The ways out of the Brexit mess are now becoming clearer, writes Charles Turner (Warwick). Assuming that, in this parliamentary democracy, the non-choice between May’s deal and no deal can be avoided, there seem to be five alternatives. The best one, however, would be to organise a citizens’ assembly, he argues.
MPs can indeed pass Theresa May’s deal against their better judgment, they can allow the UK to crash out with no deal against their even better judgment, they can revoke Article 50 and hold a people’s vote or a second referendum, they can revoke it and organize a citizens’ assembly to make the ultimate decision, or they can revoke it and remain in the EU. Forget a general election, it’s not going to happen.
Let’s assume they reject the first two, but are too frightened to go for the last, the simplest and cheapest but also riskiest. That leaves the third and fourth. At the moment the people’s vote looks more likely, though many Tory and Labour MPs say it would be an affront to democracy, a way of telling people that they had got it wrong the first time; they are joined now by Vladimir Putin. Against this unlikely coalition, Caroline Lucas and others say that ‘we know more now than we did before’, and so we can have an informed debate on the more concrete options before us.
Are we sure about this? There is a danger that the campaign would be run along the same lines as the last one, with a series of debates, or non-debates, between the same sets of ill-chosen people – willfully ignorant politicians and members of the public, opinionated columnists (we know who they are) – with wild claims being made on either side. Maybe we can do better than that.
One idea might be a people’s vote but this time without a campaign at all, on the grounds that people could make better use of their time preparing for their vote by informing themselves. What if we went further and invoked a principle that has spread into many areas of life in the last couple of decades, namely ‘informed consent’, and said to people, if you are going to make this major change, you really do need to know what it is you are endorsing, so if you want a ballot card, you need to take an exam?
Pie in the sky? In practice, it probably is, though it’s not a bad principle. After all, anyone not born in the UK who wants to become a British citizen and thus be entitled to vote as well as pay tax here has to take the life in Britain test that many of us would fail. A basic but rigorous test, with a time limit for completion, could be devised, on the EU’s rules and institutions, and the proposals themselves. If they passed the test people would be able to print off their barcoded voting form in the way you print off any machine-readable ticket, take it along to the polling station, have it checked off and vote as individuals who have thought things out for themselves.
The trouble is, even if you could make this foolproof – to stop, say, one well-informed person repeatedly taking the exam for friends, or selling the answers, an individual test might be randomly generated when someone sits down to take it – there is no time to organize the systems you would need. ID cards would be needed for a start. So if there is to be a people’s vote it will, I fear, have all of the vices of the last one, with hopes and fears acting as a substitute for knowledge.
Image by Òmnium Cultural, (CC BY-SA 2.0).
No, if, if, if this is going to go back to the people it seems to me that a citizens’ assembly might be a better idea. Lisa Nandy MP has written a rather brilliant defence of this in The New York Review of Books. Take a group of people at random, or rather selected carefully at random, sit them down with experts for a few days, people who know things about how stuff works, give them a set time to thrash out the issues and let them decide. It has been done before, and across the world it is becoming an increasingly popular – but not populist – way of resolving matters that politicians cannot resolve. It would also break what has become a deadly embrace between the people and parliament, which has left both of them looking like ageing wrestlers, so weak and exhausted that the executive threatens to run roughshod over them both The people are divided and not a little bewildered, while MPs for their part are too wedded to party loyalty or ideology or to holding on their seats to find a way across divides. There are 650 of them. As they seem to like holidays, let’s give them another one, replace them with 650 citizens and say ‘over to you’.
This article gives the views of the author, not the position of LSE Brexit or the London School of Economics.
Charles Turner is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Warwick.
And the citizens end up being split.
Let’s guess at 52/48.
So we start again!
I can hear the shouts that 650 citizens overule the democratic vote of 17.5 million.
The biased press being all over them, buying their stories, barristers challenging every single one of them as legitimate or not!
Selling their stories afterwards.
Come on!
Get real.
The author forgets something.
The people have already given a clear and democratic decision in the biggest turn out in history.
Leave
Full stop!
If we do not leave then there should be and maybe will be a general election.
The people will then have their say again on these MP’s who are refusing to respect our meaningful vote.
The leave voters have for the last two years suffered abuse from remainers and further project fear time and time again.
Please will readers of these blogs google
“Bank of England gives green light to WTO”
It is time that honesty prevails and manipulation of press by Bank of England should stop!!!
Then we can all get in with life!
Then you must be satisfied with May’s deal. We will not have any MEPs, we will be out of the EU. We will have left.
By the same token, soft leavers in the labour party who say ‘we must respect the result of the referendum’ must be satisfied with a no deal brexit, because that too involves leaving the EU.
There is, you see, no ‘spirit’ of the referendum result, there was simply leave or remain. Leave won. but leave can mean several different things, each of which honours the result.
My daughter has just had a skype interview for a placement in Berlin. No worry about Brexit. It was not even mentioned..Berlin is as international as London is.(Much cheaper to rent a flat there) I do not think leaving the EU means all connections artistic or anything else will be cut off in spite of all the talk of disaster. WhatLeave means, I hope, is that this country can function without strictures from the EU .that something can be done about the dreadful way communities in the North have been treated by this London centric governments both left and right.To me Leave means Leave but at the same time all atempts must be made to leave gracefully which the EU seems to want to make impossible..
Freedom of movement will end for all British citizens. That will make it harder for us to live and work in the rest of Europe. It will make employers in other EU countries less enthusiastic about employing Brits, at a time when Brits who work in car manufacturing and related jobs will be losing their work here and will want to look elsewhere. Studying at a university in another EU state will incur non-EU fees, so only the children of the rich will be able to do this. Scientific collaboration is already being undermined because British scientists are being written out of very lucrative European research grants. Brits who want to retire to Spain will now require a 25 k pension instead of the Uk state pension Spain currently demands from EU citizens.
And if you want to say that ending freedom of movement for UK citizens will not make a difference to the ability of Brits to work in the EU27, then that argument works the other way too – ending it for Poles and Romanians will, according to that logic, not make any difference to their ability to live and work here. Which suggests that a central aim of the leave campaign, lowering immigration from EU countries, cannot be met.
It seems that my daughter is to have no difficulty living in Berlin. She will be awarded some funding too. Nothing to do with the EU. So I wonder if Charles Turner is wrong to worry . My father worked in Germany before the second world war, on transport systems and wasI able to study in Florence before the EU idea came into being.. I do not think the central aim of the Leave campaign was immigration, it was about the freedon to make decisions in the interest of our country. People will always be allowed to go where there is work to be done. Why only from the EU.What about the Windrush scandal ! People from the West Indies chucked out because they are old.I feel an anger about that because Guyana where I grew up gave me my most happy memories. .. .
@Mrs Cheek: “My daughter has just had a skype interview for a placement in Berlin. No worry about Brexit. It was not even mentioned.” I live in Germany and wish your daughter the best of luck. I’m not an expert on immigration law but I know several Americans who live and work in Germany, and I guess your daughter would be in a similar position if there were a hard Brexit. In my opinion, not being an EU citizen certainly would create some problems, for example with pensions or health care, but that shouldn’t discourage your daughter or anyone else from seeking work in Berlin, which is a wonderful city.
we had a peoples vote.
voted to leave- no if’s, but’s or maybe’s
Just because you didnt like the vote result, and it went against your globalist agenda/ Eu funded thinktank/ university- that doesnt legitimise a second referendum.
i repeat-
the people voted to leave!
So you will be happy with May’s deal then
Come on Charles, why go on about May’s deal, which was only cooked up to lever wavering Brexiteers back to Remain. If you write an essay on this subject and have it published on this blog site, you know full well what it is about. Let me remind you. Brexit means Brexit. Do you remember who said that? Of course, Mrs May. The referendum was about Leave or Remain. Did you forget? Leave the EU entirely.
A few hundred sovereign nation-states around the world are managing to remain sovereign, more or less. The UK was a sovereign entity before the EEC morphed into the EU. The Brexit referendum was only a belated referendum on whether the combined UK electorate really wanted to join the EU. So not really Leave at all, simply not putting the seal on the dirty deal the EEC cum EU leadership did on the UK people( and the rest of the then EEC member states. As to the deal socalled;
There is no way May can negotiate any deal for the UK with the EU until after 29 March, because, as you must know, until then the UK is still a member of the EU. Get free first, then negotiate as an independent party with the EU and whoever needs some deal in order to buy or sell from or into the UK.
Here is Edward Heath speaking in 1973. You can hardly accuse him of tricking people into believing they were joining a mere free trade area.
What a pity his speech wasn’t handed to householders on a leaflet like Cameron’s 9 million pound taxpayer-funded fear campaign. Anyway, it doesn’t answer in the slightest the issues I raised. The referendum on the changeover from EEC to EU, for instance, and the socalled deal that May is trying to push through. It’s all a nonsense and the people pushing it know it. That’s why they are fibbing. Then, there is selective censorship.
Soon, the blogsites which are in favour of a world dictatorship can have the field all to themselves, with some token resistance. Nobody in their right mind would try to answer computer bots and people who are getting paid to atack democracy and people defending their rights.
@Jakob: “What a pity his speech wasn’t handed to householders on a leaflet like Cameron’s 9 million pound taxpayer-funded fear campaign. ” There seems to have been a leaflet distributed to all households by the government before the 1975 referendum, with the text here: http://www.harvard-digital.co.uk/euro/pamphlet.htm . I think it is fair to say that there is a lot less emphasis on ever-closer union and a lot more emphasis on the Common Market than in the speech by Edward Heath which Charles kindly linked to.
Actually, both @ Charles and Alias here in this sub-thread: There happens to be a clever psychological trick used often in politics as well as suspect or crooked commercial dealing. It concerns a narrative such as that offered in the speech by Heath here, and the political intention which is not alluded to at the time. The intention of the EEC and other European leaders was, in hindsight, obviously all along to federalise Europe in a super-state. If that project had been exposed then, in 1975, it is highly unlikely the UK electorate would have voted to stay in the EEC. However, failing that, if, upon entering the EU when the EEC ceased to be, the UK electorate had known then, in 1992, what it knows now, it most certainly would have clamoured for a referendum to vote Leave in 1992.
As Christopher Booker in his Bruges Group speech explains, the UK electorate was fooled by the politicians as to the true intent. The same applies to other EU member states at the time of the changeover from EEC to EU. The people have been hoodwinked.
Heath, in his speech in this clubby atmosphere, does not say anything about sovereign nation-states being taken over by and submerged in a European super-state.
@Charles: thanks for taking the time to participate in this discussion. Let me try to add my own 2p (or 2d, for older contributors).
I think there are several irrelevant questions which shouldn’t really need to be debated. Virtually nobody is happy with the current situatiion, or is especially enthusiastic about the withdrawal deal currently on offer. Also citizens’ assemblies may or may not be a good way of generally settling complex disputed questons and I don’t especially want to argue that here.
However, your article offers a citizens’ assembly specifically as a solution to the current mess British politics finds itself in, and it’s there I disagree with you. The obvious objection to a citizens’ assembly is that we already have one, namely the House of Commons. Given that political opinion in the country at large is as divided as in the House of Commons, why go to the considerable extra trouble of setting up a citizens’ assembly? (I suppose there would need to be at least major procedural debate about how to do it, especially as many Remainers will want to open the selection to 16-17 year olds, EU citizens and people living more than 15 years outside UK and Leavers won’t, people will need to get a chance to register to vote before the selection is made, the EU will have to be persuaded to extend the Article 50 period, meaning deals will have to be done and the UK will have to hold European elections, yadda yadda yadda …)
You implicitly recognise and address the comparison with the House of Commons as follows. “MPs for their part are too wedded to party loyalty or ideology or to holding on their seats to find a way across divides” Let’s take those one by one. 1. “wedded to party loyalty” In fact, if Tory MPs were obedient to the whip, it is obvious that Theresa May’s problems would be a lot less than they are now, so I don’t think you can blame party loyalty for the current chaos. 2. “or ideology”. But can anyone seriously pretend that there would not be equally strong feelings in the citizens’ assembly? Or is there some quiet corner of the UK where Brexit discussions are not extremely heated? 3. “to holding on their seats”. This is alternatively known as “listening to your constituents”. And of course it is precisely those unreasonable constituents we would see in the citizens’ assembly.
Lastly, how would this actually work? Like most of the contributions to the LSE Brexit blog, I have the feeling this one completely ignores the little problem of how things will look to the EU27. Who is the EU27 going to negotiate with? Up to now they have been negotiating with Theresa May, or her appointees. Will the citizens’ assembly appoint a shadow executive, or what?
Very good points made by Alias
Well, earlier I argued that as a matter of principle in our parliamentary democracy, MPs themselves should take back control of this whole process, not least because having loaned sovereignty to the people, parliament has proved itself not to have had a very good idea about how to regain it. Hence the fear of May simply doing what she wants (even though she doesn’t really know what she wants).
But, as a matter of logic, I would say that if they vote down May’s deal, and they manage to have a vote on no deal and vote that down as well, then they will have pretty much voted down brexit itself, and so they ought to take the next step and vote to revoke article 50 itself. It would be a delicious irony of Theresa May’s last act as PM was to send the letter informing the EU commission of this.
So my point is this. If, if, if, the matter is to be taken outside parliament again, I favour a citizens’ assembly – presided over by experts! – over a national referendum. Anything to keep Julia Hartley Brewer and Isobel Oakeshott off the screen.
On MPs and their constituents, there is an interesting combination of fear and arrogance at work. On the one hand MPs are afraid of taking a stand on the basis of their knowledge of the facts (which is generally better than that of their constituents), so they parrot the phrase ‘we have to respect the result’ even when they don’t believe it. On the other, there is the decidedly undemocratic assumption that a particular seat is a labour or a tory seat. Yes of course some seats have been labour or tory for a long time, but the basis of any elective democracy is that one’s holding a seat is only until the next election.
“But, as a matter of logic, I would say that if they vote down May’s deal, and they manage to have a vote on no deal and vote that down as well, then they will have pretty much voted down brexit itself”. As you know, this is a big if. There is no reason to vote on “no deal” as it is the default option if all others fail.
The fundamental problem is that no way of proceeding (no-deal, withdrawal agreement, extension of Article 50 + new referendum, revoking Article 50) enjoys a majority in the House of Commons or would in any citizens’ assembly My hope is that, before March, MPs and the EU27 will manage to do a deal. I don’t think this is especially unlikely, because a lot of them are expert deal-makers. I don’t think introducing 650 random citizens would make it easier.
They key though is this. I think it a reasonable principle that in any democracy anywhere in the world, major political and constitutional change should only be carried out if there is an overwhelming consensus for it. The burden of proof for major change lies with those who want the change. There is no consensus around any version of brexit, not least because the brexit supporters have not offered any coherent plan for it. I argue this here:
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2018/12/17/major-constitutional-change-requires-more-than-mere-majorities-it-needs-overwhelming-consensus/
@Charles: I refer the honourable gentleman (you) to the responses I made in that thread. But basically, while I think it would be a very good idea to have a fundamental discussion about how referenda should be conducted in the future, I don’t like retrospectively changing the rules of the last one.
For once, Charles, your comment makes sense, but you mean it to apply to the Brexit referendum. In that context it does not make sense. The major difference between the joining of the UK with the EEC and the change of the EEC into the EU is constitutional and political in a major sense. There was no debate and a referendum then. The Brexit referendum was widely flagged and debated. This Brexit blogsite was started in 2015. The people’s citizens assembly, the HoC, did a lot of debating, which you must have missed. There was a long-running and robust debate nation-wide before the Brexit referendum, which you must have missed also. Then again, as everybody else knows, the citizens assembly, the HoC, had more debate, and voted to Leave the EU. Frankly, unless you are trying to pull the wool over people’s eyes, I cannot follow your twisted logic, though it is quite common, not just in this debate. Maybe it’s some kind of virus. Someone else on this thread noted grooming. Now that’s a good one. The grooming that went on to get people to accept the slow and surreptitious ambush set for them by the Western European elites is now exposed. As to the speech by Heath, it means nothing in the context of the Brexit issue. Human endeavour is in the entire world and political cooperation, it does not mean we have to live under some kind of communist dictatorship, or whatever. But then, the entire debate to destroy democracy and the nation-state is obvious and very wicked. Thanks to Google, all that is put on the internet is there for future reference.
The attempts to overturn this referendum are utterly loathsome. However, I couldn’t care less whether it’s successful. That’s why I have no objection to another referendum as long as Brexit is half the choice. Of course, there can be no third referendum until the second,the June 2016 Brexit referendum, is implemented.
Anything to have another go at overturning the June 2016 result. People are always divided. That’s why there are elections and referendums to determine the will of the majority. Unfortunately, with FPTP in elections, the result is always minority rule. For once, in the Brexit referendum, the result was clear. Leave! If people are now a little confused, it is only because the campaign to overturn the referendum result is fronted by people saying so. I don’t think many people are confused, but a second referendum would nail it. Of course, there would have to be ample time for a proper discussion. That means that the Remain camp must be in charge of where, how and what is discussed. I can see that coming a mile off. May and her cohorts have sabotaged Brexit. That’s why there is the appearance of a muddle. The muddle, however, is in the Remain camp and the May government, not in the result from the referendum. This citizens assembly thing didn’t just come up by accident. It’s a tactic to try once more to pull the wool over people’s eyes. It’s part of a well-known strategy, but if I gave an example here I might get censored again. Still, no matter how often Remain wins a round, the basic issue remains unresolved. That’s why, even by Farage saying the matter would have been settled for Brexiteers if they had lost the referendum, the issue of globalisation by corporate design and the EU federalisation to tie in with the plan for world government, would still remain, and, since this kind of project falls if it does not motor ahead, the tension and resistance against being railroaded into subservience grows apace.
Charles
You ask if I am comfortable with TM proposal.
No.
My feeling as an experienced negotiator is that we have not played our trump cards yet.
Either the EU are very clever or very dumb.
Nothing Inbetween.
And to be fair Parliament is clearly dumber that Europe dumb.
Actually if you look at it from EU side, they cannot win, if they give in it’s the end of the EU.
If they play hard ball we will resort to WTO and we will win. average tarrifs 2.5% are of course reciprocal.
The extra uk income can be used to support damaged businesses ( which we cannot do as EU member)
So for the U.K. it’s win win.
Who runs the EU? Germany of course!
The EU will cave in, ask BMW, Mercedes, Porsche, and VW.
No deal? Bring it on!
Bank of England agree it’s not that bad.
Btw
How far will eurobus fly without wings?
There is much much more that Europe will suffer if there is a no deal!
We will get the deal
Hold tight!!!!
You hugely overestimate Britain’s importance in the world.
Brexit is not the main talking point in any European capital. German manufacturers see the single market and its integrity as far more important than anything else, and will always defer to the post-war vision of the FRG, one in which European integration is key. As they have done in the past, they will adapt to a no deal brexit.
As for collaborative manufacturing projects, the transition period of May’s deal will allow Airbus and other manufacturers to reorganise and relocate production to the EU. May’s deal is basically a delayed hard brexit.
If you are relaxed about no deal, I think you need to read this.
http://www.politics.co.uk/blogs/2018/07/27/this-is-what-no-deal-brexit-actually-looks-like
Ian Dunt is hardly neutral, or an expert, in anything.
@Pippa J.S. “Ian Dunt is hardly neutral, or an expert, in anything.” This may or may not be true, but I would prefer a reasoned rebuttal of his arguments to an ad hominem attack.
Good blog, Charles. We need a new look at a way out of this impasse that will not be a rerun of past mistakes and a Citizen’s Assembly looks good to me. Shame it has virtually no chance of happening.
The comments already received here indicate the enormity of the problems we face. Everyone has a personal experience which means that they understand how things will go, who holds power and how they will behave and how the UK will be able to cope with a sea change as comprehensive as leaving the EU.
To demonstrate how split the UK still is about brexit there have been two polls (studies) about the attitudes of Labour and Conservative Party members towards Brexit. If there were another referendum 88% of Labour Party members would vote to remain. In a choice between no deal and remain, Tory Party members 76% would choose no deal, and in fact they support no deal over May’s deal by more than 2 to 1.
Whatever happens and how we get there will be a rocky ride, and will no one will be happy with the outcome. The maiden voyage of the Titanic seems a good analogy for brexit.
The experts chosen to sit with and educate the 650 citizens must be carefully chosen for their powers of persuasion. I would recommend Commissioners from the EU, along with MEPs and remain leaning academics. Any descent amongst the 650 should be met with robust denial or by replacing them.
But, as a matter of logic, I would say that if they vote down May’s deal, and they manage to have a vote on no deal and vote that down as well, then they will have pretty much voted down brexit itself, and so they ought to take the next step and vote to revoke article 50 itself.
Charles
I slwYs enjoy respectful debate
Sorry wrong button
But, as a matter of logic, I would say that if they vote down May’s deal, and they manage to have a vote on no deal and vote that down as well, then they will have pretty much voted down brexit itself, and so they ought to take the next step and vote to revoke article 50 itself.
Charles
I always enjoy respectful debate.
But your quote above clearlyly shows your agenda.
My view is that you should think carefully about the consequences of overriding the biggest turnout to vote ever.
Although I accept that the vote was advisory, that isn’t the way voters saw it at the time.
The ballot paper did not say its advisory and some MP’s will operate as much disruption as they can to overule the plebs.
The leaflet referred to earlier said “we will respect your vote”
I do not expect intelligent academics like you to use forums like this to persuad people to ignore democracy, because we say you got it wrong.
Parliament may be deadlocked, that is because they have personal agendas.
That does not mean that because the elite cannot agree that we should scrap democracy.
We voted leave.
If that does not happen then many have died pointlessly.
That upsets me!!!!
And will many others.
In any case there is no time
About that I think the PM has it right
Remainers are not the only ones who can play at tactics.
The referendum offered a binary choice between two options, one defined concretely – remain with what we have in all its detail – the other defined abstractly, or defined in several different ways – leave.
Leave can mean many things.
1. It can mean May’s deal, which does indeed have the UK leaving the EU, having no MEPS, no influence at all over EU matters. It is non-membership, and hard brexit fans should recognise that. They should not complain if it is not the leave they thought they were voting for.
2. By the same token, the labour MPs who constantly say we must respect the result should not be showing any concern at all about the customs union and a no deal brexit, because the logic of their position is indifference to what the government might happen to come up with.
@Charles: “The referendum offered a binary choice between two options, one defined concretely – remain with what we have in all its detail – the other defined abstractly, or defined in several different ways – leave.” I don’t think that’s really fair. The Article 50 notification was a concrete action. There are many ways the UK can be outside the EU, but there are also many ways it can be in. The status quo up to 2016 was not really on offer, since I think it is obvious to everyone, or almost everyone, that the EU needs to reform, though nobody is quite sure how. If the UK had voted to remain, we should now be in discussion about how to reform the EU.
Obviously the Leave decision was a vote for more uncertainty. But I think that was perfectly clear at the time.
Charles
There is s high snow ntbof guesswork going on from the remain side.
I find it fifgicult to understand how many experts there are in Something that has never happened before.
So I think I entitled to my portion of guesswork.
There will not be a no deal.
Europe are very concerned indeed that there might be.
If there is a no deal then there must be a hard border in Ireland.
That is why we are where we are, Europe do not want a hard border, neither do Ireland.
It’s simple really.
Proclaim no deal and we will get the deal over the Irish border.
Need to tidy that up!!!
On a train, no glasses!!
Charles
There is s grest deal of guesswork going on from the remain side.
I find it difficult to understand how many experts there are in Something that has never happened before.