mainland Europe the dynamics of the campaign there is going to be very substantially different to the UK itself.
• Have subsections within the main campaign page to ensure that the different views of Wales, Scotland, England and Northern Ireland are represented within the page so we don't just have a England centred campaign page.

(46.65.230.225 (talk) 19:20, 31 January 2016 (UTC))

Wikipedia has to follow reliable sources. What about you demonstrate that there are relevant, high quality reliable sources on which to build the content you suggest? Bondegezou (talk) 21:51, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Last I checked you don't need permission to start an article on Wikipedia, so feel free to do what you think best! — Blue-Haired Lawyer ^t 23:13, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

But on the other hand a new article has to be notable enough. I can't see the need for separate articles. Even a separate one for Gibraltar seems rather unnecessary to me. Sumorsǣte (talk) 23:17, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Removal of sourced content

@Bondegezou. Per WP:BRD, onus is on you to take it to the talk page and explain those edits. Looking over the material you removed (without discussion) much of it is reliably sourced. There is perhaps an issue with WP:WEIGHT that needs addressing, but I don't think outright blanking is good practice at all. Antiochus the Great (talk) 11:50, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

This concerns material removed in this edit. This material is blatantly one-sided and fails WP:NPOV. It is not well sourced and violates WP:OR too. The material was first introduced by User:Annihilation00 on 14 Jan. User:Polly Tunnel tagged the section as problematic and it was then removed by User:John Maynard Friedman. Under WP:BRD, the onus was then on Annihilation00 or others to justify the inclusion of the material. Instead of doing that, it was merely re-introduced by Annihilation00 on 31 Jan with no edit summary or Talk discussion. I then re-removed it (I left one part of it on currencies as it appears salvageable). Antiochus the Great then re-added it.

This material in no way conforms to Wikipedia policies. Bondegezou (talk) 12:00, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Fair points. If there is already a consensus that Annihilation00's material doesn't belong on this article, then I suppose I will leave that to the community more involved with this article than myself. Cheers. Antiochus the Great (talk) 12:04, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

The key point is that it is not appropriate to use a Wikipedia article on the referendum to rehearse the arguments on either side. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 17:40, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

Renegotiation section

We don't actually have a specific section to go to the renegotiation of Britain's relationship to the we don't actually have a specific section to go to the renegotiation of Britain's relationship to the in you EU. This renegotiation is one of the pivotal reasons why we are holding this referendum and it is very odd to see that in this referendum article there is hardly any mention of this renegotiation please can we have a reorganisation so that the renegotiation is properly recognised as well as its suppose conclusion . (46.65.230.225 (talk) 20:04, 4 February 2016 (UTC))

The details which have been leaked up to now regarding the negotiations probably won't turn out to be particularly significant, since they'll largely be "what-might-have-been". We could include the UK government's "objectives", though they're admittedly a little hazy. The currency objective is already covered in the Issues section of the article. Once the renegotiation results are announced we will probably have a reasonable amount of content for a renegotiation section.

References

Polly Tunnel (talk) 11:51, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

Business opinion, improvements.

Given the whole EU REF debate is based on two possible responses, YES, NO, STAY, LEAVE, REMAIN, GO... it seems the Business opinion section would serve the reader better if it was ordered as "Business in favour of remaining in the EU", and "Business in favour of leaving the EU". Perhaps add a 'additional information' kind of section for Polls, survey's.

Perhaps.

The current Business opinion seems to lacks distinction and clarity, and may appear convoluted to readers who are unfamiliar with the intricacies of survey and poll results. I think this item should take into account people who might just want to know exactly which businesses fit into either of the above camps. A factual account of the diverse range of views and opinions from within the business community regarding the EU REF.

→There should simply be a new page created named "List of Endorsements in the UK - EU referendum", as you can see from this:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_endorsements_in_the_Scottish_independence_referendum,_2014

You can expect it to grow significantly, seriously, a lot of this stuff has a very recent template to work off, why is nobody using it. Iamnotacylon (talk) 17:55, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

I support this proposal, and not just for business. The 'politicians campaigning independently' list is going to take up a wildly disproportionate chunk of this main article with the Tories splitting down the middle.

To do it, ideally we should get a consensus first on which stuff and how much of it, can be moved out of here to seed the new article. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 17:30, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

• Support – certainly the politicians, media and councils could easily be transferred to such a list article. We would need to make sure that the business opinion was accurately classified as there's a significant amount of neutrality: "Brexit would not materially affect its business" is not support for Brexit. We could consider moving the whole "Response" section en masse to a new article: "Responses to the United Kingdom European Union membership referendum". Polly Tunnel (talk) 18:16, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure about that as a title, it's a bit ambiguous. There will certainly be a whole 'nother article's worth of responses to the result! Also, if we have (for example) 'responses to the debate', editors will be strongly tempted to load the article's with POV summaries [like the one you mention]. 'Endorsements' is not a great title but it has merit in encouraging succinctness of entries. Meanwhile, I agree with your suggested selection of material to be moved. When the main article starts to get clogged with has-beens like Sillars and Galloway, it is definitely time for a split! --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 19:50, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

EU Deal

There is now officially a deal so we can now change the title to "2016 United Kingdom European union membership referendum" now (46.64.70.97 (talk) 21:43, 19 February 2016 (UTC))

By the naming guideline, it should be "United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, 2016" (well, actually it should be "British European Union membership referendum, 2016", but that's a discussion for another day...). Number 57 22:00, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

The referendum hasn't been officially called yet. Shouldn't we wait until the exact date of the referendum is announced? Mirrorme22 (talk) 01:50, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

Fair enough however we won't have to wait long as the date is going to be announced later today and is expected to be Thursday 23rd June 2016 also we need a section regarding this EU summit and this agreement and finally we need to sort the counting areas maps please. (46.64.70.97 (talk) 08:41, 20 February 2016 (UTC))

Endorsements in the United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, 2016

I have just created a new article, Endorsements in the United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, 2016 given the large number of individuals and organisations issuing endorsements for the referendum. Help would be appreciated including consideration of whether to move anything from the existing responses section. AusLondonder (talk) 22:27, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

Welsh translations of the poll questions

Do we actually need the Welsh translations of the poll questions? As a fluent Welsh speaker, I can tell you that there is no wording difference between the English and Welsh questions, and furthermore, this is the English Wikipedia. I'd understand if the Welsh translations were available on cy.wicipedia, but I don't see why they should belong on this page. I'd appreciate some opinions on this matter. --Ches (talk) 12:19, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

They'll be on the ballot paper, so they're worth noting. It doesn't really matter if they're redundant. We include all 24 translations of European Union on its page. —ajf (talk) 12:21, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

Indeed, thanks for your input. I presume English and Welsh are the only languages which will appear on the ballot paper, then? If there are any others, would they be considered notable? --Ches (talk) 12:34, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I think there's only English and Welsh. I don't actually know if it is on the paper, but I assume it will be, because Welsh has a special legal status which other minority languages don't get. If there were other official versions of the question I assume we'd include them. —ajf (talk) 12:36, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

Oh, right, the Welsh question is part of the European Union Referendum Act. That's why it matters. —ajf (talk) 12:44, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

Ajf - ah, thanks, that explains. --Ches (talk) 13:36, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

Results of the United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, 2016 Page

Shall we start and create and set up the Results of the United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, 2016 and get all the maps and local areas set up now, I know there is four months to go yet but would be a good idea to get ready. (46.64.70.97 (talk) 10:32, 24 February 2016 (UTC))

Might be a good idea. We can model it after Results of the United Kingdom Alternative Vote referendum, 2011. —ajf (talk) 11:55, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

Execrly what I was thinking, I would where possible as the format is so good and clear out make the format almost exactly the same as the 2011 results page. (46.64.70.97 (talk)) —Preceding undated comment added 14:08, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

Party policies table

The reason I moved the Tories to a "neutral" row is because the official party policy is to remain neutral, so I don't believe we should be listing all different positions members of different parties have, otherwise we'd have all parties listed in both the leave and remain sides (yes, there are some UKIP members who want to stay in the EU) and that would defeat the point of the table. This is my reasoning. Please revert/discuss if you disagree. Thanks.  Seagull123  Φ  19:45, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. Agreed. Bondegezou (talk) 22:17, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

A minor parties table has developed recently. I would like to strongly resist this tendency to make big tables of everything, often based on flimsy evidence! It is WP:UNDUE to take up all this visual space in the article telling us the position of Mebyon Kernow or a UKIP splinter group on one local council. We can summarise these issues briefly in a short sentence covering the more significant minor parties. The reason the major parties table was done that way was precisely to exclude the minor parties: making a minor parties table misses the point! Bondegezou (talk) 17:01, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

I agree with the exception of the major political parties of Gibraltar they must be included still (46.64.70.97 (talk) 08:05, 24 February 2016 (UTC))

But only as "minor parties", see #Gibraltar yet again, below. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 22:59, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

A "controversial issue" since 1973?

I made this edit because no sources in the article state that membership has been "controversial... since 1973". It has been controversial in certain circles at different times since 1973 - though we need sources in the article even for making that statement - but for most of that time it has been very much a minority concern, particularly for some Conservative voters and those further to the right. It has not been a matter of overriding public interest until, to some extent, the last few years. If we are making statements about the history of the "controversy", we need good sources in the article to support them - otherwise, we either remove all mention of the "controversy" or phrase it in such a bland manner that no-one could reasonably object - which is what my edit to the wording attempts to do. Ghmyrtle (talk) 23:11, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

Agreed. It is primarily the Tory party that has been 'banging on about Europe' for years,(© 2006 D. Cameron) so I guess if one moves in those circles it has been 'controversial'. But not in the real world. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 23:44, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

References

EU Renegotiation Section

Are you still do not have a section to fully explain the renegotiation that PM David Cameron undertook regarding The UK's membership of the EU. There are references on the article yes but I don't feel it's anywhere clear enough for people to understand and there isn't any mention apart from the reference in the calling of the referendum section to the fact a deal was struck between the European Council and the United Kingdom and the process which was taken to get to the point as it must be mentioned in much more detail because it's the main reason why this referendum is taking place as well as being a manifesto promises by the Conservative Party. (46.64.70.97 (talk) 14:57, 26 February 2016 (UTC))

Yes, it would be a good idea for someone to add Cameron's statement of what was agreed. Volunteers?

It would be great if you could point out which sections you feel are unclear so that we can work to improve them.

(Just for the record, the negotiation was not 'between the UK and the European Council' because the UK is itself a member of the Council. It was between Cameron and each of the Heads of Government of the 27 other member states, with Donald Tusk as neutral chairman. He needed each and every one to agree, any one could have vetoed.) --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 01:09, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

• The Deal between Cameron and the EU
• The process of the renegotiation
• The reaction from the deal

(46.64.70.97 (talk) 18:59, 28 February 2016 (UTC))

Counting Areas Maps

We will need a map of the United Kingdom of the 382 local counting areas (including Gibraltar) and also a map of the 12 regional counting areas pease. I am aware no date has been set yet however the earlier we are ready the better. The 382 local counting areas need to be the 326 districts of England, the 32 Council of Scotland and the 22 councils of Wales and Northern Ireland has a single area. Gibraltar is a single local counting area. (MOTORAL1987 (talk) 06:31, 1 February 2016 (UTC))

• 

It needs to be similar to this but of course uncoloured and with the necessary changes to the local areas in Scotland and Wales. Can someone please get a template going asap so it can be added to the main article and also in a corner can we add a little map so we can include Gibraltar as well and Also can we have eight blank regional map as well as I don't know how to do it for myself and from a iPad. (46.65.230.225 (talk) 14:39, 3 February 2016 (UTC))

These maps need bringing together

• This is the basis for the blank UK wide map we need to create for the local counting areas, also would be helpful to create a blank map of its won for Wales for general use too. (46.65.230.225 (talk) 16:16, 10 February 2016 (UTC))

Here is the completed map of the counting areas. Mirrorme22 (talk) 17:32, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

That's fantastic but why are the Walsh council borders slightly thinner than the rest of the U.K? (46.64.70.97 (talk) 22:03, 20 February 2016 (UTC))

I don't know - I have put the above images together into a single SVG image, the Welsh boundaries seem to follow a different style to the English and Scottish boundaries although they are by the same author, I will see if it can be fixed. Mirrorme22 (talk) 23:09, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

Cheers, also it might be interesting once you have fixed that if you could add the same map to the local government administrative pages as oddly it's the first time we have created a map with all the local authority areas within the UK together on one map so there is other use too. Also we need to create a results breakdown page for the referendum containing all the 382 local voting area results and maps of each nation and English region with its local voting areas. (46.64.70.97 (talk) 07:49, 21 February 2016 (UTC))

Size of Gibraltar

@Mirrorme22: - The current map gives a grossly inflated impression of the size of Gibraltar - which is a tiny place, both in terms of area (2.6 square miles (6.7 km²)) and population (32K). It is shown grossly out of scale compared with the rest of the map. The map needs to be revised to avoid giving such a distorted impression. Ghmyrtle (talk) 18:46, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

@Ghmyrtle:, The map shows an inset of Gibraltar so it is of course magnified somewhat, I have tried to strike a balance between the size of the territory and allowing the reader to see the result for Gibraltar easily - If Gibraltar were to be the same scale in relation to the UK it would not be visible on the map at all. I suggest I reduce the size of the inset by about 60%, another option would be to add a scale to the map but this would clutter the map IMO. Mirrorme22 (talk) 19:27, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

I suggest you reduce it by at least 60% - though many of the other areas are too small to see individually so I don't see why it can't all be at the same scale - and also, perhaps, it would be more logical to locate the inset off Cornwall as it is designated as part of the South West for these purposes. Thanks. Ghmyrtle (talk) 19:47, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

Much better now, thanks (even though Gibraltar is still not to scale!). Ghmyrtle (talk) 13:31, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

The current size of Gibraltar seems fine to me. The only issue I have is that it is not apparent. At the very minimum, it should perhaps be noted on the file description that its size is not to scale. Ideally, the map should be annotated with the scale for overall map and a separate one for Gibraltar. Alternatively one could place two separate rulers for the UK and Gibraltar's inset, although this option might seem a bit out of place in this type of map. Jolly Ω Janner 19:48, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

London inset

I believe I tried this with the AV referendum map last time around, but wasn't successful (or just gave up). I would recommend the use of a London inset similar to that used in general elections (File:2015UKElectionMap.svg). This is only my opinion for improvement and shouldn't be taken as consensus or even necessary. Jolly Ω Janner 19:48, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Article Needs Work

Wow, just checked the article for balance and neutrality and I have to say I see (probably unintentional) bias as in the reporting of one side but not the other in law & order, defence and security and the economy. I'll be bringing the article back into balance and anyone who wishes to help is welcome to contact me, regards.Twobells (talk) 22:20, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

I feel that the article has neutrality problems, since the issues section, which highlights arguments for a brexit, requires expansion and is outdated, while the other section have a dispropotionately higher amount of content.Onlywaybrexit (talk) 17:16, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

The issues section is indeed a pile of shit, which needs expanding. Also, bear in mind that its role is discuss the issues that were discussed in the run-up to the referendum, which should highlight both sides of the argument, not just "brexit". We could also consider using {{POV section}}, as it appears to be confined to one section for now. Jolly Ω Janner 19:29, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Agreed, we do indeed need both sides. Though anyone seeing all the maintenance tags on the issues section would realize the bias, even if it is indirect.Onlywaybrexit (talk) 16:56, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Removal of table in Voting areas and count section

This table reciprocates the information explained in the prose, so should be removed per Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Tables "Prose is preferred in articles as prose allows the presentation of detail and clarification of context, in a way that a table may not." This article is already pretty long and the referendum is months away. We need to be far more strict on using tables that take up too much space. Jolly Ω Janner 20:47, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

I Oppose any removal of the table within the voting areas section, I was the one who created it for the AV referendum in 2011 and it's very useful because it just helps to breakdown of relevant information between the United Kingdom and the constituent countries of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. (MOTORAL1987 (talk) 07:24, 1 March 2016 (UTC))

Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and Gibraltar all have a single count region, so it's not much of a breakdown. What is your opinion of the article getting too large? At some point the article will inevitably need to be trimmed and this table seems like the first point of call. We can't include everything. Jolly Ω Janner 07:31, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

What about if we kept the table but reduced the wording that might be a possible compromise. I feel is very important to explaining the breakdown clearly but we must keep the info about Jenny Watson and the fact the National result will be declared in Manchester. The table must therefore be kept explain the breakdown of the voting areas where was with the reduced wording it also deals with the repetitive wording but still allowing readers to understand how the referendum will be conducted. (MOTORAL1987 (talk) 13:57, 1 March 2016 (UTC))

What's the significance of Jenny Watson and Manchester? For starters, neither of these claims are referenced... Jolly Ω Janner 00:04, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Jenny Watson will be the Chief Counting Officer (CCO), the person who will formally oversee and announce the final result of the referendum for the UK and she will announce the result from Manchester, not London hence why Manchester needs to be mentioned. (46.64.70.97 (talk) 02:30, 3 March 2016 (UTC))

I guess since we had no sources, it makes it difficult to assert how notable this is. For what it's worth I found a source for your claims as The Electoral Commision. It's not ideal and we should probably seek secondary sources. I expect these will emerge closer to the date, though. As for the matter of the table, I think we will have to agree to disagree and hope that another editor can offer a third opinion. Jolly Ω Janner 04:30, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

Gibraltar yet again

I have removed Gibraltar from the table of major parties [i.e., those with representation in the UK, Sc, Wa, NI or EU parliaments] and moved the Gib parties to 'other minor parties'. This is because the population of Gib is equivalent to that of middle rank UK town. If Gib is to be included in this table, then surely the UK cities (especially London) have a far greater claim. Then why not the Unitary Authorities and County Councils too? So we include the (mythical) Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells Party and the Official Monster Raving Loony Party (reductio ad absurdum for effect, but not much). We have to draw a line somewhere. Is there a credible counter-argument? Like limit it to Westminster MPs only? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 22:57, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

The Gibraltar parties should be included in the table for two reasons. Firstly, the Gibraltar Parliament has far more power than the Scottish Parliament or Welsh and Northern Ireland Assemblies (definitely more than Unitary Authorities and County Councils). Secondly, Gibraltar is a distinct and separate territory. As it's not part of the UK, in many ways Gibraltar is far more distinct than Northern Ireland, England, Scotland, Wales. You could easily use your argument to exclude Northern Ireland parties from the table, NI has a population of less than 2 million compared to 8.5 million in Greater London. It think if NI21 is included (which only has 1 seat in Stormont and received just 1.6% of the vote in NI at the European elections) then the GSLP, which forms the government in Gibraltar, should definitely be included. Philip Stevens (talk) 12:36, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

For anyone not aware of this, the population of Gibraltar is roughly one-sixtieth (less than 2%) that of Northern Ireland. We do need to use common sense and apply due weight. As I've pointed out up above, the map also needs to be redrawn, as Gibraltar is shown grossly out of scale with the UK. Relatively speaking, it's a tiny area and has a tiny population. Ghmyrtle (talk) 12:45, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

NI21 received 10,553 votes in last local elections, the GSLP-Lib Alliance received 11,203 in last year's election in Gibraltar. I don't think population should come into it, Northern Ireland's population is smaller than several cities in the UK, but NI's parties are represented because Northern Ireland is a distinct territory with its own legislature that has more powers than any City Council. The same is true with Gibraltar (more true in fact as explained above). I should say that every party represented on the London Assembly is already in the table by default as they are all also Westminster parties. Philip Stevens (talk) 13:13, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

NI21 is not a good comparator: they have an Assmebly seat because of a defection but they've failed as a party now and thus their tiny numbers at the last local elections. It seems to me odd to mix the Gibraltar parties with the UK parties: they are operating in a different context. Thus I think the current(?) version is fine where we have a separate paragraph describing the 3 main Gibraltar parties. Bondegezou (talk) 15:49, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

I don't have a strong opinion on this, but it does seem strange to draw an arbitrary line on which elected bodies are worthy of being on the list. Why not just add every party which currently has elected representatives (from the Commons to Local Councils)?

There isn't that many, I think it's just 15 (according to this list), plus 3 from Gibraltar. We should probably only add the parties where their position on the EU has been explicitly stated. In total, there would only be about 30 parties in the table (so not ungainly). Just a thought. 2001:630:12:109E:BD0D:BD23:F169:F430 (talk) 09:48, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Because of WP:UNDUE: we have to give due coverage. A party with a couple of councillors somewhere is clearly not as significant as the Conservatives or Labour. Putting them together in a table is misleading. So some sort of cut-off is sensible. Bondegezou (talk) 09:56, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

• Comment I believe quite strongly that the Parties represented in the Gibraltar Parliament (which is a de facto devolved assembly) should be included in the table. WP:GEOBIAS is relevant here. Why would this elected body not be relevant? AusLondonder (talk) 07:44, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

Why would Wikipedia have a systematic bias against Gibraltar? Other than a slightly older population, it's remarkably similar to the UK. Jolly Ω Janner 08:03, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

Remove the table all together large tables do not work well with Wikipedia's manual of style in articles like this. We should convert it to a simple list. This article is too long as it is and we should remove perpetrators of white space. Jolly Ω Janner 08:03, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

Table works well as it is, in my opinion. It's not too long. It's clear. Bondegezou (talk) 09:25, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

Daily Mail article opinion piece by Jonathan Shaw

I'm sorry, but this article (and indeed the entirety of the Daily Mail) is utter garbage as a reliable source. We are using the quote "more than half of the 332,000 immigrants came from outside the EU" There were over 600,000 immigrants in 2015. It looks like the author is confusing net migration figures with immigrants. I will try to compile resources to further improve our statistics on migration in the issues section, so that our article does not rely on this misinformation. For future reference, please avoid tabloids at all costs. This is why I originally tried to remove it purely as a precaution. Jolly Ω Janner 07:44, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

1975 & 2016 Referendum Articles Posible Change of Title

Hello, I would like to recommend that the title of the article United Kingdom European Communities membership referendum, 1975 be changed to United Kingdom European Economic Community (EEC) membership referendum,1975 as the title of "European communities" is a little misleading I feel and isn't the full title of the EEC, apologies for posting it up on here but I thought if I posted on its talk page it would take months potentially for it to be seen and also change the title of this page to "United Kingdom European Union (EU) membership referendum, 2016. Thoughts anyone? (46.64.70.97 (talk) 17:54, 3 March 2016 (UTC))

I don't think that's necessary. I would expect to see "European Economic Community (EEC)" in the text if EEC were later used as an acronym, but in the title it's pointless. Number 57 18:39, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

Referring to EEC in the title of the 1975 would be inaccurate because it wasn't what the referendum question was (even if it was implied by the 'common market' part of the question). European Communities was accurate at the time because it was the European Atomic Energy Community and the European Coal and Steel Community as well as the European Economic Community. For the 2016 referendum we gain nothing by including the acronym in the title. DrArsenal (talk) 23:10, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Campaign article!

Can we set up a page totally devoted to the campaigning in this referendum with an overview in the main page in order to prevent the main article from getting too big. I suggest we call it Campaigning in the United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, 2016 we can put all the major incidents which have already happened i.e. the head of the BCC resigning and also the ones which are yet to come and also we can have comprehensive section on both does it match campaign groups when they get designated by the electoral commission and finally we can also put in sections for Wales Scotland and Northern Ireland and Gibraltar as well if needed. (MOTORAL1987 (talk) 18:31, 8 March 2016 (UTC))

The article is certainly too large and splitting is inevitable. However, we need to identify clear scopes beforehand. Your suggestion of using the head of the BCC's resignation is one such problem. AFAIK he did not "campaign" for anything, and just released an opinion. When I think of campaigning, I imagine a scope which contains material about the official leave campaign and the official remain campaign. Do we have any such material? At the moment we have a paragraph in the subsection Formal political campaigns. It's indeed possible that this will increase throughout the campaign, but it contains nowhere near the enough material needed for a split. IMO, the issues section is almost at the point of needing to be split. Also Hypothesised results of a withdrawal is far too large. Unfortunately editors have been expanding the section rather than the main article at United Kingdom withdrawal from the European Union (is this even the right article? it's name is certainly misleading). Jolly Ω Janner 22:53, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the imput, I was just using the head of the BCC Resignation as an example of what could go into such a page, I believe the following could be added into it:

• Position of the main Political Parties
• The designation of the campaign groups by the electoral commission (April 14)
• Position of the main Remain and Leave Campaign groups and their campaigns
• Major events which occur during the campaign, especially from April 15 to Polling day on June 23 which is the main referendum period
• Nationwide Debates
• Merge any information from other articles which would be relevant
• Campaigning in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland

I hope this makes the idea a little clearer to you, there is more than enough scope for such approach to exist especially for such a unique event like this referendum it's important we keep as good a record as possible! (MOTORAL1987 (talk) 08:04, 9 March 2016 (UTC))

We already have Endorsements in the United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, 2016, which seems to address the main point. I suggest that it will be a mug's game to try to record every assertion made by everyone on both sides and none. Was it needed for the Scottish Independence referendum? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 14:30, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

I have opened the article now (MOTORAL1987 (talk) 14:45, 9 March 2016 (UTC))

Creating the article when it's clear there is no consensus or decision on its scope is rather premature and a little frustrating to be honest. I'd recommend it be deleted as the campaigns don't start until 14 April by the looks of it. Jolly Ω Janner 05:57, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

Leave date if voting leave

Is there any indication to what would be the leave date if the UK votes leave? --84.237.132.25 (talk) 12:27, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

It's rather complicated and speculative. Probably best left out of Wikipedia for now. (Guardian) Jolly Ω Janner 18:50, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

Results Article

I'm intending to create and begin work on the Results of the United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, 2016 during the course of today. In this how do you expect I will do a breakdown of every single area of the 382 voting areas within each of the tweleve regions of the United Kingdom on the day of the referendum with the intention to do the bar as follows using England as a example of the format I propose we use:

Constituent country	Turnout %	Remain votes	Leave votes	Remain %	Leave %
England

(46.64.70.97 (talk) 10:11, 16 March 2016 (UTC))

Looks good, I would suggest dropping the flag as per MOS:FLAG. Bondegezou (talk) 10:12, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Its just a example for this page but have dropped it, I will also need help with the page there are some things which I won't be able to do like maps etc, if you wish to begin ahead of me please go ahead. (46.64.70.97 (talk) 10:19, 16 March 2016 (UTC))

I would suggest working on it draft space until the results have actually been released to avoid speedy deletion (Draft:Results of the United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, 2016). I see no reason why we can't copy the format used by Results of the United Kingdom Alternative Vote referendum, 2011 (remember to attribute the article in the edit summary if directly copying text). I'm hoping the results will be released in a format that can be converted to Excel, as it will then be a simple copy and paste job via Excel to wiki. I guess we'll see what format the results are released at a later date though, but it wouldn't hurt to create the shell. Jolly Ω Janner 14:49, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

The draft is a very interesting idea and would allow us to perfect the page before going live in the week of the referendum itself. Apologies but I haven't been able to get started with the page as I hoped but I will try and get started tomorrow if I can. (46.64.70.97 (talk) 20:33, 16 March 2016 (UTC))

It's alright. We have three months, so there's no rush... Jolly Ω Janner 21:31, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

I have decided for the time being not to create the article but I intend to around late May if it has already not been set up by then. Yes I intend to format the page on the 2011 AV results page although the voting areas for Wales and Scotland will be different for this vote and a map will need creating for Wales as none exist at this time for the Walsh council areas. (46.64.70.97 (talk) 16:50, 18 March 2016 (UTC))

Iain Duncan Smith

This article is getting bogged down again in campaign details, it needs another spring clean. But specifically and for example, now that IDS is a back-bench MP, should anything remain about him in the "Ministers' postions" section? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 23:33, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

I think his position should be noted, since he was a minister during the campaign. Are we officially in the campaign season yet anyway? If I find time I may rewrite that hideous table into prose. It can be summed up quite easily "Members to the Cabinet, the major decision-making group of 20 MPs, are mostly in favour of remaining in the EU. There were a few exceptions: [list of five MPs who wanted to leave] and and Iain Duncan Smith who resigned midway through the campaign." It probably doesn't even warrant its own subheading at that point. Jolly Ω Janner 00:16, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

Exactly. The pettifogging detail can go in the 'Endorsements' article.

I despair for anyone from outside the UK who hopes to find a succinct wp article that will give them the essentials of what is going on and why. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 00:48, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

Article Title

Hi I know I have raised this topic before so please forgive me but been doing a bit of an assessment and have come to my personal conclusion that because Gibraltar isn't part of the United Kingdom but a overseas territory of the UK I would therefore recommend a change in the title and all other related pages to the following title to take account of this to:

"United Kingdom & Gibraltar European Union membership referendum, 2016"

Gibraltar must be included as equally as possible as the issue is just as important to them as it is to the United Kingdom, they passed their own legislation for the referendum to take place and even on the UK enacted European Union Referendum Act 2015 does not include Gibraltar as a part of the United Kingdom but as a separate territory and the current title doesn't reflect this. Opinions please. (46.64.70.97 (talk) 15:22, 22 March 2016 (UTC))

The population (and voting population) of Gibraltar is one-twothousandth that of the UK (0.05%). Treating it "as equally as possible" does not mean it should be mentioned in the article title, though clearly it should be (and is) mentioned in the text. Ghmyrtle (talk) 15:57, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

Inclusion should never come down to purely population. (46.64.70.97 (talk) 16:39, 22 March 2016 (UTC))

Article titles come down to their usage among reliable sources. The vast majority of which refer to this as the UK referendum, which is the basis for our title. Even the Gibraltar Chonicle refer to it as "Gibraltar ready for Britain’s EU referendum". As John Maynard Friedman has previously said on the issue of Gibraltar "It is an interesting footnote, no more". A single sentence and perhaps a wikilink to European Union (Referendum) Act 2016 (Gibraltar) is the absolute maximum weight needed to be given to Gibraltar. Read up on WP:UNDUE. Jolly Ω Janner 23:30, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

The current title is still correct as it is the UK EU membership which the people of Gibraltar are voting on, even if Gibraltar is not part of the UK. Gibraltar only participates in the EU via UK membership. They are voting on whether that UK EU membership should continue. The proposed title suggests that the UK and Gibraltar are equal members of the EU. TDL (talk) 23:33, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

Results Map modification request

File:United Kingdom EU referendum 2016 area results.svg

Can the national borders of England, Wales and Scotland please be added to the map. Not regional just national borders.(MOTORAL1987 (talk) 18:23, 25 March 2016 (UTC))

There are no such borders in a UK-wide referendum. Jolly Ω Janner 18:28, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

No such borders exist no but in effect especially considering we have devolution this referendum is ineffect taking place within four countries within the United Kingdom and increasingly developing their own political views including of course on the issue of the European Union but all within the scoop of one single majority vote, it's not as clear cut as it seems. (MOTORAL1987 (talk) 21:50, 25 March 2016 (UTC))

I think this is overlooking the purpose of such a map and borders on speculation. Besides, the dramatic change in colour across the borders will be pretty apparent. Jolly Ω Janner 23:40, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

File:Welsh devolution referendum, 2011.svg File:Greater London UK district map (blank).svg

Fair enough I accept the points however I would love to request a blank council area map of Wales please not just for this referendum but for the local government page of Wales as currently none exist and also can the blank Greater London map be modified as the borders need thining out slightly because compare to the rest of the regional maps based on the 2011 referendum that I will be using for the referendum don't orders are secure and stand out more and we need continuity . Thank you (MOTORAL1987 (talk) 13:07, 26 March 2016 (UTC))

This discussion should really be a subsection of #Counting Areas Maps. Maybe I will move it up there. You might find what you need in Commons:Category:Maps of Wales. Jolly Ω Janner 21:35, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

I appreciate but seriously there isn't a blank map of the council areas of Wales, I have checked several time so it urgently needs one for government pages as well as for the referendum. (MOTORAL1987 (talk) 12:30, 27 March 2016 (UTC))

Shades of red/green used

I have red/green colour blindness and so find it difficult to distinguish between the shades of red and green which will be used on the map. I would suggest using a lighter shade of green so as to make the difference between the two clearer to identify come July. 87.113.189.214 (talk) 21:26, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

The current colours are placeholders, and it is likely the image created following the announcement of the results will be based off of the map used for the 1975 Referendum that I've shown here. SamWilson989 (talk) 21:34, 27 March 2016 (UTC) 1975 Referendum map

Considering how split the polls are, it is quite likely that only lighter shades will be used. If we do end up in a position with large variation in which there are both several areas using dark green and areas using dark red, I will consider changing the key accordingly. Hopefully, this will not be necessary. Jolly Ω Janner 22:34, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

Draft Results Page

I have this afternoon opened a Draft:Results of the United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, 2016 page and added templates and tables for all 382 local results but more work is of course needed and additional sections will also be needed and included in due course. I used the 2011 results as a rough template but changed it accordingly to suit this referendum. (86.179.227.183 (talk) 17:34, 28 March 2016 (UTC))

I've commented out the link, as we don't link to draft articles on mainspace articles. Feel free to remove the comment markup once the article moves to mainspace, but not before. Thanks, SamWilson989 (talk) 18:11, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

Infobox referendum at the top of the page

The following code is in the {{Infobox referendum}} at the top of the article

| leave = 14,649,433
| remain = 2,439,932
| total = 17,091,432

Which (if "leave" and "remain" were changed to "yes" and "no", with "leave" being "no" and "remain" being "yes") would produce the following infobox:

2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum/Archive 1

Results
Choice Votes % Yes 2,439,932 14.28% No 14,649,433 85.72% Valid votes 17,089,365 99.99% Invalid or blank votes 2,067 0.01% Total votes 17,091,432 100.00%

Is this meant to be here, or is it someone trying to put in the results a bit before the actual referendum? Just seems a bit bizarre really. Thanks.  Seagull123  Φ  18:17, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

I noticed this when I added the map, I wonder if someone was trying to change the options from "Yes" and "No" to "Remain" and "Leave"? I have looked at the infobox documentation and I don't think there is any way of doing this so this will need raising somewhere. Mirrorme22 (talk) 19:30, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure either Mirrorme22, maybe we could have a look at other referendums to see how they did it. But anyway, Kahastok changed the numbers to 10 million for "stay" and "remain" and to 20 million for total views, so at least it's even.  Seagull123  Φ  20:04, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

@Mirrorme22: I've been looking through some of the years in the Category:Referendums by year category and they've either used the simple yes/no parameters or used a table (although this was usually in a "Results" section further down the page). I'll have a bit more of a look, but I suppose someone could add in a parameter to the actual infobox template to change it maybe?  Seagull123  Φ  20:40, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

I've just asked at the infobox's talk page if someone could do something so the infobox here could show "remain" or "stay". The request is here.  Seagull123  Φ  21:05, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

@Seagull123:Thanks, I noticed it had been mentioned on the talk page previously but nothing added yet. I have tried to edit the template myself but it looks like complex changes are needed to the code and I am no expert on templates! Mirrorme22 (talk) 21:12, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

I discovered this issue a few weeks ago if you looked further up the page you would realise the problem which I encountered and nothing got done about it so well done for picking it up as its urgent! There should be far more flexibility in the referendum info box than is currently allowed even to the point where should be allowed to put national flags in them. (46.64.70.97 (talk) 21:26, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

Are we any closer now to solving this issue as its now nearly April and we need this sorting asap? (46.64.217.156 (talk) 10:58, 29 March 2016 (UTC))

Infobox wording

United Kingdom European Union membership Referendum
Thursday, 23 June 2016

"Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or Leave the European Union?"
Results
Choice Votes % Remain a member of the European Union 100 50.00% Leave the European Union 100 50.00% Valid votes 200 100.00% Invalid or blank votes 0 0.00% Total votes 200 100.00% Registered voters/turnout 200 100%
Referendum held: 23 June 2016

United Kingdom European Union membership Referendum
Thursday, 23 June 2016

"Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or Leave the European Union?"
Results
Choice Votes % Remain 100 50.00% Leave 100 50.00% Valid votes 200 100.00% Invalid or blank votes 0 0.00% Total votes 200 100.00% Registered voters/turnout 200 100%
Referendum held: 23 June 2016

Do we in the main infobox use the response of "leave" or "remain" or should we use the full ballet paper responses of "Remain a member of the European Union" or "Leave the European Union"? (46.64.217.156 (talk) 11:25, 29 March 2016 (UTC))

The shortened version. Ballot papers are intentionally overly unambiguous. Commons sense can apply at Wikipedia. Jolly Ω Janner 19:49, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

Seconded. SamWilson989 (talk) 21:17, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

Then it's Agreed! (46.64.217.156 (talk) 21:41, 29 March 2016 (UTC))

United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, 2016

Choice	Votes	%
Result not yet known
Total votes	—	100.00

The only problem that is left is you can't change this toolbar from yes and no to Leave and Remain so we now need to look into this!(46.64.217.156 (talk) 21:44, 29 March 2016 (UTC))

{{infobox referendum}} is already displaying it as leave and remain. Which toolbar are you refering to? Jolly Ω Janner 21:49, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

United Kingdom Alternative Vote referendum, 2011

Choice	Votes	%
No	13,013,123	67.9
Yes	6,152,607	32.1
Valid votes	19,165,730	99.41
Invalid or blank votes	113,292	0.59
Total votes	19,279,022	100.00

I am referring to this kind of toolbar Ω. Sorry for not making that clear. You can't change it from yes/no to remain/leave. (46.64.217.156 (talk) 09:12, 30 March 2016 (UTC))

What is the purpose of {{referendum}}? Does it contain any additional information not already in {{infobox referendum}}? If not, remove it and just go with {{infobox referendum}}. Jolly Ω Janner 09:39, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

We need this result toolbar for the results section of the article when it's created. (46.64.217.156 (talk) 15:02, 30 March 2016 (UTC))

No. We already have the results in the top right of this article too. Why on Earth would we give our readers two tables of the same information in one article? Jolly Ω Janner 18:50, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Well it's done on other referendum pages. See for yourself! (46.64.217.156 (talk) 09:03, 31 March 2016 (UTC))

Would you able to tell me which referendum pages use both? I will remove one of them from each page, as that is really counter productive. Jolly Ω Janner 09:12, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

All the Birish referendums have referendum toolbars in their results section the 1975 page, the 2011 AV page and also the devolution referendum pages (46.64.217.156 (talk) 11:47, 31 March 2016 (UTC)) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.64.217.156 (talk) 11:45, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

The EU vs NonEU sub-section in issues

Can we please remove this from the article? I have tried, but been reverted. It is not an issue related to the referendum, because there are no reliable sources citing this in regards to the referendum. It's written like an essay and by implying that it's an issue is in itself original research. It cites primary sources dating back to the 1970s and 2001... I think the user has got the wrong idea of what the issues section is about. Jolly Ω Janner 20:53, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

I support removal. It's clear WP:OR to relate this to the referendum since there's no reference to it in terms of the referendum. It pulls together sources from different periods, connecting them in a way that violates WP:SYN. The issues section is not a place to raise issues, it's a place to describe issues that occur in the referendum camapaign. This section one does not. Kahastok talk 21:22, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

Many top economists pointed out that Europe has sufferred from persistent high unemployment. This is not original research. We should present basic facts about the EEC/EC/EU. Thus we should present the basic facts about the unemployment rate of EU and that of NonEU countries.Annihilation00 (talk) 22:50, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

This is not an article about the history of unemployment in the European Union. It's an article about the EU referendum and the issues that were raised during its campaign. Do you have any reliable sources that states "the history of unemplyoment in the European Union was an issue during the campaign for the EU referendum" (although obviously not in the past tense). What one person considers to be "basic facts" about the EU, another person may not. This is why we seek secondary sources to define the scope of the article. Jolly Ω Janner 22:55, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

This telegraph's article says that Unemployment is the 3rd most important issue of the referendum in spring 2015. (As we can see from the article, the top 3 issues are Immigration, Economy and Unemployment.)Annihilation00 (talk) 23:06, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

Unemployment is indeed an issue and maybe a quote from that article could belong in the article along with the rest of the unemployment information in the issues#economy section. However it doesn't support any of the information in the EU vs non-EU section... Jolly Ω Janner 00:02, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

While unemployment may well be an issue worthy discussion, it needs to be covered in a way that is supported by sources that connect it to the subject. It is not a license to publish the WP:synthesis of sources to draw conclusions unsupported by sources. Annihilation00's WP:TENDENTIOUS efforts to spam their opinions on this subject on a number of pages is becoming quite disruptive: [14][15][16][17][18] TDL (talk) 01:23, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

It's not just here. All of Annihation's contributions rely on the opinions of economists written in the style of an essay. It's gotten to the point where we should give some sort of a formal warning or explanation of our policies to prevent it. I'd rather not see myself get banned as a result of the 3RR, but at the same time I know this this material shouldn't be on Wikipedia. Jolly Ω Janner 01:28, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

Student A says that 30 is an integer, and Student B says that 30 is a real number. Student C says that 30 is a rational number. Citing these students, editor D writes "They say that 30 is a complex number." Then editor E deletes what editor D wrote, criticising editor D of its WP:OR and WP:Synthesis. Is Annihilation00 the only one who think this is unfair?Annihilation00 (talk) 01:01, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

The problem is, what editor D actually wrote is that "They say that 30 is an integer." You WP:CHERRYPICK data that supports your POV and ignore any data that refutes it. For example, how is Romania's economy relevant to the United Kingdom's economy? Why not plot for the German unemployment figure as a more relevant comparable of an EU member state to the UK?

Also, the context of the content is key. By adding this plot to a section titled Issues of an article titled United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, 2016 the clear conclusion you are attempting to have readers draw is that Switzerland's unemployment is lower because it is not a EU member state and thus someone, somewhere has said that the United Kingdom should withdraw from the EU because it is making their unemployment be higher. Has anyone ever said this besides you? You are taking well sourced data, filtering it to exclude data that refutes your hypothesis, and then presenting it in a way that suggests to readers that your hypothesis is a fact. That's clear WP:OR. I could make a really nice plot showing that the average temperature in EU member states is lower than the average temperature in the Caribbean Community. It would be perfectly well sourced, but would completely inappropriate to use in this context to try to argue that the UK should withdraw from the EU because it is too cold.

Finally, you argument relies on the fallacy that a correlation implies causation. It doesn't. TDL (talk) 01:58, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

WP:UNDUE and WP:PSTS are pretty important too. Anyone else planning to contribute to the "issues" section should take note! There is an incredibly large amount of sources that could be attributed to the referendum issues. As a result, primary sources and to a much lesser extent secondary sources should hold no weight here. This is why I have used UK and the EU: Better off out or in? (BBC) as a source for much of the section, because it would most likely be classified as a tertiary source. Jolly Ω Janner 02:31, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

I don't really see how this is not WP:OR, it hasn't been written about in the context of the referendum. Absolutelypuremilk (talk) 11:47, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

Probably editor D wrote "They say 30 is a complex number." Thus it's fair to say editor D is wrong. It is true that the Earth takes approximately a year to go around the Sun. It is true that Switzerland is a non-EU country, and the unemployment rate of the country is lower than that of EU. Editor D writes that the Earth goes around the Sun, and the unemloyment rate of Switzerland is lower than that of EU. Then editor E criticies editor D for its WP:OR and WP:Cherrypick, pointing out that editor D did not write that the Mars goes around the Sun, and that editor D did not present the information on the unemployment of Germany. Germany is one of the EU countries and the information about the country is included in the EU.Annihilation00 (talk) 19:43, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

Please read Logical fallacies. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 20:53, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

You've missed the point. It's entirely possible to use factual information to argue a position which is not true. You're trying to argue is that the UK should withdraw from the EU because it would decrease their unemployment rate. You've selectively chosen some data to try to make that point, and ignored all data that refutes your point. Perhaps your hypothesis is correct, but observations of correlations in cherrypicked data do not prove your hypothesis any more than observing that it is warmer in Caribbean Community than in the EU proves that the UK's weather would get better if it joined the Caribbean Community. No matter how true the facts you use to support your argument are, if you rely on a logical fallacy to make (or imply) conclusions from this factual information, your conclusions are not valid. TDL (talk) 02:03, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

It's true that Earth goes around the Sun, and Venus goes around the Sun. These facts do not prove that the all astronomical objects go around the Sun. The orbits of some commets may be hyperbolic, which may refute the claim. Thus editor D does not write that the all astronomical objects go around the Sun. Perhaps what editor D wrote was that Earth, which is one of the planets in the solar system, goes around the Sun. (And likewise Venus.) Editor E claims that editor D did cherrypick the planets and tried to write that the all astronomical objects go around the Sun. Editor E may be wrong.Annihilation00 (talk) 23:40, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

There are only two options here. Option A is that you are trying to argue that there is a causal link between unemployment and EU membership and that the UK's unemployment would go down like Switzerland's if they exited. This is a logically fallacious argument, based on the your observations of correlations between unemployment. That you do not explicitly state this conclusion, but rather imply it, is of no relevance. See WP:SYNTHESIS.

Option B is that you think the graphs look pretty, but convey no meaning information on the relationship between unemployment and EU membership. In that case the data has no relevance here. Either way, it doesn't belong. TDL (talk) 00:15, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

Annihilation00: How about as a compromise we add the following table instead? All I've done is changed the countries depicted. All the data presented is factual. Given that it is constructed using the exact same methodology as you used previously, you should have no problem using this version instead, right? TDL (talk) 00:41, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

Unemployment rates of EU, USA and NonEU countries <ref>[http://stats.oecd.org/ OECD stats] OECD, Stats.org</ref><ref>[http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.UEM.TOTL.ZS]</ref>

  EU's unemployment rate (%)

  Armenia's unemployment rate (%)

  Bosnia and Herzegovina's unemployment rate (%)

  Macedonia's unemployment rate (%)

  Serbia's unemployment rate (%)

Venus and Earth share certain similarities. They go around the Sun. They are planets in the solar system, and similar in size. Venus's orbital period and mean distance from the Sun are comparable to those of Earth. Thus the information about these objects is shown together. Editor E asks if editor D should have no problem presenting the information about Earth and Haumea. The latter is a dwarf planet. The mean distance of Haumea from the Sun is much larger than that of Earth. Haumea's orbital period is much longer than that of Earth. Editor D wonders if it is worthwhile to show the information about these objects together.Annihilation00 (talk) 22:12, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

Please stop wasting our time with anecdotes. If you want to improve the article, please go ahead, but try to restrict yourself to using tertiary or, at worst, secondary sources. Jolly Ω Janner 22:25, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

I take that last statement back. Your edits are nothing but disruptive. Please do not edit Wikipedia. Ever. Jolly Ω Janner 23:15, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

And yet you're pushing to compare regular planets and "dwarf planets" when they support your POV (ie the high unemployment of EU member states Hungary and Croatia), and only objecting when they refute your POV. That is the definition of cherrypicking. Which is why we must rely on reliable sources to make any such conclusions. TDL (talk) 23:46, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

In some cases, it is worthwhile to compare the planet to others. The Moon is the nearest satellite to Earth. It is also a satellite which interacts with Earth, and the interaction is not negligible. Probably what editor D did was presenting the information about these objects together and showing that something was true, not making a conclusion. There is no doubt that what editor D wrote reflects a neutral point of view, because, in general, the relation between Earth and Haumea is fainter than that between Earth and the Moon.Annihilation00 (talk) 18:49, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

On what grounds is the relation between Switzerland an Croatia stronger than the relationship between Croatia and Bosnia? I'd argue quite the contrary. The plot I made also presented something that was undeniably true, without making any conclusions. And yet you objected to those true facts because they imply something other than what is implied by your cherrypicked data. WP:SYNTHESIS also prohibits implied conclusions, whether they are explicitly stated or not. TDL (talk) 18:58, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

It seems there is a misunderstanding. Editor E thinks that Editor D showed information about Earth and Haumea together. Editor D showed information about Earth, the Moon (and something relevant), and what editor D wrote did not imply a conclusion. Suppose student A wrote that Earth goes around the Sun. Then, if student B sees what student A wrote, and interprets it as student A's implicit conclusion that all the astronomical objects go around the Sun, then does student C agree with student B? Probably student C interprets what student A wrote as just the fact that Earth goes around the Sun.Annihilation00 (talk) 00:56, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

If as you suggest there is nothing meaningful to conclude from the graph about the UK's unemployment were it to withdraw from the EU (ie the subject of this article) then it isn't worth including it. TDL (talk) 03:08, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

It's been explained quite clearly to you by a number of editors why this content is not appropriate for wikipedia. Your obfuscation and semantical gymnastics do not change the fact that this is WP:OR, WP:SYN, WP:CHERRYPICKed, and based on a misunderstanding of basic scientific principals and logical fallacious reasoning. I've made a good faith effort to explain these to you, but if you can't understand them or won't accept them, then I'm not going to continue to go around in circles with you. Please don't restore this inappropriate content. TDL (talk) 03:46, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

Editor E has not answered editor D's question. Editor D's question is: Suppose student A wrote that Earth goes around the Sun. Then if student B sees what student A wrote, and interpretes it as student A's implicit conclusion that all the astronomical objects go aroudn the Sun, then does student C agree with student B? Editor D adds that, then student B claims that what student A wrote is WP:SYN because it implied a conculusion. But editor D wonders if student B's claim is true.Annihilation00 (talk) 19:53, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

European Communities Act 1972 (UK) article expansion

Please can we expand the European Communities Act 1972 (UK) article to including all the provisions set out within the act as the article should be expanded because it relates to this referendum directly should the UK vote to leave the EU and lastly because it's one of the most important and also controversial pieces of legislation passed by Parliament in the 20th Century and I am surprised how little is written into the article at this time. (46.64.29.67 (talk) 10:53, 3 April 2016 (UTC))

We have a lack of volunteers improving this article, so not sure how likely this is. Maybe you could volunteer? Jolly Ω Janner 20:04, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

I would gladly volunteer but I do not understand the Act anywhere near the levels to which I understand the European Union Referendum Act 2015 which makes it differcult to understand the significant parts of the act itself and also over the years the Act has received significant amendments, I can give it a try (46.64.29.67 (talk) 07:02, 4 April 2016 (UTC))

Reerendum campaign article

Why has there been virtually no expansion or adding of information to the Campaigning in the United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, 2016 as the article was set up and all the appropriate but nothing has been filled to date? Are we waiting for the offical campign period to begin next week or is there no desire to add to it? (46.64.29.67 (talk) 14:22, 8 April 2016 (UTC))

Maybe you should ask yourself that question, as one of the main contributors. This is why we split articles from the main page after they become large. Not before they even exist! And yes, we generally only write about stuff after it has happened. And we are not a WP:NOTNEWSPAPER. I don't know why you felt it necessary to create a second post about this pointless sub article. Jolly Ω Janner 19:59, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Article name/intro

"The United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, also known as the EU referendum" implies that the referendum has an "official" name, but can also be referred to as simply the "EU referendum". Should it perhaps be changed to something like "The 2016 referendum on the United Kingdom's membership of the European Union, commonly referred to as the EU referendum"? Or perhaps even remove the bit about it being called the EU referendum completely, as this is just a handy short form to avoid needing to spell out which political entities (i.e. both the UK and the EU) that the referendum applies to, rather than an equally official name? 87.115.121.11 (talk) 01:01, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

The reason there is a reference to the "EU referendum" is that the BBC are going by that title (46.64.29.67 (talk) 02:37, 9 April 2016 (UTC))

I think the fact that it is not decapitalised sort of implies it isn't official. And ditto on 46.64.29.67's point that EU referendum is used by many sources. On a related note, do we need the 2016 bit? This is the only referendum in the UK on its EU membership and there isn't a second one planned. Anyone else agree to move to United Kingdom European Union membership referendum? Respond to this in the section below instead please. Jolly Ω Janner 05:49, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

HM Governemnt Pamphlet

I have added a sub section in the Calling of referendum section about the government leaflet which is going out to every household in the UK along with a picture. I have added some information on the controversy but it needs some expansion and some links adding to it. Cheers (MOTORAL1987 (talk) 12:35, 11 April 2016 (UTC))

Thanks, would it be possible for you to provide references? It contains controversial information and is liable to be deleted. Jolly Ω Janner 17:51, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

This is the main link http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-35980571 so this can be added as a reliable source as a start and I can provide a link to be added regarding the e- petition otherwise we may have to slightly change the wording to squirt, I hope we can keep this sub section on the main article. (MOTORAL1987 (talk) 18:32, 11 April 2016 (UTC))

Thanks, I have rewritten it based on the source. A few things I picked up on: the date that it was announced seems overly detailed (and unreferenced); day before month in UK; "to avoid voter confusion" is not in the source; "drawn much criticism" not supported by the source; "under the terms of the 2015 European Union Referendum Act," not supported by the source. Don't think the e-petition is going to be of any notable use on the referendum article; 200,000 people is 0.3% of the population! I've left it be for now, but it's likely to end up being moved into the campaigning section. Jolly Ω Janner 19:43, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

I agree. If it belongs at all, it belongs in 'camaigning', not 'calling'. [Arguably it belongs in neither since it came well after 'calling' and before the campaigning 'purdah'. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 21:53, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Europe: Them or Us

Tonight BBC2 is transmitting a documentary presented by Nick Robinson about the history of the United Kingdoms relationship with the European Union or Common Market as it was then know when we first joined in 1973 and its Origins. I am just wondering weither it's deserves a small mention anyway in the article at all conisdering it's being shown in the run up to the referendum and even been advertised on the BBC under its EU Referendum logo. Actually can someone please upload a image of the BBC EU referendum logo please so it can be added into the media section. Thanks (46.65.95.26 (talk) 18:03, 12 April 2016 (UTC))

Tense

In the United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, 2016#Formal political campaigns section, I've added an {{update inline}} tag as it says that both Vote Leave and Leave.EU are seeking (present tense) to be the official leave campaign. Vote Leave has just been made the official campaign, so I added this tag because I didn't know how to update it but still have it make sense. It would be great if someone could help, thank you!  Seagull123  Φ  22:52, 16 April 2016 (UTC) Moved here 13:14, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

Results Declaration Location

I note that the result of the referendum will be declared at Manchester Town Hall and not Manchester Conference Centre as stated in the article. Can anybody more savvy than me alter the photo from the Conference Centre to the town hall? GRB1972 (talk) 20:31, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

Almost all of our results section is unreferenced, as it's backed up to a source, which gives none of the detail included. Do you have any sources for this request? Jolly Ω Janner 22:41, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

Party Policies

Wikipedia has a clearly defined criteria to include a party in the party policy, given in the into to the section. However the list contains GPNI, APNI, NI21 and TUV who do not meet the stated criteria, should they be removed from the list? 82.18.177.13 (talk) 20:53, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

Moved my comment on a new topic to Tense section, as I forgot to add a section header when I added it yesterday.  Seagull123  Φ  13:14, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

3 of those 4 parties have elected representation in a devolved assembly and thus do meet the stated criteria. NI21 has a Northern Irish AM, but who was not elected as NI21, as the party hadn't been founded then! So, we could remove NI21...? Bondegezou (talk) 22:55, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

The NI assembly currently [19] claims to have no members, and it lists NI21 members as former members 82.18.177.13 (talk) 07:19, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

The NI assembly is dissolved for elections. By that basis, "major parties" should be those who had members up until the dissolution. I believe NI21 had a member (Basil McCrea) Jolly Ω Janner 18:59, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

The current definition does not include "major parties". The simple fact is that these groups do not meet the existing criteria, and any mandate that makes them a "major party" was obtained five years ago and has since expired. 82.18.177.13 (talk) 17:33, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

Logos

File:Britain Stronger in Europe logo.png File:Vote Leave.png
Are there not any better logos for Britian Stronger In Europe and Vote Leave we can upload other than this as they are very basic and there are better ones out there surly that we can upload, the Britain Stronger In Europe you can hardly see on their article (especially the in bit). (46.65.95.26 (talk) 14:04, 15 April 2016 (UTC))

Because of copyright law, WP is very restricted in how it can use logos, to comply with 'fair use'. See the policy statement at wp:LOGO. It is just a pity that BSIN haven't gone for a more eye-catching design that would take being reduced. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 16:23, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

So is there nothing we can do then. (46.65.95.26 (talk) 18:53, 15 April 2016 (UTC))

AFAIK fair use rationale wouldn't cover their usage on this page, only on the pages at Britain Stronger in Europe and Vote Leave. If the logos are out of date, let me know. Jolly Ω Janner 18:58, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

They are not out of date User talk:Jolly Janner I am just saying there are better versions of the logo out there and could we use them ( specifically for their pages of course) instead. (46.65.95.26 (talk) 19:39, 15 April 2016 (UTC))

Can the BBC EU referendum logo please be uploaded? (91.125.157.15 (talk) 07:14, 17 April 2016 (UTC))

If you can find a better version, please provide a URL so that we can update it. The BBC EU referendum logo cannot be uploaded, because it is copyright and not applicable under fair-use criteria as it is not the subject of any article. Jolly Ω Janner 18:53, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

Yes I have found a much better version of the logos and the link is here http://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/in/sites/3/meta_images/original/logoFB-03.png?1460561109 and that is for Britain Stronger In Europe and for Vote Leave http://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/voteleave/pages/1/meta_images/original/fb-image-logo-short-url.jpg?1444992732 (MOTORAL1987 (talk) 20:36, 18 April 2016 (UTC))

Requested move 10 April 2016

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Not moved. Both consistency of naming in referendum articles, and a desire to avoid confusion with the 1975 referendum were cited.  — Amakuru (talk) 18:34, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

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United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, 2016 → United Kingdom European Union membership referendum – This is the only referendum in the UK on its EU membership and there isn't a second one planned. Jolly Ω Janner 05:53, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose per WP:PRECISION to avoid any confusion with United Kingdom European Communities membership referendum, 1975. I think the standard for election/referendum articles is to include the year, regardless if it's the only one. Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 08:42, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

• On that basis I guess United Kingdom European Union membership referendum and UK EU referendum should become disambiguation pages? It seems odd since I've never witnessed a source referring to the UK EEC referendum as the EU referendum. Jolly Ω Janner 09:19, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

• Neutral (nominator) Wikipedia:Naming conventions (government and legislation) suggests using the date, although this does seem to conflict slightly with WP:Precision "Usually, titles should be precise enough to unambiguously define the topical scope of the article, but no more precise than that". One is a naming guideline and the other is a policy, so not sure where to go. Jolly Ω Janner 09:19, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:NC-GAL#Elections and referendums. Year should be included. The guideline is the appropriate one to follow per WP:CONSISTENCY, a policy. Number 57 09:58, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose taking years out of the titles of this and United Kingdom European Communities membership referendum, 1975 would leave too much scope for confusion, especially with imprecise searches. So even on current content WP:PRECISION suggests a continued need for the year, and there is also a possibility of future referenda on the issue of the UK's EU membership. I seem to remember Boris Johnson trying to have his cake and eat it by advocating an 'out' vote, followed by a renegotiation - that would presumably then need an 'in' referendum vote to endorse it. while BJ may have retreated from this position, it suggests that either an overall 'in' or 'out' vote could, if close, lead to a later revisit of the issue (the greater the margin, the longer before a revisit, I guess). DrArsenal (talk) 21:36, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose per above - Taking out the year could easily confuse those who are looking for the other article so oppose per PRECISE. –Davey2010^Talk 20:21, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Green Party

Why are the three green parties clumped together, yet the European Free Alliance, Party of European Socialists, Alliance_of_European_Conservatives_and_Reformists and the Alliance_of_Liberals_and_Democrats_for_Europe_Group are not clumped? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.18.177.13 (talk) 23:02, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

Those three parties aren't listed in the article at all. Jolly Ω Janner 23:08, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

More relevant would be to consider whether there should be clumping of APNI next to the LibDems, SDLP next to Labour. UUP can't be clumped next to Conservative Party, due to different stances. DrArsenal (talk) 19:05, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

Reliable sources, who we should be following, generally clump the three Green parties together, so I think it's fine for us to do that while leaving the LibDems/APNI and Lab/SDLP separate. It was possible (if not likely) for all of these parties to have their own views on the referendum, so they should be recognised as distinct. They sit together in larger groups in the European Parliament, but they are separate: e.g. the one APNI MP sat on the opposition benches during the Con/LD coalition after 2010. Bondegezou (talk) 21:22, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

That argument could also be very aptly applied to the Green Parties, though. GPEW, NI Greens and Scottish Greens are completely separate political parties with their own leaders and policy making process, so it's also perfectly possible (if, again, unlikely) that the three parties could have reached different positions on this issue. I worry that the current format is misleading by making it look like there's some overarching UK-wide structure that the different Green Parties are part of (in the same way the Scottish Labour Party or the Scottish Conservatives are part of their UK-wide party, for example), and this simply isn't the case. They are completely distinct entities and I think the article needs to reflect this. SteveIkura (talk) 09:33, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

Alternative name: Brexit referendum

The name "Brexit referendum" is used by [www.newsweek.com/nearly-half-voters-eight-eu-countries-want-own-brexit-referendum-457412 Newsweek], The Hindu, Euractiv ABC and Wall Street Journal among other sources and yet the two times I have added it has been removed. Munci (talk) 11:59, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

Opinion polling Article

Can I suggest the title for the Opinion polling for the United Kingdom European Union membership referendum be changed to "Opinion polling for the United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, 2016" please for reasons which I don't need to explain. (46.65.107.214 (talk) 20:12, 28 April 2016 (UTC))

I concur. This is already the second such referendum. Munci (talk) 12:01, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

Regional Map Change

Can someone please make a special regional map just for the referendum as this map does not include Gibraltar as part of the South West Region and we need to include them in. Thanks (46.64.70.97 (talk) 13:02, 19 March 2016 (UTC))

Agreed, we need to add Gibraltar onto this map. (109.147.129.134 (talk) 19:41, 20 March 2016 (UTC))

Do we need a map, a table, a photograph of the counting centre and a paragraph of text explaining the details of the counting situation? It seems to be overkill, but yes Gibraltar should be included. Jolly Ω Janner 23:31, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

Formally, for the purposes of the Referendum, Gib is part of the SW Region, so I can't see why it should have more special treatment than Plymouth. It is an interesting footnote, no more. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 23:38, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

It's not to have a special treatment but an equal one; to have a mention like everyone else who is voting. Munci (talk) 12:08, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

Referendum Act 1975

Is there any way we can expand the Referendum Act 1975 as it was the act of Parliament which allowed the 1975 EEC referendum to take place, there is no link to the act itself nor can I find a single webpage where a compete text of the Act exists which actually makes researching the 1975 referendum very differcult, If anyone has a compete copy on the web of the entire text of the Act please can you post a link so I can personally expand the article as it looks so poor at the moment. (46.64.137.190 (talk) 13:15, 17 May 2016 (UTC))

Link to Spectator video?

A single link to a Spectator video, with the best will in the world, is bound to be biased. This may be overt, or more subtle, as in links from the Spectator video to other Spectator videos. Boris Johnson of the Leave campaign was, if I remember correctly, editor of the Spectator at one time. 62.60.23.66 (talk) 12:57, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

Presentation of remain/leave as yes/no

The referendum question is not a yes/no question and is purposely designed to try and avoid giving remain an advantage by making it the "positive" choice. It is instead set up as an option A or option B question. With this in mind can we avoid both using the templates Y and N, and the colours red and green for the two options.

In addition to the potential NPOV issues introduced, avoiding red/green is always beneficial because of accessibility issues for colour-blind readers.

Other options are used by the national press, for instance BBC is using blue/yellow.--Nilfanion (talk) 10:33, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

I agree, mainly because of the issues colour-blind readers have with red and green. We can define different colours in the infobox by using the legend_yes and legend_no parameters. Blue/yellow seems suitable but I don't have any particular preference. Mirrorme22 (talk) 18:29, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

In Traffic Signals, Green = Go, while Red = Stop. Further, green is often used for "safe", while red often indicates "danger". So, I wonder if assigning these 2 colours as now shown on the map isn't counter to much ordinary experience, or even a statement of political bias (intentional or not). Indeed, using other colours entirely might well be considered. (The British flag displays 3 colours; the EU flag, 2 colours.) Could mini-flags themselves be used to show voters' allegiances? Or, is there yet a better & more neutral way to display voters' choices/opinions/decisions?

post-legislative?

Is this referendum really post-legislative? As far as I understand, it's not - European Union Referendum Act 2015 says nothing about what will happen in either case. Neither a "Remain" vote nor a "Leave" vote will have any legal power or activate or approve anything previously passed by Parliament. This means it's surely a pre-legislative referendum or (if activating Article 50 doesn't need parliamentary approval) an advisory one. Smurrayinchester 10:56, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

It reads to me as a prolix word that merely says that the referendum is authorised by the EU Referendum Act ['or words to that effect']. Formally the referendum is merely 'advisory', Parliament decides. So it is not 'pre-legislative'. So... does this word contribute any value or is it merely confusing. Tell you what, I shall now delete it and see who complains and why. WP:BE BOLD. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 22:44, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

I had wondered about this myself. We've used that word on other Wikipedia articles, but I can't find a definition for it. If one could be found, and linked, then maybe we could restore the word? —ajf (talk) 13:28, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

@Ajfweb: The definition is at Referendums in the United Kingdom#Status of referendums, but I'm not sure whether the referendum fits or not. Smurrayinchester 06:54, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

Having puzzled for a few minutes over what post-legislative might mean (especially given I can't figure out how we would have a pre-legislative one...), and given it's not defined anywhere else on this page (or on the linked referendum article), I've removed the term. We should probably try and keep the introduction as clear as possible. Andrew Gray (talk) 09:51, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

Notes column

IP editor 212.105.162.130 may have abused the process, and made unwarranted assumptions of lack of good faith, but I also wonder whether the 'notes' column might be better presented just as footnotes - similar content is presented as footnotes on other opinion polling pages. DrArsenal (talk) 22:21, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

Reaction Article

I would like to propose a article be created titled Reaction to the United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, 2016 as following the referendum there will be a lot of reaction from both in the UK and around the world to the result that I feel we will need a separate article to cover this in itself as there won't be sufficient room on the main article itself. (46.64.120.94 (talk) 20:42, 1 June 2016 (UTC))

Incorrect statement about 1975 referendum

This article incorrectly states "It will be the second time the British electorate has been asked to vote on the issue of European Union membership: the first vote was held in 1975, on EEC membership". The error is that the 2016 referendum will be the first EU referendum, not the second.

It is ridiculous to equate the 1975 referendum to the European Union in this way. Equating the European Union to the Common Market is like equating Oracle to Sun Microsystems; the one may have replaced the other, but the two things are not the same. This point is especially relevent in the context of the two referenda, because the perception of the UK public in 1975 was that they were voting for (or against) the Common Market -- that is, the referendum back then was regarded by most as simply a free trade issue. Later, in the early 1990s, prior to the Maastricht Treaty, the UK had a big build-up towards joining the European Union as a new thing, not as a refresher of an old thing. Most organisations campaigning today for a British exit from the EU make it clear that they would like to preserve free-trade with the EU. Therefore, the distinction between a free-trade "common market" and the political "European Union" is absolutely fundamental to arguments for leaving. Counter to this, it has long been a ploy made by EU supporters to suggest that the outcome of the 1975 referendum provided a mandate for later joining, in the 1990s, of the EU through the Maastrict Treaty. And, now, Wikipedia has helped these EU supporters by making the same suggestion.

People are strongly influenced by what they read. And many people revere their elders. If a voter today who is too young to recall the build up to our joining the EU in the early 1990s were to believe that his or her grandparents' generation voted in favour of EU membership in 1975, that voter may be swayed to do what he or she thinks is the same course of action. However, by incorrectly equating the 1975 referendum to a referendum on the EU, Wikipedia may have influenced a section of people to vote "remain". I thought Wikipedia was supposed to be an impartial encyclopedia?

The very next sentence to the one you object to states "the nature of the EU has changed substantially since then". Incidentally, this sentence is referenced to an academic paper which states out that "no one could really have believed that the EEC was simply an arm’s length trade arrangement" on the basis that freedom of movement of people - one of the principal objections raised against the present day EU - was very much part of the founding principles of the EEC, and the supremacy of EU law and loss of sovereignty were among arguments raised against the EEC in 1973. Wikipedia is based on what reliable sources say, not the wild speculation of single-purpose editing accounts about whether this might influence people to vote in a direction which is different to the one they would like them to vote in.Dtellett (talk) 14:43, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

Newspapers

Can we have a section on which side has been endorsed by each national newspaper. Have any formal endorsements been made yet? Guardian, Observer, Independent, possibly Times, Mail on Sunday - remain? Sun, Mail, Express, probably the Telegraph - leave? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.180.154.116 (talk) 21:39, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

See the article Endorsements in the United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, 2016 for 'newspapers and magazines' under both Remain and Leave. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 14:55, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

Graph of immigration

The graph of immigration is given far too much prominence in the "Issues" section - I will remove it unless someone can suggest a smaller alternative image that can be put to one side? Absolutelypuremilk (talk) 17:49, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

The main issue with the graph, now that you've highlighted it, is that it shows total net migration without showing what portion of it is from the EU, so it's of incidental relevance in its current form Dtellett (talk) 18:36, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

Yes, this is true as well. I will remove it now. Absolutelypuremilk (talk) 19:28, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

Deletion of the Charities section

In this edit Eddie Hugh removed a sub-section saying in his edit summary "there's no reason, in a Responses section, to state that some groups have not responded".

Reasons why this subsection should remain are:

• The argument of non-response in a response section is a logical fallacy, a strawman at best. According to the source, charities are muzzled by their guidelines. As much as has filtered through in public, many if not most charities are for remaining in the EU.
• This info is pertinent, important and stated nowhere else in the article
• If the non-response in a response section was the only thing troubling the editor, the section didnt need to be deleted, but could be moved/a new section could be created or the section could be renamed as opinions.
• the edit was stable for almost an entire week, checked by scores of editors.

--Wuerzele (talk) 19:35, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

Ok, I don't mind having a statement that some charities are bound by some regulations, so they can't comment. The "most of which support the remain campaign" in the second sentence is highly questionable, though: it wasn't from Wessely and – although from a RS – is unsupported by evidence (it would required a proper survey, which, if it had been done, would have been made mentioned in the source article). Incorporating more fact-based, neutral info – also RS – instead is preferable. How about some detail from The Guardian, here? EddieHugh (talk) 09:08, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

EddieHugh go for it, please! Thanks ! --Wuerzele (talk) 20:23, 14 June 2016 (UTC)