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

[zooey_glass]

The problem is, there's no good post-election position for parties who want to support remain

Brexit itself actually derives whatever democratic legitimacy it has from the electoral process, because the referendum was advisory, so there was never any inbuilt requirement to implement it. That requirement derived from the fact that the Conservatives campaigned and won with a manifesto which promised to implement the referendum decision.

It would actually have been *completely democratic* for any other party to subsequently campaign on a manifesto which stated they would not implement the referendum, on the basis of any number of justifications (the fact that there was no concrete decision *to* implement, the unsound nature of the referendum, etc). That would have been in the order of normal Parliamentary democracy: this party is using this evidence and believes this, we have different better evidence / plans and will do that. But they all queued up to promise to 'respect the referendum', something which was electorally rational given that an alternative approach would have been easily (if incorrectly) disparaged as undeomcratic, but which served to strength the narrative that the referendum represented a sound democratic decision.

As a result, the idea that the referendum represented some kind of ultimate democratic expression is now thoroughly entrenched, which makes the Lib Dem approach problematic for exactly the reasons you point out, even though it is still fundamentally democratic. (Actually, given the way the electoral cards are stacked against the LDs, a LD majority would represent a pretty massive expression of democratic intent!)

If you don't take the Lib Dem route, you end up in the position Labour are in. If the order of operations is election + manifesto commitment to new referendum > new negotiated deal > new referendum then you end up in the position of either just supporting Brexit (but Brexit ostensibly on 'your terms') or having to campaign against your own deal. (Some people in the Labour party, including Corbyn, are probably fine with 'our Brexit' but obviously this isn't compatible with the sizeable Remain element of the party.)

Things are a lot easier for the opposition parties if there's no election but there is a referendum, because the option of a new referendum offering a choice between an already negotiated deal (pick one!) and remain would allow them the option of a cohesive remain platform which also allowed all the criticism of the other side to be directed at the government, not other bits of the same party.

With no pre election referendum, then the Lib Dem's policy is as good as any frankly. It at least has the advantage of not making them look like they're a totally divided party who don't know what they support. And plenty of people, myself included, are angry that voting in the last election was then taken as evidence of support for implementing the referendum results, because that was a cross-party manifesto commitment. So they might even win some votes for it, even though there's not a chance in hell they'll win enough to actually form a government.

Ugh ugh ugh. Referendums are a terrible idea and this one was particularly badly handed. And now lots and lots of real people's lives are materially changed for the worse.

(And this is mostly just me working through my own thoughts about all this - now realise it comes off a bit dickish but I'm not lecturing you!)

[steepholm]

In fact, I disagree with barely anything you've said, though I might have different emphases. I particularly endorse your penultimate paragraph, and your point about the way the 2017 result has been spun by Tory politicians as an endorsement of Brexit, when in fact it was barely as issue.

There is of course an irony in the fact that, had the referendum been mandatory, the irregularities in its conduct would have resulted in its being struck down by the courts, but because it was merely advisory it has assumed the entrenched position you refer to. And you're right, my objection to the Lib Dem position is primarily political rather than legal; but politics is such that relying on the legal makes you appear legalistic, and logic is read as sophistry. In this case, hypocrisy is added to the mix: this policy would be a problem for any party, but for the Lib Dems, who have made so much of the inadequacy of the FPTP system, and indeed sought and obtained a referendum of their own in an attempt to change it (irony on irony!), it looks worst of all.

I think the Labour position is actually pretty reasonable - however, it will be impossible to sell, and I'm not optimistic about its doorstep reception.

[zooey_glass]

Yes - it's not that I thought I was disagreeing with you as such but that I was worried I had wandered into the slightly unhinged ranting which is wont to occur when I start thinking about Brexit *g*

Also, I realised after the fact that there's a good chance you have no clue who I am, as I wandered in via my network - I used to follow you on LJ but apparently never found you on here and I'm not sure you'll recognise my name after all this time. (And we actually know each other in RL too - I prefer not to attach my wallet name to my DW name but I am a colleague in the North East :D .)

Anyway, I think you're right about the Labour position. It's sort of the logical way to deal with the impossible position but is also electorally muddled. Part of the whole problem with Brexit is that it's a nuanced issue of the type which is the worst to have to put on the doorstep!

[steepholm]

Ooh, now you've got me all intrigued! Perhaps DM me?