I shall be on leave in late June, so today I have applied for my postal vote. If there’s a vote to be had, I shall exercise my democratic right, as fought for by our predecessors.
I shall vote. But truth be told, on this occasion, I don’t think I should have a vote. Referendums just ain’t the way to do things. Every few years. the electorate gets the chance to vote for a parliament that should pull together a coherent plan that integrates policies in all those areas where a government exercises power. Once they have elected that government, they should leave them to it and should not have the chance to vote on one particular decision or policy. An electorate’s decision on one issue may be completely at odds with all other policies, with all the dysfunction that that implies. Put it this way, if you had a referendum on the base rate of tax, and then a referendum on free tertiary education provision on the same day, you can bet that the outcome would a mandate for a low tax rate that could not support the mandate for tertiary education free at the point of provision.
So, I don’t want to be asked for my decision during the course of a parliament; that’s what we elected our MPs to do. Yet, in some parts of the world, referendums are ever popular. Anyone from Switzerland or the US got a slant on this?
I vote for referendums. This is probably because I only want a say on the big decisions. I think these should be made outside the framework of party politics and the day’s government must work around them. In this case, presumably if we vote to leave (which I won’t be voting for) the present government will be near the end of it’s run by the time we ‘close the tunnel’ so all parties will be able to tailor their manifestos accordingly.
The whole democratic process is messy at the best of times. But I instinctively feel referendums are probably the most effective way under certain circumstances to resolve certain issues that can’t be resolved otherwise.
In principle, if a government is split over whether to implement a certain big decision, and agrees to take it to a binding referendum to settle it, then I think that’s probably healthy.
It would be the responsibility of that government to ensure they weren’t just bombarding the electorate with too many choices, or allowing two contradictory referendums to occur.
(Hm. Is it “referenda” not “referendums”??)
Unless you are over the age of 58, you won’t have had a say on whether Britain should be in or out of the EU, or -as it was called when we joined- the ‘Common Market’.
We should certainly have had a say by now as to whether we approved of the various changes that have transformed that vast political project over the years.
As Else Garnett (played by Dandy Nichols) said about husband Alf: “He thinks the Common Market is a row of stalls in a side street”
Much as I generally go along with the you pays yer money model of politics, the winning party does it’s own thing etc, with the demonstrated flaws in any system highlighted by that of late, together with no single united front for UKin or Brexit in any significant party, referenda it is. And, as a stripling of barely 18, it was my first vote soI feel some responsibility.
With Cheshire on this. Don’t agree with Referenda at all. Going one step further I actually think it is the politics of cowards. If the Conservative party couldn’t agree pre general election on whether they were for or against staying in Europe then I don’t think they should be considered fit to govern.
They have effectively conned the general populace with their wishy washy stance. If there is a vote to leave then I really think there should be a snap election thereafter. Or at the very least CVameron should resign.
Politicians are elected to make the difficult decisions or at least should be. If they can’t make them they should stand aside.
But they campaigned that if they won the election there would be a referendum!
They did indeed campaign that there would be a referendum if they won the election. However that ducks the issue. The majority of the cabinet is for staying in Europe. Is it not possible for them to develop a unified approach?- the dissenting cabinet members should have joined UKIP. Bet they would have changed their minds if that was the only option available to them. They are all chancres if you ask me.
by that logic, pro-Trident members of the Shadow Cabinet should leave Labour and join the Conservatives.
Of course, there’s no shortage of Corbynistas who think they should do exactly that.
Incidentally, this is unrelated but grimly funny – I saw a Twitter exchange between Liz Kendall and a Corbyn supporter yesterday which went like this:
Kendall: We are a proud, outward looking country that has confidence to engage with rest of world. Help us be an even Greater Britain #VoteRemain
Corbynista: Is this mean’t [sic]as a twisted insult to the millions of dead and displaced in Iraq, Syria Liz?
Kendall: No.
Crikey, where to start? The principle that MPs of the majority party can vote against the government is essential to parliamentary democracy, because their first loyalty is to their constituents. The ‘wishy washy stance’ of both main parties reflects the population’s. And as Dai says, the Tories promised a referendum before they were elected, so it’s hard to see how it can be cowardice to deliver on that promise even if it will finish Cameron and Osborne if it goes the wrong way.
My problem with referendums is that the people we elect to make decisions on our behalf are actually quite good at it. We have a system of multiple readings, referrals to the Lords, committee stages, amendments, and JRs, and throughout the process of the Bill every one of us has the opportunity to influence our MP. Referendums throw all that away and give responsibility for vital decisions to people who think Boris is funny or Gove is a w*nker.
The only party that is ‘wishy washy’ is Conservative. There are a handful of Labour outers. The overwhelming majority of Labour MPs are in. The Tories are a third out, a third in and a third undeclared. The only other parties with outers are UKIP and the DUP. Pretty much everyone else is in. If it was a free vote in Parliament, in would win by miles.
You’re right of course. It’s Labour voters who are divided (38% pro-brexit), not the MPs.
Why aren’t those Corbyn lovers following their leader?
Labour voters, not Labour members. Crucial distinction.
Yes. You are quite right.
Referendums (Referenda?) are an excuse for Government not making a decision
(“Let’s ask the populace (in all their potentially ill informed knee-jerk reaction) to make the decision for us. That way it’s not our fault if it goes wrong”).
You are the elected Government (I voted for you) – please make a decision. It’s your responsibility to do what is best for us – we trust you (or at least democracy has trusted you)
Exactly.
Referenda ( as I think they are called) are inherently tricksy.
In the UK our MPs are elected as representatives rather than delegates, & it’s an important distinction. We entrust them to make executive decisions on our behalf on matters they have a close understanding of the facts & the implications of such decisions.
Understandably, they are subject to party discipine ( i.e. doing what they’re told) & lobbying interests, but the concept is that we entrust them to act in our ( the nation’s best interest).
There are numerous examples of why referenda are not preferred in the UK & capital punishment is often trotted out to illustrate the point.
It is taken as a given that the vast majority of the population would restore capital punishment in a heart beat if given the choice. Our representatives are fully aware of this, yet there is a consensus that the matter is not best decided by the electorate as they are not aware of ‘ all the facts & nuances’ of such matters & would be very easily swayed by a tabloid driven ‘ hang the paedos high’ mob justice agenda,resulting in a bad decision.
One can agree or disagree with this of course, but it is a conscious political decision made by the politicos of this country that the matter is best left to them.
Using this same logic, a refendum on IN or OUT can easily be seen as a cop out, with a highly complex & multi stranded set of issues – is it about immigration, human rights, sovereignty, law & order, good old fashioned bigotry or the growth of an international federated super state? Or all of these? Or none?
Regardless, probably a lot more of a complex topic than capital punishment, but one likely to be driven in public by Farage, Cameron, Boris and Gove amongst others with the famously objective UK press making helpful suggestions to help us make up our intentions.
In many ways the timing is awkward to say the least, but is at least in part a sop to those
( including Farage) who rightly decry the fact that most living UK voters have never had a say in the way the EU/EC has evolved or mutated since we joined. If voters here had had more input before now, feelings may not be as polarised & a rather more civilised dabate may be possible.
As it is, many of our ‘leading’ politicians on either side are rightly seen as just as fork tongued & duplicitous as their opposite numbers, with Joe Public having very little to go on but gut instinct. Gut instinct may be fine when buying an armchair on Gum Tree, but maybe not so great when deciding the direction of the nation for next 50 plus years.
My sense is that our politicians have bumbled & fudged the various issues concerning our membership of an insigution that is eccentric to say the least for decades – systematically failing to grasp successive nettles – & now expect us to decide. Seems like a cheek to me.
Referendums are gerundive and don’t take the plural. Referenda is a bit made up
I’m happy to vacate the grammar rostrums in deference to your greather knowledge.
( insert smile emoticon)
Now you’re just goading us all to shout ‘rostra’.
Cheers Si, for the elucidation. Knowing that I was putting my head in a pedantic lion’s gob, I did indeed check this before using the word ‘referendums’.
It’s an interesting topic.
In general, I tend to go along with the view expressed in John Mortimer’s Paradise Postponed when the bluff old fashioned Tory suggested that people vote for a government to govern, not to keep asking them bloody silly questions all the time. I still take this view, a government is there to govern and too much listening to special interests or ‘the people’ can mess with their minds or what they should be doing. If they cock it up and people don’t like what they do, then they will be out the door come next election. However with issues such as EU membership and Scottish independence, I don’t see any other way to resolve the issue. Cameron couldn’t allow this to fester, he promised reforms which he was never going to deliver on, the Eurosceptics were always going to object to whatever ‘settlement’ he came back with and this is now needed to lance the boil and then get on and govern. I hope the campaign will focus on the positive, but fear it won’t be. Both sides will appeal to the fears each side has. I don’t think Cameron has been cowardly about this at all though. He may not have satisfied unrealistic demands, but he has taken on a significant rump of his own party and I hope he comes through it. It may not be much of a choice, but rather this than Boris Johnson, Farage or God help us, Galloway’s opportunism and views holding precedence.
If you think Highway 61 Revisited and Blood on the Tracks are the titles of two Bob Dylan alba, and if you think insurance premia are way too high, then “referenda” is the plural form you should go with. Otherwise, it’s probably better to stick with “referendums”.
Shit. Does this mean I should have been saying “Jessica Albums” all this time?
It’s ‘referendii’ and you’re both talking out of your ba.
You wait hours for a bus and then two bi come along at once.
If “Omnibus” means “everyone” how can the driver say he’s no room left for me?
Omnibus take all of us
All of us take omnibus.
Make your oyster furrrrrrlll.
My favourite XTC song of them all.
So is it bi-curious, or bus-curious?
If you’re talking oysters, it’s bivalve-curious.
I say a few things about public transport and a jolly pop song by XTC and you start talking about bummage.
I am disappoint.
One-man operation. . .
*applause*
The trouble with referendums is that tons of people are really stupid and have no idea that they have no idea.
There’s a phenomen called the Dunning-Kruger effect: it’s a cognitive bias whereby the incompetent have no mechanism for recognising their incompetence and therefore vastly overrate themselves. They tend to think hard stuff is simple and fail to recognise complexity, thinking they’re good at something they’re actually really awful at.
Truly intelligent and competent people recognise complexity and tend to underrate their own skill and overrate other people’s – “Oh, yeah: I suppose I can do that, but it’s probably not that difficult. I bet loads of people are at least as good at that as me,” they say, not knowing that in fact, no, most people aren’t.
As Bertrand Russell said, “The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.” It makes it very hard to make a convincing case for anything nuanced because the only arguments that fly are the ridiculously oversimplified ones.
For all representative democracy’s flaws, stuff DOES get debated by reasonably intelligent people who understand that there are rarely simple answers. (That fact often gets lost when people think that the silliness of PMQs is all that parliament does.)
I don’t think the public has the first idea what the issues in this referendum are. I know I have no real idea what the right answer is. We’re not competent to make the decision.
But on the flip side, it’s important and it’s been a long time since we got to vote on it. I suppose what this referendum truly represents is a failure of leadership: we wouldn’t need it if our party leaders (well, Cameron, really) weren’t scared to take a firm policy stance.
a genuinely fascinating post. It is this that makes this my go to website.
thank you.
Aw, thanks Oscar. 🙂
Have an up from me, too, Bob. Your posts are always erudite even in the whirlwind of a political thread.
Thanks Tiggs!
Well said, Bob.
Adding my voice to the choir Bob.
Have an up.
Uppity.
Thanks everyone *embarrassed foot shuffle*
I agree with you in principle, but I think this particular issue reveals an interesting conundrum. From what I can tell, few if any of the politicians really seem able to articulate clearly either benefits of either leaving or staying in the EU. A number of independent reports seem to suggest that there really isn’t enough information to go in order to make an informed assessment. So whilst that suggests that the electorate are going to be hard pressed to make a sensible judgement, the same is true of our representatives. Difference is, they have had years ( and arguably the resources) in which to find out without seemingly be able or willing to do so.
All the major points already covered above.
The only thing I’d add is that the Scottish experience has, for me at least, raised a question as to whether referendums really “resolve” anything. My strong suspicion is that the “Stay” campaign will win a relatively slender victory and then return home to discover that Farage, et al, are pointing to their forty something share of the vote and proclaiming that this isn’t over.
If a referendum doesn’t settle the issue, and merely provides a rallying point for the forces proposing change, is it really serving its intended purpose?
I’m also uncomfortable with simple rather than qualified majorities for big stuff like this. A narrow victory for either side won’t settle the issue at all. I think that, for once, standard corporate practice has got this about right. In most cases any significant changes to a company’s articles of association – which is what Brexit would be equivalent to – needs a certain number of shareholders’ votes in favour, typically two thirds rather than half plus one.
As we often see from the fluctuations in opinion polls, just because 51% may think one thing today doesn’t mean the vote wouldn’t swing the other way if it were held tomorrow.
Over here in Paddyland we had a referendum to legalise divorce which, from a poll of over one and a half million people, was passed by a margin of about 9,000. Yep, at the height of Britpop, 49.7% of Irish voters wanted to keep divorce illegal. Whether you were “fur” or “agin” the Constitutional Amendment, the bald facts of the numbers were that in a referendum won by 9,000 votes a million people didn’t vote at all and the narrow margin meant large chunks of the country voted against the change.
I would have seen the divorce amendment as a no-brainier, and also something that was going to come at some time, the only question being when the country was ready (a similar amendment had been heavily defeated in 1986) but I can’t help thinking of the horror I would feel if a controversial amendment I was strongly opposed to was passed by so slender a margin..
And another thing!
There are about 1.5 million British expats in other EU countries. We’re not allowed to vote in this referendum. If the referendum result is for the UK to leave but the winning margin is only one million or less, how can that possibly called a fair democratic result? No Brits living in the EU want to the UK to leave for obvious reasons.
Excellent point Archie. It’s odd that ex-pats can register to vote in a general election (I don’t, as in my case it seems unfair somehow), yet they have no say in this referendum which will have an enormous effect on them.
The figure I’ve seen was 2.2 million.
One million in Spain, 330 thousand in France, 107 thousand in Germany etc.
I see that “million in Spain” quoted a lot and it’s way, way off. The figure for those who really live here is 330,000 – the same as France. Even if UK-based second-home and timeshare owners are included, I doubt it’d be as many as a million. No idea where they got that from.
Making the choice not to live in this country, pay taxes here, or contribute to the economy or society on a day-to-day basis, seems to me like a good enough reason not to qualify for a vote.
It’s interesting that the “let’s settle this once and for all” argument for the referendum has gone very quiet. Nobody knows what’s on the other side of that hill. Except, whatever happens, more and more bellowing from Nigel Farage.
Unlike,say, California and Switzerland, we seem to limit referenda to big, constitutional issues. I am happy with that.
…. Shake it all about.
Let England Shake
…..Rattle & Roll
Hearing that Putin wants us out finally decided it for me.
That is my viewpoint. Looking at the the politicians, from across the political spectrum, who are campaigning for out there is not one I could vote for.
You know the great thing about referendums? They really settle an issue once and for all, so that people can stop obsessing about it and do something else. As the example of Scotland shows.
Some decisions are too important to be left to the morons we elect to Westminster. An in/out referendum is way too simplistic, there are a range of options that should be put to the populace.
1. In as we are now but no further. 2. Roll back EU powers but remain in, 3. Go all out for a single European State, or 4. Bugger off and leave them to it. (Have I missed anything?) The rest of the UK will get to experience project fear which blighted the level of debate in Scotland. Neither side can prove their assertions as to what will happen. Both in and out pose risks. Trouble is we sleep-walked into this situation, as more and more power has been surrendered and both Labour & Tories claimed a mandate for Europe although it was only a footnote in election manifestos and wasn’t the driver that made people vote one way or the other.
In Scotland the option that I believe would have been the most popular with voters (Devo-max) was not put to the voters. This is why the issue wasn’t really settled. The worst result would be a narrow victory either way.
My own view is we should never have joined in the first place but it is probably too late to pull out now, but the EU really needs reform and some real democracy, the parliament seems to be a fig-leaf for the eurocrats and failed politicians in Bruxelles.
Anyway, the real question is, if Trump or HRC get the top job, can we leave planet earth before we all get nuked?
You missed the Boris Johnson/Michael Howard “Euroflounce” option. We vote to sling our hooks and they beg, plead and offer us “sweeties’n’stuff” to stay.
Yeah right…
This referendum vote will large depend on gut feeling because the whole issue is fiendishly complicated. No one knows the effects of a Brexit on the economy (UK, European or World), because the permutations of outcomes are virtually endless. Therefore, if even the experts do not have definitive answers, what chance do the rest of us have?
My gut feeling is that we are better in than out and partly because the process of disentangling the country from The EU could be lengthy and difficult, causing years of uncertainty, which could be disasterous economically. It would be a bit like a couple getting a divorce. They might not like each other, but the whole process is painful and troublesome and financially devastating, which could take many years to recover from. They might have been better off staying together and trying to rub along.
So that’s my gut feeling, Guardian reader that I am. I’ve not got the Daily Mail going on about how migrants are flooding the country and taking our jobs. Which paper we choose to read reinforces our existing prejudices. The referendum will be determined by people’s own preconceived notions regardless of the difficult to grasp complexities.
I’m pretty sure that if the result is for Brexit, the UK and European stock markets will drop significantly, as will both the Pound and the Euro. The recovery will be slow. Anyone with savings or a pension will feel a chill.
Cameron says he’s leaving anyway, but Osborne and May will be dumped in the wake of a Brexit. Gove and Johnson will fight it out for the leadership as the Tories veer back to the right.
I don’t see Corbyn lasting past Christmas as Labour leader whichever way the Referendum goes, but Labour will be unable to capitalize on the Tory implosion which is to come. They’ll be suffering an equal implosion of their own.
All in all, I think I’d prefer an Equals Explosion:
http://i1150.photobucket.com/albums/o615/JohnDetail/image_zpsfzm2yi3v.jpeg
Bring back hanging.
I’m really worried that this might lead to the politicisation of Eurovision.