Andrew Holness, in his recent campaign to become prime minister, pledged to have Jamaicans “vote in a grand referendum” on the following questions: Should Jamaica subscribe fully to the Caribbean Court of Justice? Should there be repeal of the buggery law? Should ganja be legalised? Holness succeeded in his quest to become the prime minister.

David Cameron, in his campaign to be returned as prime minister, pledged to have the British people vote in a referendum on the question of the United Kingdom’s position within the European Union. Cameron succeeded in being returned as prime minister and promptly initiated the process for the referendum vote. The shocking catastrophe that has followed is said to be one of the worst in Britain’s storied political history.

Debate has stretched over decades as to whether the referendum process is really “part of the DNA” of the Westminster system of parliamentary democracy. Certainly, from as long ago as 1945, it was seriously challenged at the highest political level in the United Kingdom by British Labour Party leader, Clement Atlee.

Comparison is traditionally made with the presidential system of government as obtains in the United States of America, where the Cabinet, the highest policy decision-making entity, is drawn from outside of the Congress. The members do not have their ears to the ground concerning day-to-day thinking among the general populace, it is said, and further, nobody voted for them to take decisions on their behalf.

It is different in the Westminster system in which Cabinet members are drawn from both Houses of Parliament, with the vast majority of them directly voted for in constituencies or ridings to be parliamentary representatives of the people.

The voting public expects those leaders to take policy decisions on their behalf, keenly watched, also on their behalf, by other representatives who, for the most part, have been voted for. The law and the conventions that are in place also undergird that expectation.

No surprise therefore that, for reasons of accountability to the general public, the referendum process would have grown to become “part of the system” of governance in the USA. Some means would clearly have had to be found for the people to have a voice in the policy decision-making process. It is often said that in the US, they vote on everything, at every level.

Although a referendum calls for the exercise of the franchise on the part of the full voting public, there is an essential element that it does not share with a general election campaign in which there are several issues put forward in manifestos.

In the general election the electorate does not dutifully study any of those issues in depth. Their decision rests on which (party) group they believe will best address their interests. Not so in a referendum, where the public is asked to concentrate, and actually vote, on a specific question.

As such, questions are legitimately asked: Was the average British voter at Gloucester or Wandsworth expected to appreciate the intricacies of the question before heading to cast his vote on that Thursday? Was my Uncle Frankie, a voter in Rock River, Clarendon, or my Uncle Captain in Parry Town, St Ann, expected to appreciate the intricacies of the West Indies Federation experiment in 1961 before heading to the polling station in that referendum exercise?

In like manner, as there is said to have been a display of intrigue and untruths in the recent referendum episode in the UK, as is now being reported on in multiple newscasts and interviews, so it was in the exercise of 1961 here in Jamaica. Russian ships in the Kingston Harbour to take on fresh water and more were declared to a largely uninformed public to be the vessel that had“come to take you back into slavery if you voted for the other party”.

And, perhaps the most poignant message was the cartoon with Jamaica as the mother sow and the other territories, St Lucia, Dominica, and the like as piglets all lined up, feeding at its nipples.

This Brexit referendum episode has both shaken the human global perspective and rocked the economic foundations of every region, as it has sent forth several lessons to be contemplated — not least that a referendum on this type of question usually leaves the society with uneasy, deep divisions.

Up until Thursday, June 23, any opposition in these parts to a suggestion for the holding of a referendum was, without fail, stridently and sneeringly met by the expedient populist interjection: “Oh, so you don’t trust the people?” even in circumstances where the law lays down the correct procedure that is to be followed.

Now, there is every certainty that, since Friday, June 24, a sizable chunk of that stridency would have been blown away. For, never before has such outrage and lament ensued following upon a referendum vote anywhere within the Commonwealth.

So, where does this leave Holness and his election campaign pledges? In the case of the Caribbean Court of Justice, it is expected that it has finally come home that there are far too many uncertainties and pitfalls lurking in the way of a stubborn refusal to simply take the course that our highest court has laid down.

Grenada and Antigua and Barbuda are bound to the referendum route constitutionally. But not one of the 40-plus other Commonwealth countries that have left the Privy Council has deserted the legally required route and gone in the direction of a public vote.

The buggery law referendum promise leaves Holness on the horns of a dilemma. It was always difficult, some say impossible, to visualise how such a campaign on that subject matter could be planned and executed in this Jamaica of ours. So, we perhaps should not hold our collective breath on that score.

But there is yet another dimension. Some people argue forcefully that this is a matter for the courts to pronounce upon and that a decision has to be taken whether we wish to live, as we must, with a ruling handed down on this matter by the Privy Council or by the Caribbean Court of Justice. The ball is squarely within Holness’s court.

And the legalisation of ganja? On this aspect of Holness’s pledges, the public should be left in no doubt as to whether advice had been sought from, and given by, the international law practitioners relating to the conventions and treaties to which Jamaica is party, and how the message of that referendum campaign would be conceptualised and promoted.

David Cameron’s referendum decision continues to send in-your-face aftershocks following on the seismic generational tremor of that fateful Thursday. Its lessons are certainly not meant to be contemplated by the UK and the European Union alone. These are, without question, lessons for the history books; lessons for the ages.

And now, it is left to be seen whether Holness would dare to push the referendum button, as Cameron had clearly felt himself obliged to do, after having been returned as prime minister some several months ago.

A J Nicholson is a former senator and Cabinet minister in the People’s National Party administrations. Send comments to the Observer or nicholsonaj1@gmail.com.