Oh Why 50?

[steepholm]

Jo Swinson rubs me up several wrong ways which I won't detail here, but I do want to mention the new Lib Dem policy to revoke Article 50 should they win a majority at the next election. It's a very unlikely contingency, admittedly, but policies shouldn't be adopted on the basis that they'll never have to be carried out.

The justification is that, if they win a majority in Parliament standing on that policy, they will have a mandate to revoke. However, they're comparing chalk and cheese. Typically, Westminster governments get around 42-45% of the popular vote: no party since the War has had more than 50%. The Lib Dems know this better than most, since they have used the fact to campaign for voting reform for decades. The referendum Leave vote, as we know, got 52%.

I think we've learned pretty thoroughly by now that Parliamentary democracy and democracy by direct plebiscite don't mix - but, partly for that very reason, having opened the Brexit worm can in one way, it can only be closed the same way. If I were a Leave voter, already resentful that my voice is ignored, having the referendum result discarded by fiat, by a Government with (as it would likely seem to me) less legitimacy, would make me feel that democracy had died altogether.

And that's a feeling that could very easily be exploited.

Comments

[tree_and_leaf]

A certain type of Leave voter has been polishing their version of the Dolchstosslegende since about five minutes after the vote was announced. I think you are vastly overoptimistic in thinking that a second referendum would be accepted as legitimate, either. As such, I tend to agree with the Lib Dems.

I also seriously doubt that the Lib Dems have done this *because* they think it won't have to be carried out. Parties have policies that they think they aren't likely to get a chance to put into practice, but that they believe in all the time. The SNP didn't shut down in the eighties, did it?

[steepholm]

What makes you think I'm optimistic? As per my reply to Shewhomust above, I do not think that a second referendum would be accepted by all Leave voters. It would certainly be accepted by more than a revocation would be, though.

Perhaps you're right, and the Lib Dems have adopted this because they truly believe it's a good policy. In that case, I can only say that I strongly disagree, for the reasons I gave in the post. Coming from anyone it would be a terrible idea, but coming from the Lib Dems, who have made electoral reform their USP for so long, a plan to use the unfairness of the FTPT system to impose a minority view on the country is manifestly hypocritical, and I think will be widely seen as such.