What they should have done about Brexit
Referendums are not the way Britain normally makes decisions.
We have a representative Parliamentary democracy. It’s our elected MPs, acting as our representatives, who usually make key decisions on our behalf, often following months of debates and many votes.
Referendums are relatively new in this country.
We’ve only ever had three UK-wide referendums in our country’s history, and generally referendums in the UK tend to be advisory only polls, and not legally binding.
That was the case for the 1975 and 2016 referendums on whether the UK should remain a member of the European Community. Both were advisory, and not legally binding votes like a general election.
In other mature democracies, where they are more used to running referendums on key issues (i.e. constitutional change) they would not have had a referendum like ours.
For example, Brexit went ahead with the support of a mere 37% of the electorate. In other democracies, Leave could not have won a referendum on the say-so of such a small minority.
It would be normal to set a higher threshold of the electorate positively voting FOR a big change before it could go ahead. But there was a bigger flaw in our EU referendum of 2016.
In other democracies that hold referendums, it would be normal to present the electorate with a clear and defined choice. If voting on a proposed treaty, for example, the treaty would be published in full before the referendum took place.
But in the EU referendum of 2016, whilst the Remain option was fully defined (we’d had it for 43 years), Leave was entirely undefined.
Anyone voting for Leave would not have had any idea what they would be getting. There are many possible versions of Brexit, but none of them were presented or offered as a choice in the referendum. Leave was just one, undefined word.
There was no description of Brexit; for example, whether we’d stay in the Single Market and/or the customs union (more than possible as an ex-member).
In the circumstances, it would have been sensible, and democratic, to have a new, confirmatory referendum once the version of Leave was properly defined. That could then be put back to the electorate as a real and realistic choice: between the already-defined Remain and a fully defined version of Leave.
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This is just common sense. The fact that our political masters didn’t offer that is more than odd.
Yes, the Tories in their manifesto promised to abide by the referendum result whatever it was. But clearly, they didn’t think this through. How can any government agree to something before it’s known what it is?
The three Tory Prime Ministers of this millennium could have saved Britain from years of arguments, uncertainty, and anguish if only they had agreed to a new, confirmatory referendum between two equally defined choices.
Anyone who believes in democracy, Remainer or Leaver, could have supported and welcomed this option. But David Cameron, Theresa May and Boris Johnson didn’t do that. It’s why we’re in this terrible mess with a Brexit that isn’t working.
Even Boris Johnson is not happy with the Brexit deal he negotiated and signed. He now wants to change it – but refuses to give us, ‘the people’, any chance of changing it.
How undemocratic is that?
Lecturer of Moral Philosophy, Contemporary History and Literature at San Pablo CEU University Madrid.
3 年Cameron allowed a Brexit referendum and did virtually nothing to support remain.