There have been forty-six in Switzerland in the last five years. Since 1971, forty-five years ago, there have been three hundred and seventy-six. You know what I’m on about; the Swiss penchant for putting everything to a referendum.
Just 50,000 signatures opposing a new piece of legislation are enough to trigger a referendum. They are usually about healthcare, taxes, welfare, drug policy, public transport, immigration, asylum and education. It has to be said that turn-out is often below 50% even though polling stations are open on Saturday and Sunday and most people vote in advance by post. Moreover, the number of such polls is kept down to around four each year by bundling together federal, cantonal and municipal issues.
You will remember just two referenda that have been held in the UK since 1973: Membership of the EEC in 1975 and the Alternative Vote in 2011. However, our memories play us false as there have been thirteen.
Most of the ones we have forgotten relate to devolution in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Now, on 23rd June we have another referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU and the outcome is uncertain. Here’s how it went in 1975.
An interesting aspect of a referendum is that, for once, every vote counts. In Parliamentary elections most votes don’t count. The only ones that matter are in marginal constituencies. Again, most of the time, the desire of the individual is ignored. MPs vote in Parliament in accordance with their opinions and that of their party. If you don’t like it you can take to the streets and protest and, besides being a short news item, you will achieve precisely nothing.
So this time, in June, you will really get your shout heard, right? Wrong! There is a delicious paradox. The people who will vote to leave the EU will in most cases do so to regain sovereignty which they perceive, correctly as it happens, has been abrogated to Europe; the wicked unelected Eurocrats who earn too much and spend too much of our money.
Now suppose you have voted for Brexit and you are in the majority? What will happen? The pound will fall, the stock market will fall and parliament will convene. The overwhelming majority of MPs in the UK House of Commons desire to remain in the EU. The first test of the UK’s regained sovereignty could quite legitimately be a parliamentary vote on Brexit in which the outcome will be very different from the referendum. Parliament is perfectly entitled to overturn the outcome of a referendum, although they’d have to dress it up a bit to make it look in the best interests of the country. It couldn’t happen could it? Yes, you can bet your John Lobb boots it could.
I have spent the last week in the United States visiting alumni of Goodenough College. To a man and woman they are baffled as to why Britain should wish to leave the EU. These are not supporters of Donald Trump and the populist policies (often isolationist) espoused by him and many of the Presidential candidates. They are equally not uncritical of President Obama and what they perceive as a lack of American global leadership in recent years.
They are emphatically Anglophile having spent several years in London obtaining MAs and PhDs. They continue to follow British politics as closely as their own. They recognise the inadequacies of Brussels, just as they do of Washington DC. But they also see the political and economic benefits of being part of a larger entity. They fought a civil war 150 years ago to gain an imperfect national unity. They would say that Europe has largely avoided conflict since 1945 through the creation of an imperfect international economic union which includes Britain.
My American friends are troubled by the prospect of Brexit. They believe Europe needs British leadership just as the world needs American leadership. They are concerned at isolationist tendencies in both countries at a time when global dangers are crowding in. I believe they are right.
I was a Bremainer. And yet…. The Brexit question had to be put, untrammelled, to the electorate. We have their answer, wilful and ignorant as it may be. We have lanced a boil. The UK and the EU may both be better for it. The UK may have the shocks it needs to realise that globalisation suits us, but only if we educate ourselves, and realise that world competition is very tough. We are rich, but not as rich as we spend. The EU will decide for itself whether it wants to be a new republic, and whatever choice it makes our neighbours will have our lively interest, friendly help and active co-operation.