Sunday 26 June 2016

Challenges to and for democracy - Should Parliament reject Article 50?



On the surface , the argument "Remain should shut up and let democracy take it's course" appears plausible, but in truth, this is like looking at the surface of
the sea and deciding water is made of sparkles.

Is it "democratic" to allow 37% of the electorate to dictate life changing constitutional changes to the country as a whole? Factor in the interests of under 18 year olds, who have no vote, but everything to lose, and around 25% of the country voted to leave. It's hardly a majority.

Those who argue that it would be morally wrong to reject the outcome of the referendum; that the voice of the "majority" must be respected and that "general elections are won on these kinds of numbers". miss an important point.

In an election for government we elect representatives to rule on our behalf. They form a parliament to debate and discuss changes to the laws of our land. These discussions are informed, modified and pass through the scrutiny of two houses. Through this process for the most part, evidence is considered, a degree of consensus emerges and flaws in the initial proposals addressed. The referendum was the polar opposite.

It was not called because Cameron genuinely believed EU membership was a real issue. This was a move of breathtaking irresponsibility from a sitting Prime Minister putting the interests of his party before the interests of the country. It was a crude political gambit to counter the electoral threat of UKIP. The result is a monumental clusterfuck: a vote on a hideous act of political misjudgement based on a campaign of monumental untruth.

Is it undemocratic to suggest that a deeply flawed process where the vote was informed by a leave campaign that stands accused of "Lies on an industrial scale"? 

The leave campaign have already backed away from two key claims within a day of winning the referendum, £350 million a week going to the NHS and "leaving will control immigration". Immigration in particular was a decisive issue for millions voting for Brexit. Any contract sold on such misinformation would have legal grounds for challenge.

Is it moral to challenge the vote?


Is it "moral"to allow a little over a quarter of the country to impose changes on the rest of the country that are already having serious impacts on the lives of millions? 

I don't believe it is. A change of this nature needs to garner the support of at least half the population - and any sensible referendum on an issue on this magnitude would have built in that kind of threshold.

There's a further important element to the moral legitimacy of the "leave victory", the "generational divide".

The leave vote was won by the elderly. It could be argued the young didn't turn out to vote and missed their chances, but if we are looking at the morality of revisiting the referendum, is it moral that the vote of the demographic with the least long term interest in the outcome of the vote to dictate the fate of those with the most? It's easy to say - "they had their chance", but the recent changes voter registration left millions of younger voters disenfranchised. 

Are leavers "bad losers"


The leave campaign may screaming "bad losers", Farage is quoted as saying "it's not best out of three", but the leave campaign made it quite clear that had the result been reversed it would have been challenged.

Boris Johnson's support for leave was based on a "no vote" creating leverage for further negotiation and Farage called "a small defeat for the leave camp unfinished business" predicting a second referendum. It even seems the petition for a second referendum was started by a Brexit supporter, who's none too happy about the 3 million plus remain campaigners asking for a re-run on their behalf. It's not being a "bad loser" to challenge a flawed process that is inflicting very direct personal harm - it's asking leave to appeal - and legally it's quite legitimate to do so.

The referendum has no legal power


Cameron didn't say he would honour the will of the majority - or even the winners of the vote on the day - which is nothing like a majority.

He was clever in his choice of words. He said: "in the event of a leave vote "the public could reasonably expect article 50 to be set in motion immediately". 

"They may expect " is subtly different to saying "we will". You may argue "legal nitpicking", but it's not. 

This referendum was effectively a super scale opinion poll. It was never binding on Parliament and parliament needs to sit in judgement on the misselling of the Brexit campaign - just as a court would rule on a missold contract. 

We can't undo a car crash - but we can re-run a simulation. We are already seeing Brexit will be the predicted disaster, but we haven't left the EU yet. It's Parliament that takes the decision to invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon treaty, the act setting the leave process in motion. MP David Lemmy urges Parliament to reject the referendum result and the to vote down a motion to implement the leave negotiations

Leavers will cry foul, compromising remainers will say " there may be violence on the streets. 

True enough, there may, but brexit will blight the lives of millions, destabilise Europe, and trash our economy, possibly for decades. The disaffected leave campaigners have every reason to be disaffected - but the problems of unemployment, housing, shortfalls in health and education aren't the fault of the EU. Their issues are the end product of a largely unheeded 35 year Thatcherite political revolution which has seen the concessions won through working class struggle marginalised or eliminated. 

My hope is that parliament will reject Article 50 and that we can have a genuine democratic debate about the real reasons for the marginalisation of vast tracts of the country - and that the real culprits can be held accountable. Yes, immigration should be part of that debate, but lets be sure the debate is about the mismanagement of it's impacts, not about xenophobic racist prejudice. If at the end of that process Europe is still seen as the culprit I'll accept the outcome of a second referendum.
For now, Parliament needs to account for the serious democratic deficiencies inherent in the first referendum. It is not democratic to allow the opinion of little more than a quarter of the UK to dictate the fate of the rest of us and it is not democratic to plunge headlong into disaster on the strength of the slenderest of electoral victories. It has to stop this lemming's leap into the unknown and allow a period of reflection. It's the only way out of this disaster.



No comments:

Post a Comment