Look at me, look at you, and see the scars. 2014. 2016. Scottish independence. Brexit. We were there, you and I, we went through it, we argued, we fell out with friends and family, we voted. But for what? What did the referendums achieve, apart from making us a little more frustrated, a little more fed-up, and a little more divided?

That line of thought – what are referendums for, what do they do exactly? – occurred to me again this week while I was watching taoiseach Leo Varadkar trudge towards the camera and concede defeat in the referendums that have just happened in Ireland. “There are a lot of people who got this wrong,” he said, “and I am certainly one of them.” He also said the government would respect the outcome of the vote.

Two things. Firstly, good on Varadkar for saying that, although we know, don’t we, that politicians who fail to get their way with referendums keep on trying (see Scotland ad infinitum). Secondly, the concern a lot of us have is that we’re still not learning the lessons of bad referendums, and bad law, and written constitutions. Ireland certainly hasn’t learned the lessons, and neither has Scotland, so perhaps now might be a good a time to talk them through again.

Quick recap of the Irish situation first. There were two referendums and the decision people had to make was whether two parts of the constitution relating to women and families should be changed. The first would have recognised families based on “durable relationships” rather than just marriage and the second would have replaced the reference to women in the home with a new provision recognising the role of carers.

I guess we can all see where this is going and to an extent it’s fair enough: the Irish constitution was written in the 1930s when everything was different (or almost everything). But the fact Varadkar wanted to hold referendums to change the constitution, supported by pretty much all the political establishment, highlights a number of problems we’ve seen in Ireland and are seeing in Scotland too, big time.

The first is the faith we put in referendums, despite the fact they’re rubbish. The big issue mainly is they reduce highly complex situations – independence, Brexit, the role of women and carers in society, you name it – to the unsubtlety of a Yes or No shouted in the street, or plastered on placards, or yelled in your face. Politically, socially, culturally, emotionally, the referendum is crude and ineffective, like trying to do keyhole surgery with a hammer and nail.

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The second problem highlighted by the Irish debacle is the wider issue with written constitutions. Write something down and in the next 100 years, or the next ten, or next week for God’s sake, it’ll probably be out of date. But try and get round that problem by making it so vague and anodyne that it won’t get old and it loses all meaning and effect. Written constitutions are also largely irrelevant to whether progress goes forward or backwards (the removal of abortion rights in America for example) and most of the time politicians could just get on and change the law if they wanted to. Unsurprisingly, a written constitution is one of Humza Yousaf’s big ideas for Scotland.

The other issues that have been bubbling away in the Irish referendums are also highly relevant to Scotland. The first is the idea that politicians such as Varadkar are trying to push ahead with positive, progressive causes but are constantly being held back by dark conservative forces, which is clearly nonsense. Opposition to Varadkar’s proposals came from the liberal left as well as the right and the same has happened to opposition to the SNP over their trans reform or hate laws.

The real problem, seen in Ireland and in Scotland too, is the tendency both governments have to bad law. It was not explained exactly why referendums needed to be held (at a cost of some £20m) when the precise meaning of the constitution is unclear and when the government is free to get on and legislate to improve the situation for women and carers without the palaver of a plebiscite. The proposed changes were also hopelessly vague and were clearly open to unintended consequences. What does “durable relationship” actually mean?

The same woolly thinking applies across the Irish Sea in Scotland. The 2014 referendum was fought by the SNP on hopelessly vague assurances about money, and borders, and costs, their proposals for a written constitution are based on a vague idea of “Scottish values” (whatever they are), and much of their law-making is criminally vague, notably their Hate Crime Bill which creates an offence of stirring up hatred without providing a clear definition of what hate is other than someone being upset by something you said.

This is obviously risky stuff – vagueness of intention and consequences is dangerous – and the result in the Irish referendums, and I would argue the 2014 Scottish referendum as well, made that clear. I was amused by reports that some voters in Ireland last week were adding annotations to their ballot papers which made their opinions clear; one voter in the town of Wexford for example wrote on his paper “language too vague, please try again”, which is delightfully polite but dreadfully accurate: the politicians need to do better.

Importantly, none of this means voters in Ireland or Scotland are opposed to change or even liberal reforms. Opinion in Ireland on gay rights and abortion has changed massively in recent years and read any of the interviews with No voters in the Irish referendums and it’s clear their opposition came not from a desire for a return to the 1950s on women’s rights but from doubt about what the changes meant. And the one thing voters hate more than any other is doubt.

I think also that after so many referendums in recent years, voters in Ireland, and Scotland, have the right now to ask what they’re really for, and whether they’re worth the effort. Ireland could have introduced gay marriage without holding a referendum; Leo Varadkar could also legislate to improve the lives of women and carers without a vote. The problem is referendums are usually one big, expensive posture by a politician who wants to prove how much the people agree with him, except it doesn’t always go that way, as Leo Varadkar, and Alex Salmond, and David Cameron discovered.

So let’s try to learn the lessons this time. Varadkar said his referendums were a “value statement about what we stand for”; he also clearly wanted to demonstrate (bill: £20m) what an amazing guy he is and how opposed he is to sexism. But how about being pragmatic instead and laying out clearly and precisely what you’re actually going to do about the problems we face and listening carefully when the experts explain how the law might work. That sounds like a plan to me, for Ireland and Scotland. It would also mean no more referendums for a long time to come, to our massive, collective relief.