Tag Archives: referendums

Elections and public participation in the 2024 party manifestos

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The main party manifestos have now been published, allowing exploration and comparison of their constitutional proposals. In this third post in a series on the manifestos, Alan Renwick looks at the parties’ policies towards elections and public participation. What are they promising, and what should we make of their proposals?

The rules of elections are far from settled. As a recent post on this blog set out, they have changed in numerous ways – both formal and informal – since the last general election in 2019. In their 2024 general election manifestos, all parties pledge at least some further reforms. Some also advocate additional forms of public participation in policy-making, such as referendums or citizens’ assemblies. But the policies on offer differ widely. This post outlines and assesses the proposals.

Votes at 16

Just one pledge in this area has hit the mainstream headlines in the course of the campaign so far, and that is Labour’s plan to introduce votes at 16. Keir Starmer highlighted this policy within a few days of the election announcement, and it is reiterated in Labour’s manifesto. It is matched by the Liberal Democrats, the Green Party, Plaid Cymru, and the SNP. By contrast, the Conservative manifesto says ‘We will not change the voting age from 18’. Indeed, the party has sought to weaponise the issue, claiming that Starmer’s policy is an attempt to ‘entrench his power’ for many years.

That Conservative riposte deserves to be greeted with decidedly raised eyebrows, coming as it does from the party that changed the voting system for mayors and police and crime commissioners in a way that benefited itself while damaging key democratic principles.

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What do people in Northern Ireland think of unification referendums?

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A new article published in Irish Political Studies this week presents the findings of a consultation on public attitudes towards referendums on Irish unification. In this post, the article’s authors, Alan Renwick, Nadia Dobrianska, Conor J. Kelly, and Charlotte Kincaid, summarise the findings and explore their implications for when the processes around such referendums would best be designed.

Through the Working Group on Unification Referendums on the Island of Ireland, the Constitution Unit has recently examined how any possible future referendums on Irish unification might best be designed and conducted. The Unit is neither for nor against holding such referendums; nor does it have a view on the constitutional question itself. But such votes might happen in the future (they are legally required in certain circumstances) and, if they happen, it will be better if their design has been thought through in advance. That was the task taken on by the Working Group. One part of the research undertaken for the group was a consultation exploring public views on such referendums. The full results of the consultation have now been published in Irish Political Studies.

The design of the consultation

Opinion polls in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland often ask how respondents would vote in a referendum on the unification question. Some also enquire about whether people support holding a referendum. Qualitative research has yielded insights too. But less work has dug into people’s thoughts on how any such vote should be conducted. Yet public views on these issues matter. Choices about the design of a referendum need to be viewed as legitimate. They are less likely to achieve that if they cut across existing expectations. Hence the Working Group’s desire to find out what people thought.

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‘The festering issue’ – the legality of a second independence referendum

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With the Scottish government gearing up for a second independence referendum, questions have been raised about whether or not the Scottish Parliament can legislate for such a poll in a way that the courts will find lawful. In this post, David Torrance discusses the wording of the relevant legislation and the impact of subsequent caselaw, concluding that the prevailing legal understanding is that even a consultative referendum would be outside the scope of the parliament’s powers.

During the House of Lords’ consideration of what would become the Scotland Act 1998, Lord (Donald) Mackay of Drumadoon (a former Lord Advocate and subsequently a Scottish judge) told peers it would be ‘perfectly possible to construct a respectable legal argument’ that it was within the legislative competence of the soon-to-be-created Scottish Parliament to pass a bill authorising an independence referendum.

Lord Mackay added that he remained ‘convinced that the law on this matter should be clarified. If it is not then the festering issue as to whether the Scottish parliament is competent to hold such a referendum will rumble on.’ That was arguably a dictionary definition of prescience.

The debate, if not ‘festering’ does indeed ‘rumble on’ nearly a quarter of a century later, yet much of the commentary seems curiously circular, turning over arguments which might have been relevant in 1998 or 2012 but are less so in 2022. Chief among these is the idea that an ‘advisory’ or ‘consultative’ referendum might pass muster if the dispute were to reach the Supreme Court.

But first let us return to the Lords in 1998. Speaking for the government, Lords Sewel and Hardie (respectively a Scottish Office minister and the then Lord Advocate) were clear that an independence referendum bill would ‘relate to’ the reserved matter of the Union between Scotland and England and would therefore be ultra vires and outside the competence of the Scottish Parliament. As Lord (David) Hope of Craighead later observed, ‘the Scotland Act provides its own dictionary’.

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