Reform of Parish Poll and other Direct Democracy Regulations

March 2009, memo re. need for reform of Parish Poll and other DD rules

Future local referenda and polls would have more weight if the rules for their admissibility and conduct were to be improved -- at present by international standards they are bad. The law governing Parish Polls is laid down in the Local Government Act of 1972 and in one or more later decrees coming from Whitehall. An indication of what is in the 1972 Act may be found here http://www.iniref.org/local-referendum.html

Improvements to the laws and rules should include the following:

• A decision of the electorate should be legally binding on the relevant council or government, e.g. parish, town, city, county. (At present the citizen-led poll is advisory and available only at parish level).


• A poll should usually address matters in the area of responsibility of the parish or other council. However, appeals to higher levels of government could also be made via local poll.


• Polling arrangements. These should be at least as "voter-friendly" as the arrangements for local elections. Every elector should be told in advance about the poll and its topic. Postal voting should be enabled, opening hours for polling stations should be reasonable.


• Triggering a poll should be done as recommended by democracy experts. This means that a substantial number of electors, not just a handful, should be required in order to demand a referendum. This would give more democratic "clout" to the whole procedure. A sliding scale, currently used in The Netherlands, offers a guide to proportion of "signatures" needed, depending on size of the political unit (village, town, city etc.). For example, in a hamlet with 100 voters, say one in ten proposers would be needed, for a town with 10 thousand inhabitants, one in a hundred should suffice.


• Our democratic rights to citizen-initiated binding referendum should be extended to all levels of government.

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Earlier note

A loophole, really an error, in local government law allows a very small
number of citizens of a parish to force a district council to hold a
referendum. Clearly, our right to protest against government policy is
important and the initiative shown by the activists (in this case) is
praiseworthy.

However, the democratic instrument ("parish poll") regulated in the Act
of 1972 is defective and the regulations should be revised, preferably
as part of a reform which entrenches our democratic rights of
citizen-initiated referendum at all levels of governance.

For instance, only a substantial number of electors, not a handful,
should be needed in order to trigger a referendum. A sliding scale,
currently used in The Netherlands, offers a guide to proportion of
"signatures" needed, depending on size of the political unit (village,
town, city etc.).

More detail about "citizens' democracy" is at
I&R ~ GB Citizens' Initiative and Referendum
http://www.iniref.org/

PAGE LOCATION http://www.iniref.org/poll-regulations.html