Britain’s Democratic Failure
Kenneth R
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CAMBRIDGE – The real lunacy of the United Kingdom’s vote to leave the European Union was not that British leaders dared to ask their populace to weigh the benefits of membership against the immigration pressures it presents. Rather, it was the absurdly low bar for exit, requiring only a simple majority. Given voter turnout of 70%, this meant that the leave campaign won with only 36% of eligible voters backing it. This isn’t democracy; it is Russian roulette for republics. A decision of enormous consequence – far greater even than amending a country’s constitution (of course, the United Kingdom lacks a written one) – has been made without any appropriate checks and balances.
Does the vote have to
be repeated after a year to be sure? No. Does a majority in Parliament
have to support Brexit? Apparently not. Did the UK’s population really
know what they were voting on? Absolutely not. Indeed, no one has any
idea of the consequences, both for the UK in the global trading system,
or the effect on domestic political stability. I am afraid it is not
going to be a pretty picture.
Mind you, citizens of
the West are blessed to live in a time of peace: changing circumstances
and priorities can be addressed through democratic processes instead of
foreign and civil wars. But what, exactly, is a fair, democratic
process for making irreversible, nation-defining decisions? Is it really
enough to get 52% to vote for breakup on a rainy day?
In terms of
durability and conviction of preferences, most societies place greater
hurdles in the way of a couple seeking a divorce than Prime Minister
David Cameron’s government did on the decision to leave the EU.
Brexiteers did not invent this game; there is ample precedent, including
Scotland in 2014 and Quebec in 1995. But, until now, the gun’s cylinder
never stopped on the bullet. Now that it has, it is time to rethink the
rules of the game.
The idea that somehow
any decision reached anytime by majority rule is necessarily
“democratic” is a perversion of the term. Modern democracies have
evolved systems of checks and balances to protect the interests of
minorities and to avoid making uninformed decisions with catastrophic
consequences. The greater and more lasting the decision, the higher the
hurdles.
That’s why enacting,
say, a constitutional amendment generally requires clearing far higher
hurdles than passing a spending bill. Yet the current international
standard for breaking up a country is arguably less demanding than a
vote for lowering the drinking age.
With Europe now
facing the risk of a slew of further breakup votes, an urgent question
is whether there is a better way to make these decisions. I polled
several leading political scientists to see whether there is any
academic consensus; unfortunately, the short answer is no.
For one thing, the
Brexit decision may have looked simple on the ballot, but in truth no
one knows what comes next after a leave vote. What we do know is that,
in practice, most countries require a “supermajority” for
nation-defining decisions, not a mere 51%. There is no universal figure
like 60%, but the general principle is that, at a bare minimum, the
majority ought to be demonstrably stable. A country should not be making
fundamental, irreversible changes based on a razor-thin minority that
might prevail only during a brief window of emotion. Even if the UK
economy does not fall into outright recession after this vote (the
pound’s decline might cushion the initial blow), there is every chance
that the resulting economic and political disorder will give some who
voted to leave “buyers’ remorse.”
Since ancient times,
philosophers have tried to devise systems to try to balance the
strengths of majority rule against the need to ensure that informed
parties get a larger say in critical decisions, not to mention that
minority voices are heard. In the Spartan assemblies of ancient Greece,
votes were cast by acclamation.
People could modulate their voice to reflect the intensity of their
preferences, with a presiding officer carefully listening and then
declaring the outcome. It was imperfect, but maybe better than what just
happened in the UK.
By some accounts,
Sparta’s sister state, Athens, had implemented the purest historical
example of democracy. All classes were given equal votes (albeit only
males). Ultimately, though, after some catastrophic war decisions,
Athenians saw a need to give more power to independent bodies.
What should the UK
have done if the question of EU membership had to be asked (which by the
way, it didn’t)? Surely, the hurdle should have been a lot higher; for
example, Brexit should have required, say, two popular votes spaced out
over at least two years, followed by a 60% vote in the House of Commons.
If Brexit still prevailed, at least we could know it was not just a
one-time snapshot of a fragment of the population.
The UK vote has
thrown Europe into turmoil. A lot will depend on how the world reacts
and how the UK government manages to reconstitute itself. It is
important to take stock not just of the outcome, though, but of the
process. Any action to redefine a long-standing arrangement on a
country’s borders ought to require a lot more than a simple majority in a
one-time vote. The current international norm of simple majority rule
is, as we have just seen, a formula for chaos.
Britain’s Democratic Failure
Reviewed by Σπύρος Μέγγουλης
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