Last Word: Referendum Blues
Author | Katie Ghose |
Published date | 01 September 2016 |
Date | 01 September 2016 |
DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/2041905816666150 |
40 POLITICAL INSIGHT • SEPTEMBER 2016
Last Word
For many, the EU referendum often felt
like more of a Westminster parlour
game than a genuine debate about
Britain’s constitutional future.
Personality politics, rumours of spats and
internal party splits, and o-putting bickering
between the two campaigns often dominated.
At the same time, media coverage too often
treated the referendum like an election
campaign: as a contest between individuals
rather than two distinct sides or worldviews.
With just a week to go until polling day, only
33 per cent of the public said they felt ‘well’ or
‘very well’ informed about the EU referendum.
While this was up from 16 per cent in February,
it shows a signicant public knowledge decit.
This was reected in big variations in how
much contact people actually had about the
vote. In mid-June – just a week before polling
day – one in six people said they still hadn’t
been contacted about the EU referendum. Just
2 per cent had a visit to their home, while only 3
per cent had a phone call.
And the ground campaign clearly didn’t
get to all corners of the country – something
echoed by the gaping demographic divide.
In the same poll, just 55 per cent of C2DE Brits
said they would vote compared to 67 per
cent of wealthier ABC1 individuals. While the
nal turnout was thankfully higher, there were
undoubtedly big social dierences in who
turned up and how they voted, as post-Brexit
polling by Lord Ashcroft showed.
Part of this is down to the messengers. The
public were switched o by “big names” in the
EU debate, with major political personalities
often having the opposite impact to the
intended eect – or no impact at all. Equally,
views from experts on either side – usually
vital in a referendum given the complexity of
the issues in hand – generally received a cold
reception from a mistrustful and disillusioned
public.
The Electoral Reform Society tried to add
some balance to the debate. We teamed
up with several leading universities and
crowdfunded to build an online “toolkit” on the
vote, called
A Better Referendum
. This gave a
platform for people to learn about the issues
Referendum Blues
We need a radical rethink of referendums in the UK, writes Katie Ghose.
around EU membership and discuss them in
groups. It was a way to introduce some public
deliberation into the mix.
While it was used by thousands, there’s only
so much one toolkit can do. When it comes to
referendums, we need a systematic approach to
building an informed debate.
The rst step is to make education and
awareness-raising integral parts of every
campaign. We can reform the rules and
funding in order to create a commitment to
boosting public knowledge about the facts,
views and issues. More money for unbiased
public information would better equip voters
to evaluate campaigns claims. The formal
campaigns could also be rewarded for activities
that focus on capacity-building and time
spent with the public – for example, providing
speakers at local debates – while incentives to
the campaigns to encourage registration could
also help.
The referendum highlighted a glaring
deciency in the regulation of elections in the
UK. There are currently no safeguards to ensure
that information presented must be accurate.
The current free-for-all approach allows a
ruthless race to the bottom in terms of accuracy
in campaign materials.
It’s time to investigate the possibility
of establishing or empowering a body to
adjudicate on disputes over claims made
during a campaign. At the moment there is
no body charged with ensuring information
put out during public votes is broadly
accurate. That is in contrast to the UK’s
stringent rules on advertising. New Zealand’s
Electoral Commission has an important role in
monitoring and judging accuracy of campaigns’
claims during a referendum, and a comparable
role could be handed to the Electoral
Commission or another regulatory body to fairly
govern all sides.
There also needs to be serious consideration
about clarifying the timing of why and when
a referendum should be held, and how long
the campaign should be. While for many in the
political sphere the six-month campaign may
have felt like a long time, among the public
it did not allow enough time for an extensive
debate about the issues of the referendum or
the emergence of vibrant grassroots discussions
– particularly given its close proximity to May’s
elections.
And nally, we have to look at “what’s next”.
The high turnout of 72 per cent showed there
was real public appetite to engage with this
issue. But that involvement shouldn’t end after
polling day. Recent pilot studies have shown
the considerable ability of randomly selected
citizens to deliberate on complex constitutional
matters such as local devolution. And now
mass-scale engagement in constitutional
referendums – like Scottish independence or
the EU vote – suggests the same. We need
to look at the prospect of holding citizens’
assemblies alongside referendums, to ensure
there is a guarantee of truly informed discussion
among the public. Not just in the run-up, but
also in the aftermath; the public have a right to
a say in what happens now.
All of these issues add up to the case for a
serious root-and-branch review of how we
do elections in Britain. We have had 12 major
referendums in the UK since 1975. For the sake
of our democracy, it’s time for a radical rethink
of how we do them.
Katie Ghose is Chief Executive of the Electoral
Reform Society.
AB
C1
C2
DE
57%
49%
36%
36%
43%
51%
64%
64%
Votes in EU referendum by social class
REMAIN LEAVE
Political Insight Sept 2016.indd 40 29/07/2016 10:04
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