On its own admission, the government should have included a double majority as a criterion for implementing the EU referendum result. In 2015 in a debate on an SNP amendment requiring this and other safeguards, David Lidington stated that these were not necessary as the referendum was advisory only.
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The obvious conclusion we can draw from this is that the government believed that a binding referendum would require these checks and balances. David Cameron then proceeded to change the status of the referendum to binding by promising to implement the result but failed to change the majority criteria. We do not believe that a 3.8% majority, after a shameful campaign, is a mandate for such a huge constitutional change, nor the dismissal of 48% of the electorate, Scotland and Northern Ireland.