[Vanders9]

No it isn't a trivial matter, but then who gets to decide which is a trivial matter and which is not? On your definition, you could argue that reform of the House of Lords should be put to a referendum. Is not reform of the way work affecting part of the body that governs us? Equally you could argue reform of the royal inheritence criteria should be put to a referendum. You could even argue that constituency boundary changes should be put to a referendum. After all, the boundaries commission is a non elected body that effectively decides (or at least has a huge impact) on who governs us.

Please understand I'm not advocating referendums for any of these issues, I'm just trying to show how allowing one referendum might be the thin edge of a wedge that could lead to referendums happening all the time. We would be on the road to a type of participatory rather than representative democracy.

[sinsofsolarempirefan]

Actually, I do think we ought to have a referendum on the reform of the House of Lords.
Boundary changes for constituencies are trivial and happen quite regularly based on the population size of any given constituency. The Boundaries Commission is simply an impartial body there to prevent the rise of ‘rotten boroughs’ like Old Sarum happening again, and constituency changes do not happen for political reasons. Holding a referendum every time there is a population shift would be ridiculous...