Robin Wilton's esoterica

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01 Jun · Wed 2005

What does a referendum mean?

It's hard to avoid media reports of the French "Non" last weekend in their referendum on adoption of the draft EU constitution. Here in the UK, our government has yet to confirm whether we will be allowed to vote in a similar referendum. Normally, I am all for the referendum as a tangible way of increasing direct democratic participation, but this example does seem to reveal some real problems. For instance, what does the French "No" vote mean? How should their government react so as to deal with the disagreement it expresses? If anything seems clear, it is that there is no one answer to this - which in turn indicates one of the problems with a referendum. It has to ask a 'closed' question. The only possible answers are Yes or No. There is no "Why?" (to paraphrase a Jedi koan). Thus, there are those who voted "No" in France because they felt the Consititution goes too far in exposing the French economy to the vicissitudes of an "Anglo-Saxon market-driven" model. There are others who voted "No" because they felt it did not go far enough to further the social (and Socialist) ideals of the Union's original founders. It's hard to find a remedy which will satisfy both those camps. Then there are those who voted "No" because they wanted to express a personal dislike for President Chirac, Prime Minister Raffarin or both. Again, it's going to be hard to express that political choice in a French policy on Europe. So what would a 'Yes' or a 'No' mean in the UK (if we were allowed to choose?). I think I can accurately predict that it will be no easier to tell than in the French case. I could vote 'Yes' on pro-European principle, but I don't want that to be interpreted as a blanket endorsement of the UK's current policy on Europe; I could vote 'No' as a protest, but I would not want that to be interpreted as a rejection of collaboration with our European partners in all their valuable diversity. I know... I'll vote for the inclusion of a "Comments" field.

Posted by racingsnake @ 11:25 AM GMT+00:00 [ Comments [2] ]

Comments:

I'd vote No because the constitution is far too long and opaque.

Posted by Loz on June 02, 2005 at 09:47 AM GMT+00:00 #

I can understand your point of view... they could probably have done a better job of shortening and clarifying the consitution; on the other hand, I think the constitution is a great deal shorter and clearer than the current series of treaties it is (was?) intended to supersede. There's the EEC Treaty (Rome, 1957), the Single European Act of 1987, the Maastricht Treaty (1992), the Treaty of Amsterdam (1997), the Treaty of Nice (2001) and a couple of others. I'd challenge anyone to pick a topic and then work out which of those treaties represented the definitive EU statement on it!

Posted by Robin Wilton on June 02, 2005 at 12:12 PM GMT+00:00 #

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