We have always regarded a referendum as a form of a consultation – and last week’s excitement illustrated many of the pitfalls familiar to public engagement practitioners. The in/out question has many critics – unsurprisingly mostly from the losing side. But experts have known for years that asking people a binary question is crude, and that is why they are often described as a consultative referendum, enabling whatever body has the power, to take the final decision.

The idea is that because a simple question can mask a lot of extraneous issues and because referendums can sometimes attract low turnouts, it might be prudent to build into the process an opportunity to think again. In other words, it obliges those who initiate the exercise in the first place to consider whether it is a consultative or a decision-making process.