Katie Ghose | The Constitution Unit Blog

Britain voted to ‘take back control’ from the EU, and Theresa May’s Lancaster House speech made the repatriation of power to Westminster a priority. But it is far from clear what kind of Brexit Britons want, nor how many of these powers will go to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland rather than the UK Parliament. Katie Ghose argues that with direct democracy on the rise, citizens’ assemblies would help people grasp the trade-offs at stake and have a voice in these monumental decisions.

Theresa May has now fleshed out her plans for Britain to leave the EU and become an independent, self-governing nation. With more detail emerging about the economic plan, it’s time to look at the democratic implications.

Serious thinking about democracy can all too often get left behind and the public shut out of these debates, as we’ve seen with English devolution. How our democracy actually takes shape after Brexit goes beyond the two-year negotiating window, and it has to mean the public will have a strong say. After all, given the focus on ‘where power lies’ during the campaign (summed up the powerful slogan ‘take back control’), it would be ironic if this wasn’t a priority.

Theresa May says the vote was about restoring parliamentary democracy by bringing back sovereignty to the UK Parliament. This is uncontroversial – after all, many people identified the issue of laws ‘being made in Brussels’ as part of a more general unease. But it is only part of the picture. The transfer will take place at the same time as the ongoing transfer of powers from Westminster to Scotland, Wales and NI, as well as devolution within England. In other words, it will happen just as power is shifting between and within the nations of the UK – with obvious ramifications for our Union.

People feel a physical remoteness from Westminster, Holyrood and the Senedd, but that distance is knitted into a growing anti-establishment sentiment. So now is an opportunity to capitalise on the positive political interest stimulated by the vote, and convert it into a sustainable mode of political engagement – with genuinely powerful citizens.

So the first question is this: what is the public role in shaping the form of Brexit?

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In October and November 2015, Democracy Matters conducted an experiment in deliberative democracy by convening two pilot citizens’ assemblies in Sheffield and Southampton. On 10 February, Dr Alan Renwick, Deputy Director of the Constitution Unit, and Katie Ghose, Chief Executive of the Electoral Reform Society, presented preliminary research findings from the project at the Constitution Unit. Adem Ruggiero-Cakir and Johnny Runge report.

The idea of holding a constitutional convention in the UK has gained prominence since the Scottish independence referendum in September 2014, and the dominant proposal for the design of such a convention has been some kind of ‘citizens’ assembly’. Citizens’ assemblies have been used in other countries, but the UK had not experienced one. That has changed with the convening of two pilot citizens’ assemblies in a project conducted by Democracy Matters and funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. Two models of citizens’ assemblies were tested: Assembly North, based in Sheffield, was a ‘pure’ citizen assembly (drawing on the Canadian model) comprising 32 members of the public; Assembly South, based in Southampton, was a ‘mixed’ assembly (drawing on the Irish model) comprising 23 ordinary citizens and six local councillors. Both assemblies met over two weekends to explore questions concerning devolution of powers to their local areas. The project had two main aims: 1/ to assess whether citizens’ assemblies can strengthen democracy in the UK, and build knowledge on how best to structure and organise such assemblies, and 2/ to investigate what members of the public think about devolution when given the opportunity to learn about and debate the issues in depth.

Dr Alan Renwick, Deputy Director of the Constitution Unit, and Katie Ghose, Chief Executive of the Electoral Reform Society, both members of the Democracy Matters team, presented their preliminary findings on 10 February. In assessing assemblies’ impact on democracy the speakers evaluated four areas: the representativeness of assembly members, the quality of discussions among assembly members, the impact of the experience of taking part on assembly members, and the impact on the wider political process. There was then a briefer discussion about what the assemblies revealed about public opinion on devolution.

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