Referendum on final
"brexit" deal: How should it be done?
Campaign for direct democracy in Britain
Citizens' Initiative and Referendum I&R ~ GB
http://www.iniref.org/
13th August 2018
Dear Reader,
After some discussion and exchange we remain convinced
that Parliament should prepare to hold a decision-making
referendum about UK and EU which will offer the
following two choices:
Approve the government's
proposal to leave the EU.
The UK shall remain in the EU.
The referendum ballot must
logically be held only after
negotiations with the EU have been completed. The
government must then formulate its "proposal" for
leaving the EU and present this first to Parliament
for a "meaningful vote" and then to the electorate
for final decision by referendum. The government's
proposal might turn out to be for a "hard" or softer
"brexit".
A correspondent wrote to suggest a three-way choice
with preference voting, two similar ideas came from
an MP and an anti-"brexit" campaigner
Here is our reply with some
discussion about how the referendum should be
designed and carried out.
Although we at INIREF belong to those
who recommend that we of the UK and its countries should
introduce elements of citizen-led direct democracy, this
does not mean that we have written off the indirect,
so-called representative system of democracy and
governance which prevails. For UK/EU relations the 2016
ballot gave a mandate to the government to negotiate a
deal. They should be allowed to get on with this and
complete it if they can. Such a deal can only become
valid and guaranteed after it has been accepted by the
EU (which means all necessary EU bodies such as parl.,
commission, councils and countries). Once they have
accepted the UK proposal then we have a deal which can
be put before the UK Parliament and then before the
electorate in a referendum. If the EU has rejected our
gov's proposal then (unless gov. converts to "remain")
the deal to be presented to parl. and electorate, versus
"remain", will be "leave with no agreement". Brexiteers
would then "have their day". They might win, they might
lose. They would be wise to accept any result ....
The above would allow real choices to be put before the
electorate on the ballot paper.
1. There would be no point in holding a referendum (as
some have suggested) before we have a
confirmed result of the government's negotiations. With
this timing the goalposts could be moved and we would
need another referendum...
2. From the international (complex) bargaining around
brexit will emerge (probably) a firm proposal to leave,
which may be either "soft(ish)" or "hard" (no agreement
and we leave as per Article 50). If agreement with the
EU on a "soft" brexit is reached, then based in our
representative system that will be the best that
government can do. A referendum should then enable the
people to decide between the deal and the status quo
(remain, revoke Art. 50). Nothing else will
realistically be on offer – hence no reason for a
multi-choice ballot.
3. As implied above, there is no justification to hold a
multiple choice "preference" referendum on some or many
of the possible ways to leave the EU either sooner
(before bargaining with EU has finished) or later. Only
if gov. fails to agree with the EU can another way of
leaving be offered, namely "hard" brexit. For this
reason a multiple choice "queferendum" should not be
contemplated at this stage of the game. This also
applies to the 3-way choice proposals of Gina Miller and
separately Justine Greening – see links below. This
would serve to undermine the (admittedly deficitary)
democratic and governing system which we have. The
method is unfamiliar to most citizens; it is untried on
the scale of a UK national ballot; it would put off some
people from turning out to vote: Critically, there will
not be enough time to set up, adequately prepare and
organise it.
signed
INIREF
p.s. It is not that we are fundamentally opposed to
preference voting etc. but we consider that it would not
be good at this stage of the brexit game.
INIREF wrote:
