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EU referendum ‘should not have been held’

Politics since Brexit vote has been dominated by political slogans, not nuance, says David Dimbleby.

The 2016 referendum on whether the UK should leave the European Union was "not a proper subject for a referendum" and "should not have been held," David Dimbleby has said.

The broadcaster told the Hardalk programme’s Stephen Sackur the matter should have been left "for an election and a political party that had worked out what it was going to do".

Dimbleby, who conducted many political interviews and hosted political debate programmes for decades at the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳, also lamented what he believed was a decline in political communication.

He claimed that, since, Brexit "we live by political slogans in a way we didn’t 20 or 30 years ago".

Asked whether he had been successful in holding politicians to account during his career, he said that political interviewing was a "two-way street" and that politicians who are serious and thoughtful about their job are "few on the ground at the moment".

He said that advisers now told politicians to avoid lengthy interviews where they could be held properly to account.

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