As The Week says in an email this morning:
Even a few months ago, the idea of a new Brexit referendum would have seemed implausible, but as party conference season gets into full swing, the notion is beginning to look less far-fetched.
I agree.
But that poses the obvious follow-on: so what is the question? Last time the referendum question was itself disastrous.
Can we make the mistake of a binary question again? If so, what would it be?
And if multiple options are permitted, what might they be?
My preference is a three-part question, something like this:
Should we:
a) Stay in the European Union?
b) Leave the European Union but maintain a close working and economic relationship with it?
c) Break our formal ties with the European Union?
Please pick one option.
Thoughts?
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Another issue with the previous vote was that it took a simple majority to win.
To avoid a similar issue it nay be wise to require a larger majority.
This may make the vote more palletable to some.
However would leave the obvious problem of want happens if we have no clear winner
P-
“This may make the vote more palletable to some.”
I love spellcheckers. 🙂
A referendum is essentially a binary choice mechanism. Isn’t it ?
Without first and second options a multiple choice question will not only confuse voters, but the result will be forever a source of contention as to what the result means.
I don’t think this idea has legs. What’s needed is a government with a mandate to reinstate status quo ante Article 50. (Assuming the EU would accept that, and I think they might) and then that government to negotiate with the EU, over whatever timescale it takes with no arbitrary deadlines, for agreement of an amenable relationship with the EU.
Such a government would also need to use intelligently the powers it already has within the EU regulatory framework instead of pretending the EU was set-up specifically to make life impossible for English people.
Scots and Irish are on their way out of the UK anyway so their opinion is not very relevant (who knows what the Welsh are wanting to do…)
No more (bloody) referenda please. We need democratically accountable government which accepts responsibility for its actions. If we learnt nothing else in 2016 we surely learnt that a referendum does not produce solutions it generates dissent, division and confusion.
“A referendum is essentially a binary choice mechanism. Isn’t it ?”
In a word or three, no: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referendum#Multiple-choice_referendums; http://www.democraticaudit.com/2016/11/11/beyond-the-binary-what-might-a-multiple-choice-eu-referendum-have-looked-like; https://fullfact.org/news/scottish-independence-are-multi-choice-referendums-indecisive.
In view of the (criminally) flawed initial referendum and subsequent divisive animosity, my instinct is that a 2nd multiple choice referendum at this stage wouldn’t be successful in terms of generating greater clarification and unity. In fact, it might have the opposite effect. Sometimes you just have live with your mistakes and hope there will be a more opportune moment in the future to rectify them. While this might be seen as appeasing the extreme ‘Brexiteers’, I don’t think the general public are up for more grief. If I’m wrong (usually am) then the government in charge of a 2nd referendum, multiple-choice or binary, will have to exercise a much higher degree of integrity and expertise than previously experienced – and on that point I’m not at all optimistic.
Well, John a brief look at the implications a multiple choice referendum as outlined in the Wikipedia article you reference confirms my opinion it would be an appalling idea.
Way too complicated. Our polity failed to explain a binary option to the electorate without resorting to deception and out and out lies.
Imagine the scope with three or more options to choose from ! We’d never hear the last of it. It would take longer than the article 50 negotiations have taken just to gain agreement on the terms of the questions and the counting system. Give me status quo ante in the meantime and I’ll support it. 🙂
Not sure about the wording of b).
Is the expression, “maintain a close working and economic relationship” clear enough? Or should it explicitly include reference to the “Single Market” and “Customs Union”? Makes it more complicated, of course.
But the real question is – no matter what the Referendum question is, will the electorate get proper, full, unbiased, and truthful information on which to make a decision? On that point, I have my doubts
The problem with a three way vote is the high likelihood that no one option will gain a majority and the country will make the most important decision for generations based on the support of less than half the people. This is a recipe for trouble, serious trouble.
I’d prefer (a) a simple deal-or-no-deal vote in parliament based on whatever the government is able to agree with the EU – i.e. a technical choice made by people employed to analyse and understand technical issues – followed by (b) a simple in-or-out people’s vote between leaving on the basis approved by parliament or withdrawing the Article 50 notification and going back to where we were three years ago – i.e. an fundamental constitutional matter decided by the people at large.
If there is a second referendum it should reflect the realistic options available to us. Since there is obviously going to be no acceptable deal the options are necessarily binary:
A – no-deal Brexit
B – stay in EU
It’s probably the result both EU and May have been working towards all along. May is as truthful about her intention that there be no 2nd referendum as she was when she said there’d definitely be no snap election – just before the snap election…
Adam Sawyer says:
“If there is a second referendum it should reflect the realistic options available to us. ….[….]
A — no-deal Brexit
B — stay in EU”
Erm…… I’d like to know what a No Deal Brexit might mean. I think we should be told. But who (whom?) would I trust to explain it’s possible implications ?
Whoop Whoop. Stray apostrophe alert.
McDonnell on radio 4 today is still saying ‘must respect the result of the referendum. I hope it’s a ploy so the Labour leadership will be seen, at some point, to be reluctantly changing their mind. I doubt it is, sadly. I think there are three reasons quiet apart from the argument that in 2016, we were not given a clear alternative path, just a general yes or no.
In reverse order.
3rd reason Electoral law was broken.If 1 in fifty voted the other way, the result would be 50:50 no ‘will of the people’.
2nd reason in the last two years, some of the older voters who were 2 to 1 leave have gone to Heaven, and a million plus young people have qualified to vote and they were overwhelmingly in favour of remain. Also many young people had not signed up to vote. They did for the 2017 election and would for this referendum as they are the ones who will pay the price for leaving in lower wages and loss of jobs
!st reason despite the numbers of undecided having grown, the polls now show a majority who have an opinion, wish to stay. To leave when the majority no longer think it’s a good idea, is hardly democratic OR sensible. It needs to be tested at the polls.
Also: following John McDonald’s comments this morning via a vis a second referendum it’s quite obvious that his and JC’s much touted respect for democracy and desire to turn Labour into a fully democratic organisation is a sham.
I’m happy leaving the EU but I think negotiations have clearly gone so badly that the public should be given a say over the final decision and that should include the option to remain in and cancel Brexit entirely.
I’ll be voting out in a second Brexit Referendum to get us away from the antidemocratic old men in Brussels. When it comes to our next general election I’m sadly out of options and will be spoiling my ballot paper.
I have to admit I did not think his comments helpful
Of course staying in has to be an option
Yeah the question of what the question is has been vexing me.
It would be interesting to ask a question which feels more fair to the brexiteers, so that even *they* can get behind the campaign for a people’s vote, but I’m not sure how. It might also be interesting to clarify how many leave voters believe that “no deal” is an acceptable outcome (i.e. what proportion of the population are in fact completely clueless about the issues at stake)
So the three way choice seems sensible until you consider, from a brexiteer’s point of view, the leave vote will be unfairly split. They’ll be choosing between (b) & (c), but up against a strong (a) campaign. Anyway most people do indeed seem to be talking about a binary choice: “cancel brexit” vs “whatever the brexit deal/no deal is”. Either way it’s not appealing to the brexiteers.
Richard makes an interesting point; if we’re going to have another referendum, what should be the questions it asks?
My own desire is that, in the absence of politicians with the integrity to declare the 2016 result invalid because of the lying and cheating of the Leave campaign, we have a means of overturning the result.
And at the moment, the only way that seems possible is another referendum. Given the demographic shift since June 216 which shifts the vote towards a Remain vote winning, plus the apparent shift of some former Leave voters who voted more on a protest basis rather than out and out opposition to the EU, and are now becoming aware of the effects of ‘no-deal’, I think Remain would win.
I take Andy’s point about referenda, and how divisive they can be, but in the absence of real political leadership how else can we avoid disaster? I’m not concerned about the threats of rioting made by the usual suspects if the 2016 result is overturned; it’s mostly blather and bluster like most of the rubbish they come out with.
And if the far/hard right really want to kick up a fuss, there’s always those water cannon bought by a certain B. Johnson a few years back…………
sickoftaxdodgers says:
“And if the far/hard right really want to kick up a fuss, there’s always those water cannon bought by a certain B. Johnson a few years back…………”
Oh aye. I can just see Theresa May letting the Water Cannon loose on her most ardent voters.
‘Scuse me while I have a quiet chortle.
Andy, I don’t think the anti EU extremists I’m referring to are fans of TM! Lunatics that they are, they believe that she’s either not really trying to deliver Brexit at all, or isn’t ‘tough enough’ in her negociations with the ‘evil NaziEUSSR’.
I move that we can get NATO in or the same people we see checking voting in places like Africa or South America.
Why not?
Our ‘democracy’ (ha ha ha ha!) is very poorly at the moment so lets have some international monitors around to make sure it is done right next time. Because that is what we have come to because of BREXIT.
One of the oldest democracies in the West. That’s what we were in the UK.
Pilgrim Slight Return says:
“I move that we can get NATO in or the same people we see checking voting in places like Africa or South America.”
With climate change developing apace we only need to dump the monarchy and plant some banana groves (Quick! get the money from the CAP because we ‘can’t afford it’ !!) and the transformation of Britain will be complete.
Personally I find Labour’s position on referendums both anti-democratic and repugnant. On the one hand they are now touting for a second EU referendum but on the other hand they are advocating a block on a second Scottish independence referendum.
So it looks like we can have a second vote on something which Labour didn’t like the outcome of but we can’t have a second vote on something which Labour do like the outcome of.
This smacks of hypocrisy. If this remains the position of the British nationalist parties (the Lib Dems have a similar position) then I for one will boycott the EU referendum and advocate the boycott to my fellow countrymen.
Jim McWilliam wrote:
“So it looks like we can have a second vote on something which Labour didn’t like the outcome of but we can’t have a second vote on something which Labour do like the outcome of. This smacks of hypocrisy.”
Jim, I’d contend that it doesn’t just smack of hypocrisy – it is full-blown naked hypocrisy. The proposal to include prevention of any future referendum on Scottish independence as a Labour Manifesto item confirms this 100% and represents a complete reversal of Labour policy since the 1999 devolution of powers to Holyrood. That was a Labour initiative, building on the colossal groundwork of Canon Kenyon Wright and the Scottish Convention. To seek to reverse the demonstrable progress made since devolution will only result in further loss of Labour votes in Scotland.
A postscript to my post:
Labour in Scotland has sunk to third place behind SNP & the Tories. The manifesto proposal will further damage Labour’s share of the Scottish vote, so proposals made at the Labour Conference of pushing towards a General Election need to take account of the fact that the party can no longer rely on large numbers of Scottish MPs to boost its numbers at Westminster.
I have to say Labour had a good conference – but not for Scotland
Read Common Weal tonight
“Read Common Weal tonight”
Hmmmm….. have done.
My assessment of Richard Leonard is posted online elsewhere, but is not suitable for posting here. Even making allowance for his being a fellow native of Yorkshire the adjectival nouns of choice are not ones you’d approve of to describe another human being.
I suspect you are right
All I would say is that our departure from the EU needs to be with some form of deal.
A No Deal should be out of the question. A new referendum should charge Parliament with making a deal on behalf of the people that reduces the negative impact as much as possible.
If other countries can have a deal, so can we.
A fourth option might be ‘Stay in the EU and address the treaty’s shortcomings as a member’.
But what I’d really like to do is just stop the whole bloody thing. Someone above mentions the word ‘sham’. Really? Tell me – how many shams make up sham? Because BREXIT is based shams galore.
I know I have said that we should get it over with asap so that we can re-apply but we now have such overwhelming evidence that people have been lied to that the referendum result is null and void as far as I am concerned. It is illegitimate. Yet no-one wants to talk about this.
So I’d stop it now. We are staying in. And I’d make it quite clear nationally (especially to the right-wingers and racist euro haters nationalists in our midst) that if anyone were to take to the streets on this issue and use (shall we say) inappropriate behaviour they will be ruthlessly put down. And I mean ruthlessly.
BREXIT means that lying (Boris, the Leave Campaign, funders) and incompetence (the Electoral Commission, Theresa May, Cameron) are now seemingly legitimate aspects of our democracy.
Well my answer to that is that No – they fucking well aren’t.
Absolutely PSR, I agree with you 100%. The result was obtained by illegitimate means, and should be struck down.
That is an extremely dishonest question.
It’s basically two remain options (EU or EEA) only the EEA is dressed up as a leave option. I’ve seen a few people suggesting these kinds of trick questions. There is no chance the electoral commision will allow anything like this.
Well, if it is up to the Electoral Commission Stu then I hope to God that they interpret the rules properly this time because according to the High Court judgement (somewhat under reported methinks) their attempt to clarify the rules on expenses and funding in 2016 was a bit of clusterfuck.
Stu says:
“That is an extremely dishonest question.
It’s basically two remain options (EU or EEA) only the EEA is dressed up as a leave option.”
I don’t agree. I think to describe EEA option as ‘remain’ (by implication) is dishonest, or at best misleading, but the Brexit process was no way to go about achieving it if that’s what we wanted. I’m not suggesting it is what anybody wanted, though it would perhaps have had merits.
How about
A) UK stays in the EU without change
Or
B) UK stays in the EU and opts out of those parts of the Maastricht, Lisbon and associated treaties which bind us to the stupidity and growth pact and other ordo-liberal nonsense which is the basis of austerity.
The EU did not impose austerity on us
And Portugal has proved it can be worked round
Roger
What do you think awaits us if we (as you say) escaped the neo-liberalism inherent in the EU by leaving?
I think we’d be catapulted into an even more unstrained form of neo-liberalism as the US expanded its economy into ours. And maybe China will be enabled to take advantage of the situation. And how about Russia?
Lets face it Roger, the likes of Redwood, Rees-Mogg, Liam Fox et al are all waiting to sell us off the lowest bidder. They’ll also be advising their investors as they do this and no doubt setting themselves up as well paid intermediaries when their careers in politics are over (if they have any honour that is – which I doubt).
Be careful about what you wish for eh?
A multiple-choice referendum is a nightmare scenario. Using your example for the options, what if the vote split 40:20:40? Or 40:30:30? Or 30:40:30? Or any one of a number of ways without one gaining an absolute majority? A majority would almost certainly oppose each option in turn without a majority being in favour of any one thing. A referendum, as opposed to an election, needs to be decisive; this is arguably one of the problems with the first referendum, that 52:48 was not decisive enough. That didn’t stop endless parades of Brexiters crying “will of the people!” though, and if we have a three-or-more choice referendum, we are practically asking for the result, almost regardless of what it might be, to be interpreted any way anyone likes.
You may think that this is an inherent flaw in referenda, and I’d be inclined to agree with you in that case. However, a referendum got us into this mess, now only another referendum can get us out of it, but only if we don’t weaken it relative to the first.
P.S. Perhaps as an alternative, if it were really necessary to choose from more than two options, successive binary referenda could be held (if one could stomach the thought)?
Notion of another referendum less far fetched?
Just exactly how would there be another referendum before the deadline? Even if the exit is in some way delayed.
What plausible scenarios are there that the current tory govt would pass an act of Parliament under a 3 line whip to legislate another referendum?
I just cannot think of one. Can anyone?
I can see that if there was a election and a party presented a manifesto promise to have a referendum before the A50 deadline and won with a working majority then maybe they could just about squeeze it in – would be impressive to get two national polls done within months! But to get an election the govt must either dissolve itself or lose a confidence vote – which would require a dirty dozen tory mps to turn against their own party. They didn’t do it at the last moment after promising recently. And the current and past libdem leaders failed to turn up at the most recent one, when the tory whips cheated on the pairing.
So please enlighten me.
In theory the 2017 election could not happen
It did
Why do I need to enlighten you?
About what? That we are in chaos and anything might happen?
Thanks for the post Mr Murray.
I just can’t see how a Labour commitment to a referendum at this conference would have any effect on the tory govt negotiations, that’s all, genuinely.
I am a remainer. I even have a French holiday home and friends across the EU for 30 years. I am gutted that we are threatened with loss of free movement and goods – i don’t want to return to form filling on every trip and limits on amounts of alcohol and tobacco. And that my £ was worth more against € as it was just before brexit.
However it feels like brexit is a runaway train and best we can hope for is to limit damage. I wished that the Electoral Commission would have used the SCL/CA revelations of the illegal vote manipulations of the ‘bad boys of brexit’ to annul the referendum so that we could pause.
I would be happy that Labour would make it a manifesto commmitment to be in the EU and win a GE and deliver that without a referendum even.
I just worry that the MSM desire to push Labour into commiting for a referendum at this moment is in some way a diversion and plays into keeping the Tories in.
I do think there will be another election – this is the most unstable government in 40 odd years.
Thanks for listening, your work is a great comfort.
Us Remainers would love a second referendum with three questions to split the vote on Leave.
But we shouldn’t be so blatant in our ongoing refusal to deny the result.
Voting on the terms of Brexit would seem to be a waste of time as there is no way we will be presented with the “facts” and therefore most will vote based on populist beliefs.
Rerunning the referendum is an option, in which case I prefer the binary option:
a. Leave the EU
b. Stay in the EU
I still think that the old argument, he who shouts loudest gets heard, is compelling. For those of us without the vocabulary to understand the niceties of the economic arguments, populist ideas have traction, they are easy to understand. The fact that they are based on inaccurate assumptions and outright lies is not what shifts the vote towards the leave campaign, in my opinion it is because the arguments to leave are based on prejudices that have deep roots in our culture.
There is another option, that unless our silent opposition parties wake up, Brexit will happen and it will be a hard Brexit. It would appear that Labour are content to watch us fall over the particular cliff-edge so they can crow that the Conservatives have messed up, big-time.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, small business owners and many employed individuals will suffer the consequences, and it is they that will have to haul themselves up by the boot-straps and make sense of of the post-Brexit fallout. We will probably crawl out in good time, but it will not be at the behest of politicians who have their heads firmly stuck in the dark and smelly space that reeks of power-seeking opportunism.
As you can tell I am not optimistic. Yesterdays incredible outburst of information on what will happen if we have a hard Brexit, https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/how-to-prepare-if-the-uk-leaves-the-eu-with-no-deal?utm_source=38859edf-bb2f-4717-86d8-e0a2d169ac0e&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=govuk-notifications&utm_content=immediate leaves nothing to the imagination. WE SHOULD HAVE HAD THIS AS A DEMOCRATIC RIGHT BEFORE WE VOTED AT THE LAST REFERENDUM, not as a do as we say or else…
I look forward to being proved wrong.
Bob
You are quite right to point out the pre-vote information gap out.
But do you not think that the problem is that its all got out of control? It is the Tories who let the people’s bull(shit) out of the paddock. They have released the beast. And then sought in 2017 to capitalise on it. Which they failed to do.
If I had a fiver for every misconceived notion about why we should leave that I’ve heard on the train or the bus or just out walking I could retire a rich man.
Labour ‘content’ to watch us go over the cliff? I think not. We are dealing with nationalistic forces in this country – the sort of right-wing nationalism that leads a man to kill a female MP just for having a different opinion. The right wing is renowned for violence. Yet we are taught by the MSM to fear the Left. Pah!
So I smell fear in the polity of this country. I’ve heard politicians from both sides talking about it as if we have to leave in order to stop riots. It’s a sort of capitulation to thuggery. Me – I’d say to the Leavers – riot if you dare. Bring it on.
But it is easy for me to say that.
The Tories got us into this mess and they need to produce a deal. Their inability to do that – to get that deal – is because THEY are the party that is ripping itself apart because they are putting themselves first. Not the country. And not Labour.
Keir Starmer said something really important this afternoon in his speech which was that the BREXIT vote was a symptom of wider unhappiness amongst the public about living in the UK. I think he is dead right.
That is why we need a general election and not the Labour party turning up like the cavalry to save the Tory party for whom every problem we have right now is because of their rotten, self serving, stupid, callous, ignorant and inhuman version of Government that we have had to suffer since 2010.
It is maybe then that there are really two opportunities for an incoming Labour Government – to save our relationship with Europe and to rid the country of what can only be described as the worst Tory administration of modern times.
That’s as I see it at the moment.