Politics is about value judgements.

Good politicians balance technical advice with particular moral or ethical perspectives. They ponder the political implications of their own position to see how it fits with the prevailing mood. But in the end, having weighed up all the evidence, it’s the lonely responsibility of an elected politician to decide.

In many ways, a referendum is an abdication of that responsibility. Saying “This one’s a toughie,” and throwing it back to the audience with a shrug hardly smacks of strong leadership.

Of course, it can be justified in certain circumstances: if a decision needs to sit outside party politics, as in the case of the recent referendum on proportional representation, for example. But a single-issue referendum removes nuance and complexity from politics. It replaces infinite shades of grey with a stark and simple choice. The real world is not that simple.

In reality, an exit from the EU would require every political party to rip up its manifesto and start again. Policies on health, welfare, the economy and the environment are predicated in some way on EU membership. Given the choice between differing packages of measures through party political manifestos – some involving EU membership and others not – the electorate could express a balanced choice. But the suggestion that Europe is somehow an independent dial on our political graphic equalizer is nonsense.

It’s hard to argue against a referendum in principle. To do so is to make the toxic suggestion that you don’t trust the voters to decide for themselves. The arguments against a referendum are easily batted away: “It will cost too much” – hardly, in comparison to the billion-here-or-there rounding error that we routinely accept in calculating the deficit; “It’s not a relevant issue” – well, the groundswell of support for UKIP in the recent local elections has put paid to that.

However, the most robust argument is that representative democracy allows decisions on major issues to be taken holistically, in a way that recognises their implications for other areas of national life. Sadly, our representatives have contrived to undermine this argument. If our elected politicians were trusted to do the right thing and considered competent, perhaps people would welcome their wisdom and leadership on the issue of Europe. But right now, repeated scandals on expenses and undue political influence, combined with the general Horlicks that characterises each political party right now, makes this a tough argument to sustain.

Politicians only have themselves to blame if people want them out of the decision-making process altogether.