Next week everyone of voting age will receive an official envelope inviting us to select a new flag. The sight of a voting form can be sobering. Suddenly the subject is no longer a conversation piece, it is a personal decision. With that realisation should come another: this is not a decision we get to make again. This two-stage referendum is the first time the public has been invited to choose the nation's flag. It can safely be assumed the chance will not come again.
It is just possible, but not likely, that the final vote will be so close that a future government might reopen the question. But that could happen only if there is a narrow vote for the status quo; a narrow vote for a new flag would be conclusive. We would never go back. A decisive vote for the status quo is the more likely outcome, according to all polls so far, but that referendum is still three months away. The decision we are invited to make next week involves ranking five alternative designs in our preferred order.
Those who have firmly decided they do not want a new flag face a dilemma of whether to vote in the first referendum. It they want to register their opinion at the outset, they may be inclined not to return their ballot paper this time. But when the non-vote is counted there will be no way of knowing how many want to keep the existing flag and how many do not care either way.
For that reason, some have urged opponents of change to write that view on the ballot paper, returning a "spoiled" vote in effect. But that runs a risk of a result that understates opposition to change since not many opponents are likely to send back a spoiled vote, and if some do so, the rest of the non-vote may be taken as those who do not care.
The better option for those who do not want a change of flag, is to take part in this referendum nevertheless. It is in their interests to do so. If the country is going to change the flag, opponents can at least ensure it might be the change they consider least bad.
