Absolutely not. Democracy means decisions made by the people. There's NOTHING about the concept of Democracy that requires using THE WORST possible method of decision-making, i.e. majority rule yes/no.
There's all sorts of other ways to make collective decisions such as score voting, consensus, requiring approval from a combination of stakeholders (such as in a case like this requiring that all parts of the UK all approve), and so on. Majority rule brings tyranny of the majority and is the worst way to run a democracy.
I don't think you should be getting downvoted. I totally agree with this. Plurality voting is awful, and at least in the US, probably the most fundamentally broken part of politics. There's a good organization that is working to promote better voting methods, the Center for Election Science, that people should take a look at if they doubt this: https://electology.org/
In reality, staying in or leaving the EU is a lot more complicated than a simple two-way choice. The two most obvious paths for exit - leaving the free trade area altogether and somehow joining the EFTA and retaining free trade - have less in common with each other than they do with remaining in the EU. Then there's the issue of what to do if we can't meet the Leave campaign's promises, which seems almost certain as they're self-contradictory and beyond optimistic, but couldn't be guaranteed even if they were more reasonable since so much depends on negotiations with the rest of Europe.
Score voting works perfectly fine with 2 choices. There's no basis to say otherwise.
Consider simple realistic hypothetical: what if 10% of the pro-Brexit voters are gung-ho and 90% are only slightly leaning toward it with a lot of hesitation; and 90% of the anti-Brexit voters are strongly opposed to the Brexit? With score voting, the pro-Brexit voters can still be majority but the decision will be voted down because the pro-Brexit voters weren't as sure. Even if the majority of voters decide to vote strategically, it would make a difference. I know I would never vote extreme one side or the other on something I myself actually feel conflicted about.
For clarity, instead of scoring 1-10 on "yes" as an option and 1-10 on "no" as an option, it makes more sense for yes/no votes to be on a standard strongly-disagree/disagree/somewhat-disagree/somewhat-agree etc. scale.
I'm not advocating for unanimous support as a mechanism. Tyranny of the minority is shitty, yes.
We absolutely know better ways that FPTP. Score voting is better, period. And just like FPTP can still put the post at higher than 50% (which is necessary for major systematic changes like this), score voting can put a requirement on what level of average score is needed to pass a measure.
Good luck doing this in practice. What looks good on paper and what works in reality is not always the same. And making elections more complicated might not be the best way to go.
I didn't advocate for making elections more complicated. There are lots of stupid ways to get more complicated. Score voting is not complicated at all. It's the same damn thing as rating books on Amazon.com or whatever.
And even a simple vote can (and in most cases DOES already) simply set the post further than 50% mark for decisions of such fundamental significance.
There's all sorts of other ways to make collective decisions such as score voting, consensus, requiring approval from a combination of stakeholders (such as in a case like this requiring that all parts of the UK all approve), and so on. Majority rule brings tyranny of the majority and is the worst way to run a democracy.