Stock market fears that a Leave vote would lead to a sharp drop in global growth appear to have calmed. The conclusion now seems to be that Brexit might be bad for the UK but for the rest of the world it is close to a non-event.
Really? With the eurozone still struggling to coalesce around a strategy to preserve the currency union, and populist pressures building everywhere, it is highly likely that similar episodes will erupt, and disrupt, on the continent.
A widespread resort to knife-edge votes to address complex, nation-defining economic questions with international implications would be a concern even amid strengthening global growth. But the situation is just the opposite — and in this context such mechanisms are a recipe for instability and disaster.