Editor's Blog3 mins ago
The Will Of The People?
It’s philosophy time, folks.
In a question yesterday AOG asked whether there should be a referendum to bring back Capital Punishment. One answer (from dannyk13) said “It would be waste of time due to all political parties being against it…”
Leaving aside the specific issue (let’s say the question was “Should we have a referendum to introduce a compulsory 10% tax on Jelly Babies”), do you think that’s s satisfactory state of affairs? I’ve trivialised my question deliberately to avoid a debate on the merits of a tax on Jelly Babies (because, unfortunately, AOG’s question descended into a debate on Capital Punishment, not whether a referendum should be held). But it has a serious slant. Let’s assume that a vast majority of the electorate wanted a tax on Jelly Babies. However, all of the political parties are against it. Do we just let that situation prevail? Do we just allow 650 MPs to overrule the wishes of 45m voters just because their parties’ policies do not support it?
Since Brexit there has been an argument that it should be MPs, not the electorate, who decide whether the UK leaves the EU (strangely, a question only raised after the result of the referendum - which 80% of MPs supported being held - was published). The majority of MPs (and all the main political parties bar UKIP) seem to be against it. But the majority of people who voted are in favour of it. Like my tax on Jelly Babies, do we just leave it at that? Or, on a matter of the sovereignty of the UK, do the wishes of the people trump party politics?
In a question yesterday AOG asked whether there should be a referendum to bring back Capital Punishment. One answer (from dannyk13) said “It would be waste of time due to all political parties being against it…”
Leaving aside the specific issue (let’s say the question was “Should we have a referendum to introduce a compulsory 10% tax on Jelly Babies”), do you think that’s s satisfactory state of affairs? I’ve trivialised my question deliberately to avoid a debate on the merits of a tax on Jelly Babies (because, unfortunately, AOG’s question descended into a debate on Capital Punishment, not whether a referendum should be held). But it has a serious slant. Let’s assume that a vast majority of the electorate wanted a tax on Jelly Babies. However, all of the political parties are against it. Do we just let that situation prevail? Do we just allow 650 MPs to overrule the wishes of 45m voters just because their parties’ policies do not support it?
Since Brexit there has been an argument that it should be MPs, not the electorate, who decide whether the UK leaves the EU (strangely, a question only raised after the result of the referendum - which 80% of MPs supported being held - was published). The majority of MPs (and all the main political parties bar UKIP) seem to be against it. But the majority of people who voted are in favour of it. Like my tax on Jelly Babies, do we just leave it at that? Or, on a matter of the sovereignty of the UK, do the wishes of the people trump party politics?
Answers
Sir David Attenborough undermines his own argument. he says it should be left to the MP's but these MP's are the people chosen by the electorate who are not wise enough to vote.
01:03 Wed 02nd Nov 2016
Three of you with very twisted logic then (or is it that you just have a common aim?).
It's a shame NJ hasn't chosen to address the more pertinent posts such as my first one about how we would know in the first place, that it was the will of the people, thereby generating the need for a referendum?
'But it has a serious slant. Let’s assume that a vast majority of the electorate wanted a tax on Jelly Babies. '
How do we know that a vast majority want this.....what's the mechanism?
It's a shame NJ hasn't chosen to address the more pertinent posts such as my first one about how we would know in the first place, that it was the will of the people, thereby generating the need for a referendum?
'But it has a serious slant. Let’s assume that a vast majority of the electorate wanted a tax on Jelly Babies. '
How do we know that a vast majority want this.....what's the mechanism?
The problem is that deciding on an issue, and deciding on a person to decide about issues, are two very different decisions anyway and aren't comparable. There's no contradiction, or irony, or anything like that. For example, if you wanted to make a scientific decision, you could have no understanding about the science itself whilst being perfectly capable of recognising that you might want to ask a scientist to look at it. It seems to me to be essentially the same thing in politics. We implicitly trust the MPs to do all the hard work of researching, listening to competing opinions and expert advice, and being aware of the wider issues, either because we don't have the time or the expertise to do that properly ourselves.
If you want to undermine the criticism of Sir David's point, you can do no better than asking yourself the question: "why are you fine with a referendum on the question about leaving the EU or not, but not fine at all with a referendum on the details of that decision?" Or, should we not hold a further set of referenda to check whether or not we want to stay in or leave the single market; what (if any) level of contribution is acceptable in future if we'd rather try to keep access to that single market; whether we want to emphasise immigration levels as a whole over all else; whether or not there should be an exemption for eg foreign university students; a desire to maintain tariff-free trade where possible... and so on, and so forth. Presumably, on each of these most of you will have a particular preference, but they are all questions that deserve a considered answer. Putting them to the people in further referenda, on the other hand, is just utterly stupid, in part because it's a waste of money but mostly because that's clearly not what referenda should be for.
Where Sir David goes too far perhaps is in arguing that there shouldn't have been a referendum at all, but that is more about where you draw the line between questions that are appropriate (or not) for referendum, rather than whether there should be a line at all.
If you want to undermine the criticism of Sir David's point, you can do no better than asking yourself the question: "why are you fine with a referendum on the question about leaving the EU or not, but not fine at all with a referendum on the details of that decision?" Or, should we not hold a further set of referenda to check whether or not we want to stay in or leave the single market; what (if any) level of contribution is acceptable in future if we'd rather try to keep access to that single market; whether we want to emphasise immigration levels as a whole over all else; whether or not there should be an exemption for eg foreign university students; a desire to maintain tariff-free trade where possible... and so on, and so forth. Presumably, on each of these most of you will have a particular preference, but they are all questions that deserve a considered answer. Putting them to the people in further referenda, on the other hand, is just utterly stupid, in part because it's a waste of money but mostly because that's clearly not what referenda should be for.
Where Sir David goes too far perhaps is in arguing that there shouldn't have been a referendum at all, but that is more about where you draw the line between questions that are appropriate (or not) for referendum, rather than whether there should be a line at all.
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