Cycling UK Forum

Parties release their manifesto for the parliamentary term if they were to win at the general election. This should be read by the population and form their decision on who to vote. Once elected into government that party is expected to deliver their manifesto. Also it is expected that they represent the wishes in the spirit of their manifesto. By that I mean you should get a good feel for the party's direction from the manifesto and if your views match it then that party can be reasonably expected to act on topics not covered in the same kind of political direction.

It is what electing your representative is about. You choose them and they make the decisions guided by the manifesto.

Referenda are really rare things, quite rightly so. The reason is they're binary and rely on people taking time out to read up on the matter. On top of that you don't get to see the evidence needed to make a lot of important decisions. So how can you make an informed decision. The point of your representative is that they are paid and elected to review the evidence and decide for you. You basically just choose the politics of the candidate closest to yours.

IMHO referendum can only offer a guiding decision. As a population we're unable to cover most topics that could be put to a referendum. Brexit referendum did not have the information really needed for an evidenced decision and look where it has gone since then.

Let's go to the direct democracy where any citizen can vote. Walk in to the debate then black or white stone according to your vote. Athens style.

With modern technology that could be possible. How do you think that would turn out like?

bovlomov wrote:

pwa wrote:If you are saying what I think you are saying, I agree. Parliament and the Government were for some years before the referendum more Europhile / less Eurosceptic than the people, and failed to respond to shifts in opinion. So that when we had a referendum, instead of a subtle adjustment we were faced with the lurch that a referendum inevitably brings. Like a dam bursting after a prolonged period of nobody letting any water out. To that extent perhaps the referendum was the inescapable result of a failure in democracy over the preceding years.

Yes, I agree - though perhaps 'inescapable' is slightly strong.

But also, the lack of representation allowed Euroscepticism to become the playground for the loons and liars. I've said it before ... I find it depressing how the Eurosceptic arguments were often such obvious nonsense, when there were plenty of justifiable arguments to make.

+1 to both. Personally, the first time I read a leaflet from the "leave" campaign I felt far more likely to vote remain, just to avoid being associated with the group behind such a dishonest (or, possibly, extremely stupid) document. I think the fact that so many people voted leave in spite of the leave campaign says a lot about how disconnected our government was from the rest of the population, and how dissatisfied (part of?) that population was with the situation. Speaking as one who's very much in favour of open borders and cooperation between countries, which I think is what the EU stands for, I still have misgivings about a(n EU) government that is even further removed from the population than our own dear Parliament.

Tangled Metal wrote:Let's go to the direct democracy where any citizen can vote. Walk in to the debate then black or white stone according to your vote. Athens style.

With modern technology that could be possible. How do you think that would turn out like?

Need a while (decades) to get used to it, the are many referenda in Switzerland, seems to work there

roubaixtuesday wrote:

To that extent perhaps the referendum was the inescapable result of a failure in democracy over the preceding years.

I totally disagree with this.

There was no strong desire to leave the EU prior to the referendum. Europe was consistently way down people's priority lists of issues. There were no riots, or mass demonstrations against the EU.

The only reason the referendum was called was to avoid a split in the Tory party. Nothing whatsoever to do with democracy.

These are true. But also there was a feeling that Euroscepticism was being silenced. In Parliamentary terms it certainly was: UKIP had millions of votes but only one MP.

And then a bunch of other incoherent 'anti-Brussels' feelings were promoted by a bunch of billionaires, for their own interests.

I agree that there was no strong desire to leave the EU, but there was enough frustrated (and mostly misdirected) anti-EU sentiment to swing a referendum at that exact moment.

Tangled Metal wrote:Let's go to the direct democracy where any citizen can vote. Walk in to the debate then black or white stone according to your vote. Athens style.

With modern technology that could be possible. How do you think that would turn out like?

I suspect it would turn out a lot like the way the Swiss system was described to me by a citizen of that nation: Very frequent votes, many of them followed by another vote on the same subject that swings the opposite direction.

Oddly, I still find the idea appealing.

But also there was a feeling that Euroscepticism was being silenced. In Parliamentary terms it certainly was: UKIP had millions of votes but only one MP.

I think the idea that Euroscepticism was being silenced is laughable. Indeed, you could argue that the biggest failure in the governance system we have is the power of a small cabal of media owners to influence the body politic.

There certainly are flaws in the first past the post system, but given that an alternative was recently rejected in a referendum, there's not much scope for changing that.

I think Cameron was right to call the referendum. What was unforgivable was with only two possible outcomes, being totally unprepared for the leave option.

roubaixtuesday wrote:

But also there was a feeling that Euroscepticism was being silenced. In Parliamentary terms it certainly was: UKIP had millions of votes but only one MP.

I think the idea that Euroscepticism was being silenced is laughable. Indeed, you could argue that the biggest failure in the governance system we have is the power of a small cabal of media owners to influence the body politic.

There certainly are flaws in the first past the post system, but given that an alternative was recently rejected in a referendum, there's not much scope for changing that.

There was a feeling that Euroscepticism was being silenced. A similar narrative to 'PC gone mad', whereby everyone with an idiotic opinion imagines himself to be Martin Luther. This is what the media owners promoted and fed on, but it wasn't created out of nothing. It came from a genuine sense that Parliament didn't reflect the population (only one of hundreds of ways that parliament fails to reflect the population).

I think a more representative Parliament would have given UKIP a voice, and its incoherent agenda would have evaporated, perhaps giving the government the political room to genuinely engage with EU policy making, rather than just grandstanding for the press.

Whippet wrote:I think Cameron was right to call the referendum. What was unforgivable was with only two possible outcomes, being totally unprepared for the leave option.

Had there been a third option don't know, there would have been no winner -> status quo, +1!

pwa wrote:So good in principle but you think it was done badly? Okay. But do you agree that we had reached a point where some sort of referendum had to happen? I think it had become unavoidable, in a democracy.

No, it was far from unavoidable - it was a product of Cameron wanting that small fringe vote from the so-called swivel-eyed loons because of the disproportionate way our winner-takes-all electoral system rewarded the increase from 36.1% of the vote (2010 GE, coalition needed) to 36.9% (2015 GE, Cameron takes all).

roubaixtuesday wrote:(I think the one on PR was probably reasonable),

We've never had a referendum on PR. Only one on AV which is more proportional if used in certain ways but not enough to be PR.

John100 wrote:We have a referendum every 4 years or less called a General Election.

Every 5 years.

I hope those were typos because it really disappoints me that people don't know the basics of our democracy, but it's not taught properly anywhere because most majority-party politicians seem happy to keep voters ignorant of the system as long as a majority keep voting for them.

Demockracy is the word, there is no need to have detailed knowledge of it

With a referendum it's normally a choice of two options. It sounds simple but the lack of easily uncontested facts are hard to come by. Joe Public is barraged from both sides with it's version of facts. Add to this something like the NHS bus, this is remembered by many and if you repeat it often enough it becomes real.
Personally I don't blame Cameron alone for Brexit. Governments after Governments that have failed to understand the discontent among large numbers of people with the way politics seemed to ignore them except when they were up for re-election. This discontent was always there and something like the referendum was always going to happen. Generally Brits are law abiding people, here in France people are more inclined to take to the streets and have, in the past, got governments to change tack. Politics is now a career like any other and a Politicians prime focus is to his career. His/her constituents and what's best for the nation come second.
At 75 I've seen many governments, some better, some worse. What's now so different is the lack of any party that offers a way forward out of our current mess that you can have confidence in to do what they promise. It may have always been thus but seems to be at a very low point now.

UKIP only one mp? Wasn't that one taken from the tory party? Can't get an MP of their own so they poach one with a following in his constituency.

Personally changing the system to give these parties an MP isn't a good argument IMHO. Aren't you switching the system from a constituency voting for their representative to a nation selecting their party under PR? So which is more democratic?

More people in a constituency voting for the party of one local candidate than any other party's local candidates but because he's right down the PR list of candidates he loses out.

Unless I'm missing something there's still an element of voting for someone as well as a party at a GE. With PR you're voting for a party which consists of a list of candidates not all would get in but they get in according to how much of the national vote the party gets. If the tories gain 35% of the vote then you'd assume the first say 35% of the candidates on their list get in. If a constituency votes with a very high proportion for one party that local candidate might not become an MP because a cabinet minister contender with a smaller majority under current system is deemed more important to the party.

I don't know which is more democratic. I don't think any is more so than the others. It's more likely a case of parties supporting the system they would do best out of. IMHO that moves out from democracy to political opportunism campaigning for a change in system.

In the German pr system there are local candidates too, not just lists

After the maths were done the parliament had to be much bigger than planned to reflect votes cast, many more MPs each with several employees €€