fwiw, amending the US constitution generally requires a 2/3 majority in both houses of congress to propose the amendment, and then further ratification by 3/4 of the states make the amendment law. it's a fairly long process, and amendments sometime get bogged down and die in the 2nd phase.
(there is another process which calls for a convention, but such a convention would have broad powers to change many things and so far the "two sides" (US rules tilt toward two parties rather than more) have been too scared of what might happen to do that)
Ireland's Supreme Court decided in 1987 to make a referendum mandatory before they would ratify EU treaty amendments. Not that it mattered, because they got a "no" vote but their puppet masters wanted a "yes", so they just reran the referendum the following year...
Usually not "easily". I know Germany requires 2/3 majority.
fwiw, amending the US constitution generally requires a 2/3 majority in both houses of congress to propose the amendment, and then further ratification by 3/4 of the states make the amendment law. it's a fairly long process, and amendments sometime get bogged down and die in the 2nd phase.
(there is another process which calls for a convention, but such a convention would have broad powers to change many things and so far the "two sides" (US rules tilt toward two parties rather than more) have been too scared of what might happen to do that)
Ireland's Supreme Court decided in 1987 to make a referendum mandatory before they would ratify EU treaty amendments. Not that it mattered, because they got a "no" vote but their puppet masters wanted a "yes", so they just reran the referendum the following year...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-eighth_Amendment_of_t...
Only 59% turn out, and the vote won 67%. So in reality less than 40% of the population were for it.
I have vague memories of people saying that the treaty was indecipherable. The EU were like, "Here, vote yes for this big bag of 'misc', or else"
This wasn't the first time they reran a referendum for an EU treaty. They did it back in 2003!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-sixth_Amendment_of_th...
If the UK wanted to avoid BREXIT all they had to do was look a few miles to the west for the knack.