Of course, the attempt to settle the schisms in the Tory Party was the trigger point for Cameron to promise and run a Referendum that dragged Britain and it's economy out, to obviously flounder, with 3 studies showing GDP losses between 4%-5.5% or £100bn p.a., including £40bn in lost tax revenue. For the Tory Party, always the interests of the Tory Party come before those of the country. But they are so incompetent that they can't even get that right.
If the Tory Party had wanted to do Referenda well, they would have needed only to look at two examples where they have been done well and copy them, but no, that was unthinkable for the arrogant Tories. Switzerland has up to 4 Referenda p.a.. It makes the campaign for change sign up to a manifesto as to what they want to offer. This is backed up by courts, so if they even talk about offering something different to what is on their manifesto, the court nullifies any vote in their favour. There is no way the UK result would have reached this high bar, with leaders of the leave campaign offering different versions of Leave and changing the offer, every few days. If they had not offered this broad range of versions of Leave, there is no way they would have got it over the line. The whole thing is a gigantic and obvious political fraud.
Even closer to the UK is the Republic of Ireland, with it's own harsh papal do's and don'ts recently ringing in it's ears. To go from that to become a modern liberal, largely secular state was a tall order. They put together citizens assemblies to talk through issues and make recommendations to politicians and the public before they held Referenda. The country has been transformed from retrogressive to one arguably more liberal than N.I., where the Unionists used to cite papal interference in law and government that made life there for them supposedly intolerable. Now it is the DUP looking the illiberal side of Ireland's coin.
With the Tory Party being the dominant governing force in Britain, re-joining against their opposition might look difficult or risky to the EU. However, if by Jan '25, opinion polls and other election indicators are proved correct and the Tories are almost wiped out ( most recent projection was 25 seats and potentially 4th place), then the mood music on re-joining might suddenly look very different.
Add to that, Starmer knows he has to turn the economy around to some extent within 2-3 years to be able to spend and invest, or this coming Labour government could be quickly defeated again and in this era of volatile opinion and rapid change, it might be their last ever term of majority government.
Remember: "Nobody is suggesting we leave the Single Market.....it would be mad" etc. Farage.
Starmer needs to start with a deal that looks like the Single Market and Customs Union, if not in name or completed form, negotiating while maintaining EU standards and building trust. The LibDems have a 4 point plan to join the Single Market. Reformed PR voting would enable re-joining much sooner as the Tories and other right wing parties ( Reform UK, Ukip, DUP) would almost certainly never be back in with an overall majority based on proper proportionality of voter choice.
Stable predictable and predominantly centrist governments based on PR voting stretching into the future will be the basis on which the EU will be confident to welcome the UK back into the fold. Alternatively, the destruction of the Tory party to the point where there is little for them to build on to enable them to return under the present FPTP system, might be enough for the EU to trust the UK to let us return.
"Reformed PR voting would enable re-joining much sooner as the Tories and other right wing parties ( Reform UK, Ukip, DUP) would almost certainly never be back in with an overall majority based on proper proportionality of voter choice."
Not initially, no, and probably not for some period of time. But as I look and reflect on the Netherlands and other countries, I see the possibility for one or more intolerant parties to gain control of government anywhere.
When I moved to the Netherlands 35 years ago, it was a prosperous, tolerant liberal democracy. But intolerance has been steadily building in that country.
While I was there I watched at close hand the rise of Pim Fortuyn and his party of intolerant, illiberal acolytes. Fortunately, that imploded rapidly after Fortuyn's death. But now we have the Partij voor de Vrijheid (what an ironic name!) under Geert Wilders which has been building electoral strength for a long time. It is very likely that he will be unable to stitch together a governing coalition from the recent election; but neither seemingly can any of the other parties. In that case, a new election will have to be called and the PVV might well gain sufficiently to form a government. What a mess!
While I favour STV or some flavour of PR in my home country, I do not see electoral reform as some form of panacea. Even in Germany which has a 5% floor on election votes to gain a seat in the parliament, the AfD now consistently has significant representation. This will likely also be true in England which has its own share of illiberal flag shaggers. The Brexit vote and its aftermath is proof of that.
It might, possibly happen that the Tories implode at this election, though I seriously doubt it. Even if they do, past events from Canada are a cautionary tale. In 1993, the Canadian Conservative Party collapsed from an absolute majority to 2 (!) seats in parliament. In the aftermath, the party merged with the Reform Party, a regional grievance party. The renamed Conservative Party of Canada worked their way back into power from 2006 to 2015 and governed mainly as a centre-right party. However since losing power, that party has become steadily more populist and right leaning under the domination of people from the former Reform Party, They are now simply and solely vowing to undo all that has been achieved under the current Liberal government at the next election.
Of course, none of this is directly applicable to the UK, though parallels can be drawn.
I believe the EU is very unlikely to entertain an application to rejoin from the UK until and unless all the major parties that could form a government openly and fervently support a campaign of rejoin of some significant period of time; 2 full election campaigns would be my guess. A 52 - 48 referendum alone in favour of rejoining will not be sufficient.
David, you make some excellent comments. I do know a bit about Canadian politics and the attempt to replicate it here with the Reform party here and know a little about it in Netherlands.. I think D66 is excellent
Yes PR voting doesn't prevent all extremists from being elected, but if Wilders had the largest party under FPTP, he might well have been delivered a majority or something close. In the UK, we don't need to worry about outsider extremists parties so much because we have the Tory Party already in power, run largely by extremists already and they can win an 80 seat majority with 43% of the vote as in 2019.
I too like STV, but I would go further and have a top up regional list to make it really highly proportional and avoid a half way house towards dictatorial, adversarial Majoritarianism that might remain with just STV?
It was in an important respect a fake referendum - Leave campaigned for Leave but on a set of utterly contradictory and undeliverable promises, most of all that we'd hold all the cards and so could choose laws totally different from the EU's (on everything but most of all on immigration) and yet suffer no economic harm at all because the German carmakers would make sure we kept the same terms of trade. Cameron's stupid fault for not insisting that the referendum would not go ahead until Leave came up with a detailed and deliverable plan - which they never would have been able to do. But the lesson is that when we rejoin, we do it by decision of Parliament. This country should never go near a referendum again
Oh yes. The German car industry were going to rumble over the horizon and save Britain from the follies and damage of what the Leave campaign were wanting. Leaving the EU. Well they were right and that certainly happened eh.
A certain Referendum in Scotland also caused a lot of grief and conflict for years and the Scots keep saying in polls, they do not want another. Few on the No side could campaign properly as posters on windows in cars or buildings were vandalised.
I agree that Referenda should be avoided whenever possible.
Very good! I'd add it's also why the Tories love Lee Anderson. They've convinced themselves that the people who voted for Brexit who never normally voted Tory were thick bigots just like Anderson, and they think he will secure them the votes needed for a Tory win at the GE
I broadly agree with you, but I think there are two scenarios where referenda could be useful.
The first is where you know the outcome and the purpose of holding it isn't really to make a decision but to endorse one - to allow society the opportunity to declare something of importance. For example, I could imagine a post-colonial society holding a referendum on assigning a system of Apartheid to the history books. It would be a way of declaring to the world, and to each other, that we've moved on and (mostly) all accept that we are going to do things differently now.
The other is where you don't know the outcome, where you don't think there is a simple outcome, and the purpose of the referendum is to demonstrate a lack of consensus. In this scenario you'd need to be clear up front that the outcome isn't a binding decision, rather it's a starting point for elected representatives to begin a discussion. The purpose would be to cool temperatures, to get society to a point where everyone accepted that there was no majority for a single outcome and / or that even if there was majority support for something, the minority position(s) couldn't just be wished away. In effect, it would be a giant opinion poll. (So perhaps would technically qualify as a referendum?)
The Brexit referendum was the worst of all worlds, as you've said. A justification for forcing a minority view (i.e. the particular version of Brexit pursued) onto a country that was not in agreement with it. At the same time it did genuinely make it impossible for the 'losers' to do the right thing. Remainers didn't have whatever legitimacy a majority vote could confer, but nor was it reasonable to expect them to keep silent in the face of the Brexiters pursuing a dangerous and damaging policy that that was based on extrapolating support from the majority who voted to leave.
That 52% is the proportion of people that actually voted. Only 37% of the total electorate voted for the permanent constitutional change of Brexit. This nonetheless was manipulated as the people’s will for Brexit. If the referendum had been legally binding a minimum threshold would have been set, and it is unlikely that 37% of the total electorate would have met that threshold.
I don't think this is a reasonable argument. It's one thing to have a threshold for turnout, but the Brexit referendum would have met it, had a reasonable one been set. There are examples (generally in dictatorships) where boycotts of polls can delegitimise the outcome, but there was clearly a high turnout in our referendum so on this narrow point, I don't think Remainers should complain.
There was one unifying thread to the Leave vote: racism. At core, Leave (also known as "I want my country back") was code for an all-white, all-English speaking society.
Why another referendum? A ruling party could introduce a "rejoin petition" to Parliament and then to the EU. Referenda sound fine, but there's no requirement to have them.
Several of your correspondents cite how Ireland ended up with the most liberal abortion law in Europe as an example of how referenda should be run. The fact is that Irish people were persuaded to enshrine a right to abortion in the constitution based (in part) on the promise that certain restrictions would be included in the subsequent legislation. These restrictions are now being watered down ...... not so different from the Brexit con!
Of course, the attempt to settle the schisms in the Tory Party was the trigger point for Cameron to promise and run a Referendum that dragged Britain and it's economy out, to obviously flounder, with 3 studies showing GDP losses between 4%-5.5% or £100bn p.a., including £40bn in lost tax revenue. For the Tory Party, always the interests of the Tory Party come before those of the country. But they are so incompetent that they can't even get that right.
If the Tory Party had wanted to do Referenda well, they would have needed only to look at two examples where they have been done well and copy them, but no, that was unthinkable for the arrogant Tories. Switzerland has up to 4 Referenda p.a.. It makes the campaign for change sign up to a manifesto as to what they want to offer. This is backed up by courts, so if they even talk about offering something different to what is on their manifesto, the court nullifies any vote in their favour. There is no way the UK result would have reached this high bar, with leaders of the leave campaign offering different versions of Leave and changing the offer, every few days. If they had not offered this broad range of versions of Leave, there is no way they would have got it over the line. The whole thing is a gigantic and obvious political fraud.
Even closer to the UK is the Republic of Ireland, with it's own harsh papal do's and don'ts recently ringing in it's ears. To go from that to become a modern liberal, largely secular state was a tall order. They put together citizens assemblies to talk through issues and make recommendations to politicians and the public before they held Referenda. The country has been transformed from retrogressive to one arguably more liberal than N.I., where the Unionists used to cite papal interference in law and government that made life there for them supposedly intolerable. Now it is the DUP looking the illiberal side of Ireland's coin.
With the Tory Party being the dominant governing force in Britain, re-joining against their opposition might look difficult or risky to the EU. However, if by Jan '25, opinion polls and other election indicators are proved correct and the Tories are almost wiped out ( most recent projection was 25 seats and potentially 4th place), then the mood music on re-joining might suddenly look very different.
Add to that, Starmer knows he has to turn the economy around to some extent within 2-3 years to be able to spend and invest, or this coming Labour government could be quickly defeated again and in this era of volatile opinion and rapid change, it might be their last ever term of majority government.
Remember: "Nobody is suggesting we leave the Single Market.....it would be mad" etc. Farage.
Starmer needs to start with a deal that looks like the Single Market and Customs Union, if not in name or completed form, negotiating while maintaining EU standards and building trust. The LibDems have a 4 point plan to join the Single Market. Reformed PR voting would enable re-joining much sooner as the Tories and other right wing parties ( Reform UK, Ukip, DUP) would almost certainly never be back in with an overall majority based on proper proportionality of voter choice.
Stable predictable and predominantly centrist governments based on PR voting stretching into the future will be the basis on which the EU will be confident to welcome the UK back into the fold. Alternatively, the destruction of the Tory party to the point where there is little for them to build on to enable them to return under the present FPTP system, might be enough for the EU to trust the UK to let us return.
"Reformed PR voting would enable re-joining much sooner as the Tories and other right wing parties ( Reform UK, Ukip, DUP) would almost certainly never be back in with an overall majority based on proper proportionality of voter choice."
Not initially, no, and probably not for some period of time. But as I look and reflect on the Netherlands and other countries, I see the possibility for one or more intolerant parties to gain control of government anywhere.
When I moved to the Netherlands 35 years ago, it was a prosperous, tolerant liberal democracy. But intolerance has been steadily building in that country.
While I was there I watched at close hand the rise of Pim Fortuyn and his party of intolerant, illiberal acolytes. Fortunately, that imploded rapidly after Fortuyn's death. But now we have the Partij voor de Vrijheid (what an ironic name!) under Geert Wilders which has been building electoral strength for a long time. It is very likely that he will be unable to stitch together a governing coalition from the recent election; but neither seemingly can any of the other parties. In that case, a new election will have to be called and the PVV might well gain sufficiently to form a government. What a mess!
While I favour STV or some flavour of PR in my home country, I do not see electoral reform as some form of panacea. Even in Germany which has a 5% floor on election votes to gain a seat in the parliament, the AfD now consistently has significant representation. This will likely also be true in England which has its own share of illiberal flag shaggers. The Brexit vote and its aftermath is proof of that.
It might, possibly happen that the Tories implode at this election, though I seriously doubt it. Even if they do, past events from Canada are a cautionary tale. In 1993, the Canadian Conservative Party collapsed from an absolute majority to 2 (!) seats in parliament. In the aftermath, the party merged with the Reform Party, a regional grievance party. The renamed Conservative Party of Canada worked their way back into power from 2006 to 2015 and governed mainly as a centre-right party. However since losing power, that party has become steadily more populist and right leaning under the domination of people from the former Reform Party, They are now simply and solely vowing to undo all that has been achieved under the current Liberal government at the next election.
Of course, none of this is directly applicable to the UK, though parallels can be drawn.
I believe the EU is very unlikely to entertain an application to rejoin from the UK until and unless all the major parties that could form a government openly and fervently support a campaign of rejoin of some significant period of time; 2 full election campaigns would be my guess. A 52 - 48 referendum alone in favour of rejoining will not be sufficient.
David, you make some excellent comments. I do know a bit about Canadian politics and the attempt to replicate it here with the Reform party here and know a little about it in Netherlands.. I think D66 is excellent
Yes PR voting doesn't prevent all extremists from being elected, but if Wilders had the largest party under FPTP, he might well have been delivered a majority or something close. In the UK, we don't need to worry about outsider extremists parties so much because we have the Tory Party already in power, run largely by extremists already and they can win an 80 seat majority with 43% of the vote as in 2019.
I too like STV, but I would go further and have a top up regional list to make it really highly proportional and avoid a half way house towards dictatorial, adversarial Majoritarianism that might remain with just STV?
It was in an important respect a fake referendum - Leave campaigned for Leave but on a set of utterly contradictory and undeliverable promises, most of all that we'd hold all the cards and so could choose laws totally different from the EU's (on everything but most of all on immigration) and yet suffer no economic harm at all because the German carmakers would make sure we kept the same terms of trade. Cameron's stupid fault for not insisting that the referendum would not go ahead until Leave came up with a detailed and deliverable plan - which they never would have been able to do. But the lesson is that when we rejoin, we do it by decision of Parliament. This country should never go near a referendum again
Oh yes. The German car industry were going to rumble over the horizon and save Britain from the follies and damage of what the Leave campaign were wanting. Leaving the EU. Well they were right and that certainly happened eh.
A certain Referendum in Scotland also caused a lot of grief and conflict for years and the Scots keep saying in polls, they do not want another. Few on the No side could campaign properly as posters on windows in cars or buildings were vandalised.
I agree that Referenda should be avoided whenever possible.
Referenda are not nevessarilly bad.
New Zealand seems to do them well, often as a two stage process.
Are you happy with the status quo and if not which option would you like to be worked on?
And then some time later with the status quo v the worked up alternative with known advantages/disadvantages.
In Ireland referenda after cutizens' assemblies seem to work well.
They have brought about same-sex marriage and access to abortion after the CAs have done in depth thinking.
Very good! I'd add it's also why the Tories love Lee Anderson. They've convinced themselves that the people who voted for Brexit who never normally voted Tory were thick bigots just like Anderson, and they think he will secure them the votes needed for a Tory win at the GE
I broadly agree with you, but I think there are two scenarios where referenda could be useful.
The first is where you know the outcome and the purpose of holding it isn't really to make a decision but to endorse one - to allow society the opportunity to declare something of importance. For example, I could imagine a post-colonial society holding a referendum on assigning a system of Apartheid to the history books. It would be a way of declaring to the world, and to each other, that we've moved on and (mostly) all accept that we are going to do things differently now.
The other is where you don't know the outcome, where you don't think there is a simple outcome, and the purpose of the referendum is to demonstrate a lack of consensus. In this scenario you'd need to be clear up front that the outcome isn't a binding decision, rather it's a starting point for elected representatives to begin a discussion. The purpose would be to cool temperatures, to get society to a point where everyone accepted that there was no majority for a single outcome and / or that even if there was majority support for something, the minority position(s) couldn't just be wished away. In effect, it would be a giant opinion poll. (So perhaps would technically qualify as a referendum?)
The Brexit referendum was the worst of all worlds, as you've said. A justification for forcing a minority view (i.e. the particular version of Brexit pursued) onto a country that was not in agreement with it. At the same time it did genuinely make it impossible for the 'losers' to do the right thing. Remainers didn't have whatever legitimacy a majority vote could confer, but nor was it reasonable to expect them to keep silent in the face of the Brexiters pursuing a dangerous and damaging policy that that was based on extrapolating support from the majority who voted to leave.
That 52% is the proportion of people that actually voted. Only 37% of the total electorate voted for the permanent constitutional change of Brexit. This nonetheless was manipulated as the people’s will for Brexit. If the referendum had been legally binding a minimum threshold would have been set, and it is unlikely that 37% of the total electorate would have met that threshold.
I don't think this is a reasonable argument. It's one thing to have a threshold for turnout, but the Brexit referendum would have met it, had a reasonable one been set. There are examples (generally in dictatorships) where boycotts of polls can delegitimise the outcome, but there was clearly a high turnout in our referendum so on this narrow point, I don't think Remainers should complain.
There was one unifying thread to the Leave vote: racism. At core, Leave (also known as "I want my country back") was code for an all-white, all-English speaking society.
Why another referendum? A ruling party could introduce a "rejoin petition" to Parliament and then to the EU. Referenda sound fine, but there's no requirement to have them.
Several of your correspondents cite how Ireland ended up with the most liberal abortion law in Europe as an example of how referenda should be run. The fact is that Irish people were persuaded to enshrine a right to abortion in the constitution based (in part) on the promise that certain restrictions would be included in the subsequent legislation. These restrictions are now being watered down ...... not so different from the Brexit con!
I wonder whether, after the coming electoral tsunami, the Tories will suddenly develop an appetite for PR?