Tag Archives: referendum conduct

The Mechanics of a Further Referendum on Brexit Revisited: Questions for the New Parliament

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A further referendum on Brexit is central to many parties’ general election pledges. Today, the Constitution Unit launches a new report examining how such a vote might come about and what form it might take. This updates previous work conducted last year. In this post, adapted from the report’s final chapter, Alan Renwick, Meg Russell, Lisa James and Jess Sargeant sum up the key conclusions. They find that, though it would not be without difficulties, a vote on Johnson’s deal may be the quickest option and the one most likely to command public legitimacy. 

The Constitution Unit’s latest report, The Mechanics of a Further Referendum on Brexit Revisited: Questions for the New Parliament, is published today. It significantly updates our previous analysis of the mechanics of a further Brexit referendum, exploring the circumstances that might lead to a further referendum on Brexit, and the form that such a referendum might take. The report does not advocate for or against a referendum, or assess the broader impact that such a vote might have. Rather, it explores the practical implications of the different options: in terms of the processes to bring a referendum about, the standards that it should meet, the options for reforming regulation, and, crucially, the timetable.

The minimum timetable from the point at which parliament decides in principle to hold a referendum to the date on which that referendum is held is roughly 22 weeks – or five months. Claims that organising a referendum would take a year or more are therefore overstated. However, very clearly, a decision to proceed with a referendum would require a further extension to the Article 50 period, which currently expires on 31 January 2020. And there are various factors that could put pressure on the minimum timetable, requiring a somewhat longer period of planning and preparation. This post (adapted from the report’s final chapter) considers how the pieces fit together, and what the overall timetable would likely be. The most obvious implication of this is for the length of Article 50 extension which a future government should request if seeking to hold a referendum.

The report considers the factors which could impinge on the timetable in detail, but in brief they include the following:

  • Is the referendum to be held on a pre-existing Brexit deal, or is time required (as Labour’s policy implies) for further renegotiation before proceeding to a referendum?
  • How contentious would the referendum bill be in parliament? This depends partly on the constellation of parties and groups in the House of Commons after the general election, and also on the content of the bill.
  • What form would the referendum question take? This may be one of the points of contention in parliament. We conclude that a three-option referendum is unlikely. Moving to such a format would slow down the process.
  • To what extent would campaign regulation be tightened up and updated via the referendum bill? Some updating is essential, and could be incorporated within the 22-week timetable. Other more major changes might be desirable, but in the interests of speed would likely be set aside.
  • Would the referendum result be made legally binding? This is not essential, but would be beneficial to provide clarity and certainty for voters. Preparing for a fully legally binding referendum would be likely to take slightly more time.

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Five key questions about a further Brexit referendum

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alan.jfif (1)meg_russell_2000x2500.jpglisa.james.resized.staff.webpage.jpg (1)Proposals for another Brexit referendum will be at the heart of the election campaign and it is therefore important that the viability of politicians’ plans are thoroughly tested. Drawing on recent research, Alan Renwick, Meg Russell and Lisa James here set out five key questions. They suggest that Labour’s plans for a referendum within six months are challenging, though not necessarily impossible. A poll which pitted Boris Johnson’s deal against Remain would be simpler and quicker, avoiding additional negotiation time. This would also have the advantage of enhancing the referendum’s legitimacy among Brexit supporters. 

The parties are finalising their election manifestos, and several will propose a further referendum on Brexit. These policies will come under close scrutiny during the campaign. This post draws on and updates a detailed report published by the Constitution Unit last year. It sets out the possible routes to a further Brexit referendum, the key choices that would need to be made, and the possible consequences of those choices. It finds that a referendum between Boris Johnson’s deal and remaining in the EU would be both the simplest, and the quickest, option.

How would a referendum come about?

The major unknown – and unknowable – factor at this stage is the outcome of the general election. It is impossible to predict post-election parliamentary arithmetic with any confidence, but it will have a material effect on the probability and form of a referendum.

There are three main possibilities. The first is a Conservative majority, under which a referendum is very unlikely to take place. The second is a Conservative minority government, which might accept a confirmatory referendum as the price of passing its Withdrawal Agreement. The third is a Labour-led government: either a majority government, or a minority government supported by smaller pro-referendum parties. Under this scenario, the Labour leadership proposes to negotiate a new deal with the European Union, and to offer a referendum between their deal and Remain. Continue reading →

A second Brexit referendum looks increasingly likely: what key questions need to be addressed?

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Widespread negative reactions to Theresa May’s Brexit deal have focused increasing attention on a possible further EU referendum. With MPs appearing poised to vote down the Withdrawal Agreement, a referendum could provide a way out of the apparent deadlock. But how would it work in practice? Ahead of the parliamentary debate, Meg Russell and Alan Renwick summarise the conclusions of their recent report on this topic.

When the Constitution Unit published The Mechanics of a Further Referendum on Brexit in October, it was still unclear if the government would successfully reach a deal with the EU, what that deal would contain, or how parliament and the public would react. Now that those facts are known, increasing numbers of MPs are demanding that the Brexit issue be returned to the public in a fresh referendum. But many unanswered questions about the practicalities remain. Here, we offer short responses to the most pressing of those questions, drawn from our report, to inform the parliamentary and growing public debate.

1. Is a referendum possible in the time available?

To hold a referendum, the UK parliament must first pass legislation. Before the bill leaves parliament, the Electoral Commission must assess the ‘intelligibility’ of the wording of the proposed referendum question – which usually takes ten weeks. This limits the ability to pass a bill very rapidly. Once the bill has received royal assent, sufficient time must be set aside to allow the Electoral Commission to designate lead campaigners, and for the campaign to take place.

In total, we estimate that the whole process – from introducing legislation to polling day – could be compressed to around 22 weeks. This is significantly less time than for previous referendums: for example the equivalent gap for the 2016 EU referendum was 13 months. But similar levels of urgency did not apply in these earlier cases.

The timetable could potentially be compressed even further, but doing so would risk delegitimising the result of the referendum – it is important given the sensitivity of the topic that the legislation is seen to be fully scrutinised, the question fair, and the campaigns adequately regulated. Continue reading →

The role of referendums in the UK: the question of balance

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blog-photoOn 22 November the Constitution Unit and the Committee on Standards in Public Life hosted a joint seminar on ‘The Role of Referendums in the UK’. Bringing together eminent speakers from across academia, the media, government, and elsewhere, the seminar examined possible problems with the conduct of referendums in the UK, focusing particularly on two issues: how to ensure high-quality information; and how to maintain balance during the campaign. In this, the second of two posts on the event, Alex Quirk outlines the discussions on the second of these areas.

The discussion of balance during the seminar can be broadly divided into two areas: how to improve balance in the media, both traditional and online; and how to address imbalances created by the legislative framework for holding referendums.

Media balance

Bob Posner of the Electoral Commission began the day by reporting on polling conducted after the referendum, which showed that over half (52 per cent) of respondents thought that the conduct of the campaign was not ‘fair and balanced’. Various perspectives emerged over the course of the day on how well the media did in ensuring that they reported the campaign in a ‘balanced’ way. Although the print and online media have no duty to report the arguments with any sort of balance, all broadcasters have a statutory duty to act with ‘due impartiality’. The BBC, in common with other broadcasters, considers the appropriate interpretation of ‘due impartiality’ for each referendum and election campaign, and produces guidelines for programme-makers. Sue Inglish, former head of political programmes at the BBC, and Ric Bailey, the BBC’s chief political adviser, argued that the BBC interpreted ‘due impartiality’ in the context of the referendum correctly. In their view, the BBC did not create a false balance between experts on each side, but simply reported the arguments of the campaigners in a balanced way. Inglish stressed that broadcasters such as the BBC and Sky did not simply report misleading statements without question, but did their best to point out that they may be misleading.

This perspective was challenged by Professor Steven Barnett of the University of Westminster, who argued that broadcasters like the BBC had failed ‘catastrophically’ during the EU referendum campaign. He contended that they followed too slavishly the press agenda, which was especially problematic given the amount of misleading information in national newspapers. He also argued that the BBC’s interpretation of ‘due impartiality’ was incorrect, as it involved balancing the coverage given to arguments from both sides too mathematically, rather than interpreting the arguments in a more interrogative fashion. Further criticism of the ‘due impartiality’ interpretation came from Dr Oliver Daddow of the University of Nottingham. He argued that, despite notional ‘balance’ in the BBC’s coverage, there remained in-built structural biases in the media as a whole, which are more difficult to counteract. Symptoms of these biases included the preponderance in coverage of Conservative party figures and a lack of time dedicated to challenging statistics used by campaigners. However, Sue Inglish and Ric Bailey disagreed with these criticisms, suggesting that broadcasters also influenced the agendas of newspapers, and that they took great care not to produce artificial balance.

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The role of referendums in the UK: the question of information

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blog-photoOn 22 November the Constitution Unit and the Committee on Standards in Public Life hosted a joint seminar on ‘The Role of Referendums in the UK’. Bringing together eminent speakers from across academia, the media, government, and elsewhere, the seminar examined possible problems with the conduct of referendums in the UK, focusing particularly on two issues: how to ensure high-quality information; and how to maintain balance during the campaign. In this, the first of two posts on the event, Alex Quirk outlines the discussions on the first of these areas.

It is widely accepted that both the Remain and the Leave camps were guilty during the EU referendum campaign of seeking to manipulate voters’ opinions through the use of misleading statistics – such as the Leave campaign’s assertion that ‘we send the EU £350 million a week’ and the Remain side’s claim that ‘families would be £4,300 worse off’ if Britain left the EU. None of the participants in the seminar questioned this viewpoint. There was lively and illuminating discussion, however, around what – if anything – should be done about it.

Controlling the truthfulness of campaign claims

The most direct method for seeking to control misleading claims would be to establish a process for identifying and challenging them. Since the referendum, a petition and an early day parliamentary motion have called for the creation of an official body that would ‘verify the truthfulness of claims made during political campaigns’ and ‘issue fines and factual clarifications’ where there were breaches. Dr Alan Renwick of the Constitution Unit pointed out that systems of this kind exist (though with limited reach) in South Australia and some American states. Among seminar participants, Professor Sarah Birch (King’s College London) gave the strongest support for this approach, proposing an electoral offence for referendums, analogous to the defamation and libel laws that apply during elections. Under the Representation of the People Act 1983 it is a criminal offence to make a false statement about the character of an election candidate, and to make a false statement that a candidate has withdrawn from an election. If these offences were to be adapted so as to apply to referendums, they could deal with at least a proportion of misleading campaign statements. Professor Meg Russell of the Constitution Unit argued that the debate on the regulation of statements during political campaigns should be seen as akin to any other debate on free markets versus regulated markets. In a goods market, we don’t trust either the consumers or the producers to regulate themselves. Why, therefore, do we trust politicians to regulate their own statements during political campaigns, when the stakes are exponentially higher?

Many participants, however, were skeptical. Professor Stuart White (University of Oxford) voiced concerns about the ‘chilling effect’ such an offence could have in discouraging political speech. This sentiment was echoed by Bernard Jenkin MP, a prominent Leave campaigner, who argued that those calling for regulation of truthfulness underestimate the ‘wisdom of the crowd’. Sir Peter Housden (formerly Scotland’s most senior civil servant) and Dr Michael Pinto-Duschinsky also expressed the view that such interventions would be undemocratic.

There was, however, interest in less stringent versions of the same approach. Will Moy (Director of Full Fact) highlighted the importance of independent fact-checking. Another option discussed was an official fact-checking body with advisory power, which could initiate investigations into the truthfulness of claims and quickly issue statements calling on campaigners not to make them. As highlighted by, respectively, CSPL Chair Lord Bew and Alan Renwick, Ireland’s referendum commissions and the New Zealand Electoral Commission already perform this function, and the evidence is that their work has produced positive results. Ed Humpherson of the UK Statistics Authority (UKSA) discussed this body’s role during the referendum campaign. He pointed to its important work in highlighting misleading statistical claims, but also said that the organisation will be keen to learn lessons and develop its practice further for future cases. In particular, he mentioned the need to react to concerns more quickly. Speed, he emphasised, is especially important during a referendum campaign, because the vote provides a final cut-off, and the campaign groups do not have future reputations to defend in the same way as political parties do during elections.

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