The case for sloped shoulders – the EU, the referendum and you

Has there ever been a subject on which more has been spoken and less has been known than the European Union referendum?
While everyone is talking about it, which for political issues is as rare as dodo’s teeth let alone hen’s teeth, the swirl of incorrect information, incorrectly-heard information and straight-up lies makes it hardly worth the conversations.
Media organisations with an agenda (mostly for the out option) and Brexit and Bremain campaigners throw information out there and see what sticks – the worst being the Daily Express’s poll saying same 80% of 100,000 voters back Brexit. A poll on the Daily Express website reporting the vast majority readers back the UK to leave the EU?! Grab the smelling salts.
There are sources out there which gives people a lot of basic and down-the-middle information about the EU – like these items on the BBC website http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-32810887 and http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/zgjwtyc - but very few people have the time nor inclination to read up on a subject so convoluted as the European Union, let alone the European Commission and European Court of Human Rights which so many see their respective responsibilities as basically interchangeable.
It was probably the same for the Scots last year; this weird mixture of scaremongering, patriotism, conjecture and paucity of facts but at least that campaign had an element of positive campaigning in it (from the pro-independence lads and lasses. I didn’t and don’t agree with them but they generally went about it the right way).
And all this goes back to what I think is the huge elephant in the room with the referendum – why are we having it in the first place?
We live in a representative democracy where, for better or for worse, we elect people to make complex, complicated decisions for us. That’s their jobs and they get paid (not enough) for it.
The EU could well be the most complex, complicated thing going (and I include returning a damaged mail order product to a catalogue company in that) so this is surely the kind of situation elected representative democracy was designed for?
I would consider myself to be relatively well-educated – although the half of my degree I was not particularly skilled at was international relations – and with a strong interest in political issues and I feel as if I do not have the facts to make an informed decision.
So why are we having a referendum?
I feel it is because the Conservatives are terrified of what a parliamentary vote would do for the long-term future of their party with the divide between the UKIP-friendly MPs and the others coming very much to the fore.
Bust out the sloped shoulder, throw the decision to the people, no matter how ill-informed they are, and that perceived democratic mandate saves them the implosion.
“Taking democracy back to the people” is all well and good but if that’s your angle, at least have the decency to trust those same people with the correct information, not pseudo-facts and shouting to back up your viewpoint.
So, here we are heading to a referendum where none of us truly know the benefits or drawbacks of being an EU member so how can we possibly be allowed to vote? I don’t sign up to a mortgage provider without weighing up the options properly, why are we being allowed to shape the future of our country without being completely clued up?
The inevitable shitstorm that would go down if a politician were to say “I don’t trust the British public to make the right decision for themselves on this” means no-one in authority would make such an on the record statement but may I be the first to slope my shoulders and say “I don’t trust me to make the right decision for myself on this, you do it”.