Written evidence from Guy Sherry (EUR 114)

Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee

Lessons Learned from the EU Referendum inquiry

What does the EU referendum tell us about the relationship between direct democracy and the UK’s tradition of representative democracy?’

These reports are researched and drafted by undergraduate students studying at the University of Leeds. The questions are agreed with Select Committee clerks and some support is offered to the students either through module content or, as in this case, simple advise on how to write a report. Students are encouraged to draw on primary resources to inform their research rather than the normal peer reviewed article or monograph. As such these reports represent the views of an informed and interested, if not expert, commentator on Britain’s relationship with the EU.

Line of argument:

The EU referendum accentuated the tensions that have arisen from hastily introducing direct democracy to a populace traditionally governed by representative electives, underpinned by parliamentary sovereignty. Both the U.K.’s electorate, and mechanisms of governance, are ill-equipped for the present rate. Similarly, it is important that our democracy has a response to the ‘post-truth’ politics that was witnessed as a consequence of the complexity and uncertainty that surrounded leaving the European Union. The correlations between age, vote and turnout also need to be properly understood. Moreover, direct democracy may need to be modernised in order to better engage the younger generation of voters and ensure that our political institutions current inability to do so isn’t a determining factor of referenda in the future.

Direct Democracy is being incorporated into our representative system too quickly.

Comingling referenda with the UK’s traditional representative democracy has long been problematic and it is important to acknowledge the history of direct democracy in the UK. Specifically, that prior to the EU referendum there had only ever been two U.K. wide referenda (the European Economic Community in 1975 & the Alternative Vote System in 2011). As recently as 1945, Clement Attlee proclaimed “I could not consent to the introduction into our national life of a device so alien to all our traditions as the referendum” (Qvortrup, 2013). His argument prevailed for some time; the U.K.’s first attempt at direct democracy was the Northern Ireland sovereignty referendum in 1973 and it resulted in SDLP leader Gerry Fitt fearing an escalation in tensions and calling for Nationalist supporters “to ignore completely the referendum and reject this extremely irresponsible decision by the British Government” (Geoghegan, 2012). To date, there have been 10 other national or regional referenda and it’s paramount to realise that successfully introducing direct democracy to a populace trained in a representative system is a gradual process. Traditionally, referenda use in the UK has been agreed to upon the conditioning that the results of a referendum are advisory, yet convention dictates that the government must not go against the people’s will and this is underpinned by electoral accountability. However, in the absence of a codified constitution and sufficient experience in direct democracy, it is difficult to clearly affirm much more. The chaos that has ensued in the aftermath of the result tells us that considerable transparency surrounding the procedures in place for adopting policy after a referendum is essential prior to its announcement.

The EU referendum created a relentless struggle for people trying to ascertain ‘facts’.

The issue of the UK’s membership in the European Union is of the highest complexity. With particular pertinence to the economy, it should be remembered that throughout the campaign trail there were relentless attempts to acclaim and debunk a variety of statistics. Michael Gove even claimed that “people in this country have had enough of experts” (Sky News, 2016), as empirical arguments were shrouded in scepticism and elements of ‘post-truth’ politics entered the campaign. Whilst recognising that ‘truths’ are relative and contingent on perspective, a politician campaigning with misinformation that appeals to emotion is an abuse of power. To mitigate recurrences in the future, the independent UK Statistics Authority should play a far more prominent role in publicly adjudicating referenda. It could for instance have a senior person included the format of the televised debates. In addition, the work that the British Science Association does into the relationship between ‘experts’ and wider society should be built upon. Having people struggle to ascertain whether facts are correct results in them either not voting, or trusting an instinct other than their intellectual rationale. Representative democracy is constituted on the notion that the people assign difficult decisions of governance to those that are skilled in the profession and a prominent independent institution could assist in overcoming the complexity of referenda debates. The most obvious occurrences of single issue campaigning prompting both sides to manipulate information include the gross £350 million NHS pledge, Turkey’s imminent accession to the EU and the assertion that two thirds of British manufacturing jobs are directly dependent upon the single market. These misleading claims could have been quickly and officially called out for their inaccuracies in order to prevent them influencing voters. It’s also worth noting that confusions are amplified further by the strange alliances that direct democracy creates, with platform sharing between Cameron and Khan amongst others. Prior to further referenda, this should all be acknowledged and responded to.

Our institutions must better engage with the younger generation of voters.

Contrary to the standard narrative, I’d argue that young people in the UK are actually very interested in politics; yet whilst activism is prevalent in the demographic, electoral turnout is low. It is evident that there were correlations between a voter’s age, their favourability for remaining within the European Union, and their likelihood to vote. The older generation had both a stronger preference for leaving the EU, and a greater likelihood to vote in comparison to the youngest voters. Just 6.66% of the 30 areas with the highest proportion of over 65’s returned a Remain vote (Dunford and Kirk, 2016) (The Electoral Commission, 2016). Moreover, if you examine the 16 areas at either end of the turnout spectrum, 81.25% of the areas with the lowest turnout had a median age below 40. This is in stark comparison to just 12.5% of the areas with the highest turnout having a median age below 40 (Burn-Murdoch, 2016) (Office for National Statistics, 2015). Given this, it’s worth just considering what implications integrating direct democracy with Facebook could have upon the turnout of young voters.

The future direction of U.K. policy should not be determined by an inability to mobilise younger voters. Imagining that 55% of society is in favour of said motion, whilst 45% is against. If 60% of those in favour are engaged sufficiently to want to vote (60% of 55 returns 33), whilst 80% of those against will turnout (80% of 45 returns 36), it’s demonstrable how mobilising turnout in a referendum grants policy the legitimacy of being “the peoples’ will”. Given all this, our political institutions must seriously revise how they attempt to engage younger voters.

Concluding recommendations:

The chaotic aftermath of the EU referendum is one reminder that direct democracy is still a relatively alien device in our representative system, with Clement Atlee’s words still resonating in 2016.  For successful incorporation, the frequency of direct democracy should be lessened in order to make time to properly understand the pitfalls of past referenda. There was a demonstrable failure in rushing the referendum vote through Parliament before assessing the mechanisms in place for carrying out a Leave vote. It must also not be forgotten that the profession of governance is extremely complex. Therefore, an independent body like the UK Statistics authority could play an important role in verifying and educating the populace, highlighting any inaccuracies from both sides of a referendum. Furthermore, additional time and resources should be allocated into trialling measures that could bring direct democracy into the 21st century. The potential future role of technology, initiatives like introducing voting through a smartphone application, must be better explored in order to fully engage generation Y and beyond.

December 2016

Bibliography

Burn-Murdoch, J. 2016. Brexit: voter turnout by age. The demographics that drove Brexit. In: The Financial Times. Available from: http://blogs.ft.com/

Dunford, D. Kirk, A. 2016. How did turnout affect the EU referendum result? Available from: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/

The Electoral Commission. 2016. EU referendum results. Available from: http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/

Elgot, J. 2016. Young remain voters came out in force, but were outgunned. Available form: https://www.theguardian.com

Gove, M. 2016. Interview with Faisal Islam, Sky News. 3rd June, London. Available from: https://corporate.sky.com

The Office for National Statistics. 2015. Population estimates of those aged 16 to 64; 65 and over; 85 and over; for local areas, UK, 1992 to 2014. Available from: www.ons.gov.uk

Qvortrup, M. 2013. Direct democracy: a comparative study of the theory and practice of government by the people. London: Palgrave Macmillan