Incidentally, it is more appropriate to refer to referendums rather than referenda. Referendum is a rare Latin gerund for which there is no plural in Latin.

Personally, I favour a referendum on everything pertaining to Britains relationship with the EU. It is a corrupt body of unelected officials who need to be kept in check. The power of a referendum is the only way we can have any influence over these people at this point in time.

Steve Richards (The Independent Newspaper) said that parties have promised (referenda) as a way of avoiding debate, especially within their own ranks. We can add that governments have promised referenda as a way to win votes, only to later refuse for reasons of their own, recently about our electoral system, the Euro currency and the EU constitution. Referenda in which the government of the day writes the questions, makes the rules and sets the timing can often serve to harm democracy. For these reasons we propose that referenda should usually be initiated by an agreed large number of voters, citizen-initiated referenda, rather than by a ruling authority.

We welcome support for Swiss-style citizens’ democracy expressed by the senior Lib-Dem politician Chris Huhne. Presumably in his Party he is in a minority. In 2001 the Lib-Dem manifesto contained a promise to introduce citizens’ initiative referendum. Perhaps sniffing some electoral success, the Party dropped this promise from their 2005 manifesto and subsequently did little to promote this vital and publicly desired reform. Huhne expresses concern about inconsistent ballot results in the USA. Recent research has shown that this sort of problem is very rare and that criticism of the majority decision on Proposition 13 (about property taxes in California) was wildly exaggerated. In any event, with the more deliberative democratic methods to be found in Europe, ill-considered plebiscite decisions are even less likely. (Compare the broad proposal of I&R ~GB and several recent proposals of other groups based in UK (3)).

References, background

Citizens’ direct democracy: background http://www.iniref.org/learn.html Debate and News http://www.iniref.org/latest.html

1. Referendums: What are they good for http://www.hansardsociety.org.uk/blogs/recent_events/archive/2008/06/18/referendum.aspx

2. http://lordsoftheblog.wordpress.com/2008/06/17/referendum-debate/

3. Preliminary Proposals for the introduction of Elements of Direct Democracy in Great Britain and Northern Ireland http://www.iniref.org/gb-debate-dd.html

IandR: As I have mentioned before, my views on referendums do not derive from perceptions as to the ability of people to grasp the complexity of issues. The problem is not the people but the mechanism.

Hansard Society sponsored meeting, House of Commons, 17th June 2008
Referendums: What are they good for (1)

Some reported remarks are taken from Lord Norton’s blog (2)

Clare Short made two very important points, firstly favouring “the idea of popular initiative, allowing citizens to trigger referendums and secondly “that referendums are an essential tool to be used to help reinvigorate an alienated public dissatisfied with current political arrangements that they often feel are damaging British democracy.”

By pointing to initiative and referendum (I and R) Ms. Short clarifies and corrects this Hansard Society debate about referendum in a most helpful manner. The other speakers, except perhaps C. Huhne, appear to have given little consideration to the essential difference between plebiscite imposed by an authority on the one hand, and proposal plus referendum demanded and pushed through by a large number of citizens on the other. As well as allowing correction of government in the periods between elections (with the “brake” of veto referendum), I and R allow creative proposals to be filtered and then pushed onto the public agenda for information and debate.

For Dr David Butler “referendums had a part to play on issues of ethical importance and boarder disputes, but could not deal with the often complicated nature of political debate”.

In his opinion that electorates cannot deal with “complicated” public affairs he ignores much contrary evidence. Research with randomly selected groups of citizens has shown that if supplied with information and opportunity to debate then most people can grasp political issues. More importantly here, “real life” experience of referenda has shown that citizens with access to direct democracy learn to grapple with complexity and that on featured issues they may become better informed than members of parliament (e.g. Denmark at the time of the referendum about the Maastricht treaty). Presumably, amusingly you misreport Dr. Butler in the matter of “boarder disputes” – was this about democracy in his prep-school?

Hansard Society sponsored meeting, House of Commons, 17th June 2008
Referendums: What are they good for (1)

Some reported remarks are taken from Lord Norton’s blog (2)

Clare Short made two very important points, firstly favouring “the idea of popular initiative, allowing citizens to trigger referendums and secondly “that referendums are an essential tool to be used to help reinvigorate an alienated public dissatisfied with current political arrangements that they often feel are damaging British democracy.”

By pointing to initiative and referendum (I and R) Ms. Short clarifies and corrects this Hansard Society debate about referendum in a most helpful manner. The other speakers, except perhaps C. Huhne, appear to have given little consideration to the essential difference between plebiscite imposed by an authority on the one hand, and proposal plus referendum demanded and pushed through by a large number of citizens on the other. As well as allowing correction of government in the periods between elections (with the “brake” of veto referendum), I and R allow creative proposals to be filtered and then pushed onto the public agenda for information and debate.

For Dr David Butler “referendums had a part to play on issues of ethical importance and boarder disputes, but could not deal with the often complicated nature of political debate”.

In his opinion that electorates cannot deal with “complicated” public affairs he ignores much contrary evidence. Research with randomly selected groups of citizens has shown that if supplied with information and opportunity to debate then most people can grasp political issues. More importantly here, “real life” experience of referenda has shown that citizens with access to direct democracy learn to grapple with complexity and that on featured issues they may become better informed than members of parliament (e.g. Denmark at the time of the referendum about the Maastricht treaty). Presumably, amusingly you misreport Dr. Butler in the matter of “boarder disputes” – was this about democracy in his prep-school?

Steve Richards (The Independent Newspaper) said that parties have promised (referenda) as a way of avoiding debate, especially within their own ranks. We can add that governments have promised referenda as a way to win votes, only to later refuse for reasons of their own, recently about our electoral system, the Euro currency and the EU constitution. Referenda in which the government of the day writes the questions, makes the rules and sets the timing can often serve to harm democracy. For these reasons we propose that referenda should usually be initiated by an agreed large number of voters, citizen-initiated referenda, rather than by a ruling authority.

We welcome support for Swiss-style citizens’ democracy expressed by the senior Lib-Dem politician Chris Huhne. Presumably in his Party he is in a minority. In 2001 the Lib-Dem manifesto contained a promise to introduce citizens’ initiative referendum. Perhaps sniffing some electoral success, the Party dropped this promise from their 2005 manifesto and subsequently did little to promote this vital and publicly desired reform. Huhne expresses concern about inconsistent ballot results in the USA. Recent research has shown that this sort of problem is very rare and that criticism of the majority decision on Proposition 13 (about property taxes) was wildly exaggerated. In any event, with the more deliberative democratic methods to be found in Europe, ill-considered plebiscite decisions are even less likely. (Compare the broad proposal of I&R ~GB and several recent proposals of other groups based in UK (3)).

References, background

Citizens’ direct democracy: background http://www.iniref.org/learn.html Debate and News http://www.iniref.org/latest.html

1. Referendums: What are they good for http://www.hansardsociety.org.uk/blogs/recent_events/archive/2008/06/18/referendum.aspx

2. http://lordsoftheblog.wordpress.com/2008/06/17/referendum-debate/

3. Preliminary Proposals for the introduction of Elements of Direct Democracy in Great Britain and Northern Ireland http://www.iniref.org/gb-debate-dd.html

David: I think your concluding observation touches upon an important problem. I am against referendums on principle. However, there are obvious problems if a party or government which is not against on principle actually holds out the prospect of one and then does not deliver. If a referendum is held on the European constitutional treaty, then it is possible to argue that one should be held on the Lisbon Treaty. You either have a referendum on neither or on both. That is a perfectly legitimate line to take.

Jim McGlynn: I appreciate the point you make, though in practice turnout for elections of candidates tends to be higher than turnout in referendums. That was one of the findings from the study by Austin Ranney and David Butler of the 800+ national referendums held in the history of the world. (I gather from David Butler that the figure is now closer to 1,000.) Turnout in referendums, even on major issues, is not as great as you appear to think. Look at experience in the UK. Was not devolution a major issue in Scotland and in Wales, but what was the turnout in the referendums? It was 60.4% in Scotland and 50% in Wales. In Wales, the ‘yes’ vote only just edged the ‘no’ vote. A National Assembly was created on the vote of 25% of Welsh electors.

The Welsh vote also illustrates the point I have previously made and which David refers to: we don’t know why people vote the way they do. Did those Welsh voters who voted ‘no’ do so because they felt the proposals for a Welsh Assembly went too far (they didn’t want an assembly) or did not go far enough (they wanted a parliament on the Scottish model)? The Welsh referendum also illustrates the point about the implications of unequal resources in a referendum campaign. The ‘no’ campaign almost won, yet was run – as I understand it – on a shoe-string budget.

The discussion on referenda often revolves around the possible decisions that would be made. This is the same process as the arguments over giving women the vote and before that giving working class men the vote – would they make the right decisions?

We now take it for granted that everyone should have the right to vote – it is a fundamental human right. But restricting it to one vote every four years for a representative to make all the decisions for us makes it totally useless – my vote cannot influence any decisions so I don’t vote.

Representation and referenda have lots of difficulties, but both are necessary.