There are fewer Slugger posts which have proven their worth over time as well as Paul Evans’ 2010 piece on Referendums. It currently stands at 8,610 views on a counter we only installed in 2013.
Now it’s inspired The Independent’s John Rentoul into writing a two part post on Referendums and whether they are in fact compatible with the UK’s unwritten constitution…
He writes…
If we had refused to have referendums, the outcomes would probably have been the same. The promise of a referendum on the voting system had originally been made by John Smith, Blair’s predecessor. Instead of a referendum, Smith might have promised a review and to put its recommendation in the following manifesto, which Blair would probably have decided against.
The euro referendum was originally promised by John Major: he would probably have promised that any recommendation to join the euro would have to be put to the people at a general election. And Blair would almost certainly have shied away from a manifesto commitment to join the euro at his second election.
As for the the EU Constitution, the French referendum might not have been held, but the Dutch would probably have gone ahead with theirs, and the Czechs and the Danes were going to have referendums too, which were both likely to have been lost.
Even with the EU’s history of trying to persuade smaller countries to repeat referendums until they produced the right answer, the Constitution would almost certainly have failed anyway.
I wonder how he deals with the Brexit issue. More tomorrow, I hope…
Mick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty
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