The EU referendum is now done and the UK has voted to leave the EU. It was anything but a glorious advert for British democracy.
On one hand, we had a campaign that was willing and determined to set people against one another by their ethnicity, their class, and whether they were ‘experts’ or ‘elites’. The other campaign, when it wasn’t in melodrama mode, deployed the modern organisational technology of political narrowcasting. In so doing, it ignored a huge part of the country, on the basis of its probability of supporting its campaign. As a consequence, whole areas – including many traditional Labour areas in the north crucial to the outcome - heard only the discordant voice of Faragism.
Much has been made about the fact that this referendum was a choice about the types of values that our country epitomises. The referendum was indeed that but more besides. It was also a choice about the type of democracy we want to be. There are deeper democratic and social forces at play – how they are resolved will be one of the critical decisions we as a society make in the coming years.
For many decades now trust in representative democracy has been in decline. Interestingly, many of the advocates of leave framed their argument in terms of defending parliamentary democracy. But it was no such thing. Representative liberal democracy relies not only on the consent of people but on a set of institutional arrangements that can meet their needs and protect their rights – from independent legal institutions to international cooperation. ‘Take back control’ ultimately rejects this web of relationships in favour of some general ‘will of the people’. But how is this ‘will’ formed?
The answer is by substituting individual instincts and emotion for expertise, representation and institutional structures that put a break on populist impulses – if only to force us to pause for thought. Not only in politics but in education, health, business, local governance, and policing too, we are ever more willing to put our personal judgement ahead of ‘experts’ or ‘so-called experts’ as they have come to be known. The experts failed to convince their fellow countrymen and if their post-Brexit prophecies do not come to pass then the schism will become deeper.
Scrutiny and a degree of scepticism is not in itself a bad thing of course – the high-trust society had major drawbacks as Hillsborough, the increasing share of national wealth taken by the top, figures of trust preying on children, and the scandal of Mid-Staffordshire NHS Trust all show. Healthy scepticism is just that – healthy. Too often, however, we are replacing scrutiny and scepticism with a trust in our own instinct and cynicism. It is ‘me the people’ rather than ‘we the people’.
So the legitimacy of hierarchy is threatened but then replaced with a notion of democracy centred around populist individualism – whether it’s ‘take back control’ or ‘make America great again’. The foolish aspect of the decision to hold this referendum was the notion that it would resolve anything. Instead, it has released the forces of populist individualism. Far from being a political alternative, populism is actually an alternative form of democracy. The aim is not simply to replace parties and powers within representative democracy, it seeks to replace representative democracy itself. These forces may be difficult to contain now. Labour is seen to have deserted whole swathes of its traditional support; Conservatives are seen as vacillating and untrustworthy. The mainstream is brittle.
This was all predictable. In a paper on populism, extremism and democracy back in 2013, I wrote of the referendum pledge:
“As a strategy to minimise the space for the UK’s populist radical right party (UKIP), David Cameron’s EU referendum pledge is likely to be a misguided one. It may split away a portion of his party, threaten his own leadership, give profile to a populist party that he cannot or will not match, boost the brand image of UKIP in the eurosceptic media, and fail to address the real underlying anxieties of voters who are attracted to UKIP. It is a considerable opportunity for UKIP as they are given the spotlight in a way they have not been able to secure in their entire history.”
This feels like a scenario that is closer to the current reality than a ‘lancing of the boil’ that the Prime Minister was hoping for. The same paper recommended a process of ‘contact democracy’ where the political mainstream engaged in a process of democratic engagement in a discursive rather than campaigning fashion. A discursive democracy is a very different approach to individualist populism and tired, narrowcasting, hierarchical representative democracy. Discursive democracy breaks down the barriers between experts and the people, the governing and the governed, policy and politics. In other words, it flattens democratic engagement and eschews false divides, opening out and making democracy more solidaristic as a consequence.
Next week, the RSA will launch the Citizens’ Economic Council which is in an experiment in discursive, solidaristic, contact democracy. Essentially, a demographically diverse group of 50 - 60 citizens selected using stratified random sampling methodology will, over the course of a year, deliberate on the big economic questions of the time and make their own recommendations for future economic priorities – including the fundamental objectives on which economic policy is based. Economists have had a tough ride of late – justifiably some might argue – but this opens up the black box of economic thinking to the laity. We are intrigued to see the outcome.
This is but one experiment and others have been successfully run previously as tracked by Claudia Chwalisz in The Populist Signal. An unstated conviction at the heart of this experiment has to be that if representative democracy is to face continuing pressures then there has to be an alternative that is not akin to the referendum campaign we have just endured.
Democracy is hard; it requires work. Representative democracy was a hard won battle. The historian E.P.Thompson has described the two centuries-long making of the English working class. World War II contributed an accelerated politicisation. An exclusively class-centric politics doesn’t feel right for these more plural times. Class is important but just one component of political consciousness. However, we can’t just allow democracy to be a battle between an untrusted ‘elite’ and an impulsive political discourse. Democracy works best when it challenges all of us to think, discuss, and reflect. That’s where models such as the Citizens’ Economic Council come in.
There’s lots of unfinished business post-referendum: the presence in our midst of far-right violent extremism, how we can find the right relationship with the post-Eurozone/post-crash EU from which we intend to depart, and the future of political parties that are split in quite fundamental ways. But we desperately need to take time to understand the democratic mess that we have created. In reality, democratic forms co-exist. We might want to reflect on how we can bring people into the process of making better informed decisions about the national future. That means a bigger role for people in our democracy.
WATCH LIVE (29 June, 6pm BST): Can citizens be economists?
Find out more about the RSA Citizens' Economic Council
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I couldn't agree less with some of the writer's statements of purported facts. The piece is tainted by the very essence that the (albeit small) majority of British people railed against. The British people have spoken - some voted with their heads and some with their hearts, some voted in fear, others in hope (on both sides of the argument) - but voted they did. We have been carried along in a political ideology that we never signed up to and which does not suit us. The political class either failed to notice or refused to acknowledge that the people were unhappy with the direction of travel.
I agree that there is a lot of unfinished business post referendum. The most important is to reunite the country and set it on a course towards a strong and independent future. We, the RSA members, need to demonstrate leadership of thought rather than pontificate views which may cause further division.
I should say the piece was written well before the outcome was known (I simply put in a couple of lines acknowledging the outcome on Friday morning). It would have been the same blog had remain won (and,cards on the table, I thought it more likely that remain would win). So the issue was the process - epitomised by behaviours on *both* sides - rather than the outcome. I make no judgement on the choices that people made- entirely their business.
Thank you for the clarification.
Adam, well said. Important for the RSA to look up and outwards and to, as you say, demonstrate leadership and freedom of thought.
Hear hear - well said.
Amen Adam.
It was fascinating to see Anthony Painters article and how the debate which keeps being developed around the idea of an untrusted elite and as he calls it an impulsive political discourse. Having argued passionately for a return of more educattion and information around the constitution and politics across both formal and informal education it would be easy to put many results in all types of election down to a level of education.
However what we are having again is an academic debate which ignores the reality that ordinary people or 'the man on the Clapham Omnibus' as it used to be said is capable, is intelligent and is likely to come to his (or her) own conclusion. What is noticable is that after saying we must all work together and accept the result of the referendum that the old arrogant politics and a refusal to accept that 'the people' are right and entitled to vote the way they wish raised its head.
As someone who has worked in the community work arena for many years, yes there are bound to be people with right and left views on the community, economics and immigration but the unwritten but clear implication that people do not know what they are doing, or are less educated or even worse need re-educating is the exact reason that people will enforce their free will.
The argument for all nations that independence is more important that financial greed seems to me a powerful motivator too which is understood by the man on the street who recognises that wealth is unevenly distributed and that the interests of highly paid university staff never mind bankers and the rest are not the interests of the peacefull citizen who gets up eats breakfast has a basic day comes home and looks after his family.
The Independence argument is applicable for all the nations of the UK and all nations around the globe and even the individual states in say the USA and of course places like Tibet. The size is unimportant but the culture and independence is if we are to free all people of the worst tyranny of all - the tyranny that the inteligentsia knows best.
Sincerely
Charles Shaw
Your discourse does not address the central issue, viz.universally transparent decisions, ergo real, public accountability. With a de facto methodology which applies toany decision, accommodates any number of people whatever their views,and still always identifies the best choice, we can take Democracy to the nextlevel, and rise above the ‘mess’. At least,we can realise government of the people, by the people, for the people basedon informed decisions.
An innovative methodology (Informed Choice – ic!) enables deciders(whether alone or jointly with others) to ensure they always make the bestchoice (sic), as well as let those affected by, or involved in such decisions understand(not necessarily agree), participate and test them (citizen engagement leadingto unity and commitment). And, by using acommon ‘language’, disparate views are easily expressed and clearlycommunicated.
Moreover, it is freely available on a website devoid ofvested interests and privacy issues - beyond reproach. Of UK origin, thiscould set a fine example to Europe as a (w)hole!
Anthony, you make some good points.
One area that I think needs further exploration however is why the people felt the need to have their say and why David Cameron knew that only a referendum would quiet the discontent.
The reality is that people no longer trust politicians or the political process. I know that I don't. I no longer trust their judgement and I no longer trust their motives. The system doesn't allow for me to elect in someone better when those involved are governing by proxy from Brussels.
If we don't trust the elite as you say then the next best thing is for the people to be able to speak. You assume that the Brexit decision was made without proper pause for thought. I disagree. We have all had many months in the run up to this election to consider our position. Maybe the Citizen's Economic Council will help inform but it's not here now.
In the case of UK politics every single decision taken by every single politician begins with the question "What does this do for the party, it's chances of re-election and my future?". I no longer believe in conviction politicians that put country before self. Many of our political parties are staffed by career politicians that have had little experience outside of Westminster and who see their career path from local politics through to the top job as PM as the objective.
I don't see the immigration issue perhaps in the same way as many. Post Brexit immigration policy hasn't been agreed as far as I can see. It could range from a wide open door to one firmly slammed shut and anywhere in-between. What Brexit does however is allow the UK to choose it's policy independently of Europe. I think that this is vital. The EU are blind to the consequences of their approach to immigration. Whilst there may well be merit in Merkel's policy of opening Germany's door to thousands of refugees I fear that the result will be a far right backlash. In other words, the effect will be at the opposite and extreme end of the spectrum. I do not want this for the UK. We have already seen the rise of neo-nazi parties in Germany and Austria and a resurgence of right wing sentiments in France.
I have been surprised to find that many educated people I have spoken with since the referendum are unacceptably ignorant when it comes to economic matters and issues to do with the EU. As a result, I believe that some of them voted the wrong way for the wrong reasons. I mean that their intentions were understandable to me but I could not see how the way they voted was going to promote those intentions and I don't think they were able to explain either. I think we are all probably 'expert' in something, whatever our place in society. There should be a way, in our interconnected world, to share what we know and experience such that 'elected' officials can make reasonable decisions and laws on behalf of the country. I was unsupportive of 'decision by referenda' before the event and dismayed at the process after. I hope there is room for a discussion on the democratic process while we are engaged in so many other issues that no doubt will arise from the result of being forced to be 'in' or 'out' of something few of us fully understood.