{"id":2450,"date":"2019-03-04T14:16:25","date_gmt":"2019-03-04T14:16:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/?p=2450"},"modified":"2019-03-04T14:16:32","modified_gmt":"2019-03-04T14:16:32","slug":"a-second-brexit-referendum-democracy-as-discovery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/?p=2450","title":{"rendered":"A Second Brexit Referendum: Democracy as Discovery"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"cb-itemprop\" itemprop=\"reviewBody\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I\nbegan this series of blogs by noting the fogginess of the UK\u2019s constitutional position\nin relation to the Brexit referendum. In formal terms the vote was advisory, since\nthere was no concrete legislative proposal for voters to choose, by contrast\nsay to the 2011 referendum on the Alternative Vote legislation. Yet, virtually\nall MPs acted on the assumption that the EU referendum was mandatory. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Even\nafter the <em>Miller<\/em> judgement, ensuring that the government could not\ntrigger Article 50 without parliamentary approval, many MPs and government\nministers continued to debate the issue as though, once the electorate had voted,\nparliament had been given its marching orders. Yet, since no parliament can\nbind its successors, the fog has not lifted. We are now in a position in which,\nalthough no decision was taken to determine the precise constitutional status\nof the referendum, people insist that it would be contrary to democratic values\nto hold a second referendum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Does\nit make a difference that neither parliament nor the government have chosen to conduct\na confirmatory referendum? From one point of view, the answer to this question is\n\u2018yes\u2019. The fact that parliament could have insisted on a confirmatory\nreferendum, but failed to do so, might seem to be a reason for completing\nBrexit without a second confirmatory referendum. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After\nall, this is how things work in ordinary life. If you are given a chance to\ncommission a survey on a house you are buying and you do not take that chance, you\nhave brought the consequences of your negligence upon yourself. So, the fact\nthat the opportunity was not taken to confirm the practical result of the\nreferendum suggests that the process should go ahead unimpeded. We are where we\nare, wherever we otherwise might have been.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Yet\nthere is an opposite point of view. That view says that the failure even to\nconsider the possibility of a second confirmatory referendum does not provide a\nreason for going ahead but instead is just the reason for saying that to date there\nhas been a failure of political responsibility. If Brexit really is the once in\na generation decision that it has been billed as, then it is a decision that should\nbe taken with care. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In\nan earlier blog I suggested that a second referendum was like the second\nchamber of a parliamentary system, providing a form of super-majority decision\nmaking, but without the fancy franchise and arbitrary numbers that often go\nalong with super-majorities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If\nthere was a failure of responsibility in not thinking through the implications\nof the first referendum, that failure could be corrected by a second\nreferendum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Given\nthat we are where we are, voters would know more about what were the realistic\nalternatives to continued membership of the EU. Brexit would no longer be\ndefined by the meaningless mantra \u2018Brexit means Brexit\u2019. It would be clear\nthat, according to the Prime Minister\u2019s agreement, Brexit would place the UK outside\nthe Customs Union, the Single Market and the jurisdiction of the European Court\nof Justice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On\npresent form, and if the government has its way, this looks like the UK\nstanding in a similar relationship to the EU as does Canada, provided \u2013 a big\nproviso \u2013 the Irish border problem can be solved by technical innovation. On\nthat basis, at least voters could acquaint themselves with the relevant facts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">How\nshould we interpret the results of a second referendum? Suppose it confirmed\nthe result of the first one. That ought to carry considerable weight, for it\nwould be inconsistent with democratic values for government and parliament not\nto accept that result. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By\ncontrast, suppose a second referendum decisively overturned the result of the\nfirst, say by a margin of 55 per cent to 45 per cent or more. Then it would not\nbe consistent with democratic values for parliament and the government to\nreject the result. To do so would be to prevent voters from changing their\nminds. Since parliament can change its mind, as it did over the Poll Tax in\n1989 and 1990, there is no reason to prevent the electorate from changing its.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Do these conclusions still hold if the second vote is close, say by the same 52 percent to 48 percent as the first referendum? A two-round referendum system makes it more difficult to secure change, just as a two-chamber parliamentary system makes it more difficult to secure change than in a one-chamber system, but it does so without setting an arbitrary threshold of support for change. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So,\nif the second referendum repeated the result of the first, the two-round\nprocess would have done its job of providing an opportunity for rethinking the\nissue. If the second round negated the first, even by a small margin, that too\nwould mean that the system had done its job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Opponents\nof a second referendum sometimes say that it is simply a way by which a\npolitical class goes back to the people until it gets the result that it wants.\nPerhaps among some Europhiles that is true. But there is another way of\nconcluding that a second referendum is justified, which relies solely upon\ndemocratic principles and what they imply for politically existential\ndecisions. Look before you leap is a good principle. Vote twice in order to\nconfirm is equally good. <\/p>\n<\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I began this series of blogs by noting the fogginess of the UK\u2019s constitutional position in relation to the Brexit referendum. In formal terms the vote was advisory, since there was no concrete legislative proposal for voters to choose, by contrast say to the 2011 referendum on the Alternative Vote legislation. Yet, virtually all MPs [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":122,"featured_media":2451,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1390,1395,1396],"tags":[],"coauthors":[1584],"class_list":["post-2450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brexit","category-comment","category-uk"],"amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/A-Second-Brexit-Referendum-Democracy-as-Discovery-tarik-haiga-353851-unsplash-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/122"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2450"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=2450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}