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Plebiscite cop out
IN Britain, Tony Blair has made a squealing, burnt rubber U-turn and has announced that at some unspecified point in the future the electorate will
vote in a referendum on the European Constitution.
Meanwhile, in Ireland the electorate are voting on an amendment to the Irish Constitution concerning Irish citizenship.
Democracy in action, you might well think. But I would beg to differ. More like an abandonment of a democratic government’s responsibility, if you ask me.
Let me explain. People regularly claim they don’t vote because it won’t make any difference to them. The short answer to that is: That’s the whole point of a democracy. As Dublin political thinker Edmund Burke pointed out — we don’t elect delegates, we elect
representatives.
“Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion.” In other words — you hire me, you hire my judgement.
To see how it can all go dreadfully wrong, look at the North of Ireland. Here delegates were elected on a single issue — whether they were a Prod or a Taig. It was a recipe for disaster, and disaster sure enough it became.
However, if you elect a representative as opposed to a delegate, then you are choosing somebody who in general reflects your own broad views. These people are then vested with the power to take independent decisions. In mature democracies we assume that those we elect have access to expert opinion, have the intellectual capability, and probably most important of all, have the time to consider issues, and take the best decisions on our behalf.
Take capital punishment, which has been removed from the statute book. If a referendum were held in Ireland or Britain tomorrow, some 70 to 80 per cent of the population would vote in favour of bringing hanging back. This doesn’t happen because, if viewed dispassionately, the argument for the return of State killing doesn’t stand up. Governments in Europe have therefore decided they know best, which indeed certainly seems to be the case. The only western democracy that routinely uses capital punishment is the USA, which, coincidentally, has a murder rate many times that of any EU country.
Democracies, then, don’t allow the electorate to vote on something as visceral as capital punishment. So why on earth should they allow the average punter to vote on something as complex as, for example, whether their country should join the euro?
Consider this scenario. Suppose I wanted to build a bridge across the river that flows about half a mile from my home. Now I wouldn’t go down to the local pub and ask everybody to vote on the best way to do it. No, I’d try to find someone in the locality who had built bridges before.
Fleshing out the analogy, I might put it to the regulars whether they knew anyone in the neighbourhood who built bridges, and should they come up with two or three names of local bridge builders I might solicit a broad opinion from them on who was the best. But once the bridge builder was chosen, I’d make no further representations to the people in the pub over the construction of the bridge — what materials might best be used, etc., would be left entirely up to the builder.
In a democracy, if bridges aren’t being built properly, we have the ultimate sanction on our governments. Elections are designed to safeguard us from those of our representatives who do not exercise their power in the best interests of our community.
So far, the system has worked reasonably well. In general, in the Western liberal democracies life has improved. The rights of women, children, ethnic minorities, religious minorities have all steadily improved. The same cannot be said of totalitarian countries whether Marxist states, dictatorships or religious theocracies. Today in the North something like Bloody Sunday is inconceivable — no government could risk losing the public support such an act would now result in.
The democratic system, with its in built checks and balances, such as a free press, and the existence of bodies as diverse as trades unions to human rights monitoring groups, is working pretty well. It has its flaws, to be sure, but so far we have come up with no better system of government.
Why then water it down by the introduction of referendums? Especially when governments react badly when the vote goes wrong. The Nice referendum in Ireland in June 2001 was a properly conducted constitutional referendum, in which voters rejected the Nice Treaty by 54 per cent to 46 per cent. In other words, they came up with the wrong answer. So they were sent back to the polls until they came up with the right one. Democracy was seriously weakened by this charade, and the Irish constitution made a mockery of.
But the point is that in all probability the second vote that was foisted on the Irish public was the more accurate of the two plebiscites; most people in Ireland were, as it happens, in favour of the Nice Treaty. But the government knew that in the first place — enough opinion polls and focus groups made the point many times over. So why water down democracy by putting the question ‘to the people’? It’s the legislature’s job to grapple with the intricacies of EU constitution, not the Hon. Hoi Polloi’s.
Of course, in the Irish constitution no government can introduce legislation that conflicts with Bunreacht na hEireann (the Constitution). In Britain no such stipulations exist — referendums are held on a government whim. But in Ireland each time the government wishes to change or amend the Constitution, it must hold a referendum — we’ve had them over abortion and divorce. One can, conceivably, make an argument for these, being straightforward matters of conscience.
But now we’re being asked to vote on ever more complex issues, such as the European constitution or citizenship in Ireland.
Now my problem with that is quite simple. People often say to me that the EU has far too much power, that we’re going to be absorbed in a European superstate. To which my usual reply is: have you talked it over with your MEP? The answer is invariably no; worse than that, those complaining about the ‘faceless bureaucrats of Brussels’ don’t even know the name of their MEP! No wonder the Brussels people are faceless when their own MEPs remain nameless.
Worse still, most of those complaining about the power of the EU haven’t even bothered finding out what the EU Parliament does, or for that matter, who its president is. (He’s an Irishman, by the way). And yet these self same people, who don’t even have a passing interest in their MEP’s name, are being given a chance, on the occasional one-off basis, of making decisions about our future! It’s nonsense.
Every four or five years every one of us has a chance to turf our government out of office if we don’t agree with what they’ve done. Even during their term of office we can to some extent influence decisions. We can join a trades union, we can legitimately protest on the street, we can join a pressure group, we can write to our local counsellor, MP, TD or MEP. (You’d be amazed how happy your local MEP would be to talk to you.)
If, however, we choose to do none of those things, that’s fine. But we shouldn’t then suddenly be granted a vote on something that crops up, which the government, or a newspaper, thinks might look good.
The whole debate goes to the heart of representative government. In any referendum Joe or Josephine Bloggs is apt to vote for their personal interest. But Joe’s representatives in government are obliged to look wider and farther. Joe’s long-term interests are ill-served if decisions are taken for short-term expediency — we put people in government so they can look at all the long-term implications of a particular issue. The word Burke used was ‘judgment’, not ‘pandering’.
Mature democracies are designed to prevent the tyranny of the majority, and in large measure that’s what they do. Introducing referendums is a way of bringing back the tyranny of the majority — or in other words, mob rule.
In fact, the only thing I can possibly see any point in holding a referendum over is whether the plural of the word should be referenda or referendums.
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