What exactly is the “will of the people” over Brexit?

WHAT exactly is the “will of the people” over Brexit?

Seeking an answer, the Bishop of Leeds – a regular broadcaster who also sits in the House of Lords – analysed what he called the “paralysing mess of the last three years” when he delivered the latest edition of a prestigious lecture series at the University of Huddersfield.

Among his conclusions was that UK democracy needed to be reshaped, with a written constitution, proportional representation and even a redesign of the Commons chamber to reflect a new politics in which the two-party system was a thing of the past.

Speaking to a packed lecture theatre at the University, the Rt Revd Nick Baines was highly critical of Brexit and its likely impact.  “For the first time in our history, we have a Government whose approved policy is to make the country poorer,” he said during the question-and-answer session that followed his talk.

The Bishop was giving the annual Harold Wilson Lecture, which commemorates the Huddersfield-born Labour politician who was Prime Minister during most of the 1960s and early 1970s.

“Delivering” Brexit

“Theresa May is not the only politician to refer to the 2016 referendum result as the ‘will of the people’ and that it is the responsibility of the Government to ‘deliver’ it,” said Bishop Baines.

“But doesn’t she really mean the will of the majority of those who voted in the referendum? Does ‘the people’ not include the 48 per cent who voted for a different outcome?” he continued.

“The delivery of the referendum result in an almost equally divided country must inevitably involve and include the people who lost.  Yet the referendum was taken as a zero sum result.  A divided will and a divided people demands compromise and consultation.”

The Bishop discussed the history and theory of democracy and the UK’s current “quagmire experience” over Brexit.

“But only 37 per cent of the entire electorate voted to leave, and 35 per cent voted to remain.  Technically, the referendum result might say something about the will of less than half the UK’s total population on a single issue,” said Bishop Baines.

“The people answered the question put to them.  The UK voted to leave the EU.  Other consequent and contingent questions were not put.

“For example, what do you want to leave the EU for?  You can’t just leave something and enter a vacuum,” said the Bishop, who argued that “the reasons given and the grievances expressed for leaving the EU often had nothing to do with the EU and everything to do with Westminster, with the inevitable effect that the surgery of Brexit will simply not deal with the disease itself”.

The Bishop discussed the distinctions between national sovereignty and Parliamentary sovereignty and cited a range of political thinkers, past and present.

He said that those elected to Parliament were obliged constitutionally not only to listen to all voices, remainers as well as leavers, but also to take responsibility for such “inconvenient questions” as what happens next.

“Swaggering rhetoric that makes contradictory promises or despises people who know what they are talking about – experts – takes no responsibility for actually making something happen,” continued Bishop Baines.

But it was clear that the genie is now out of the bottle, he concluded.

“The UK now has the unique – if not welcomed by all – opportunity to leave behind the myths of empire and an obsession with simplistic readings of World War II rooted in an assumption of British exceptionalism, in order to shape a new future in Europe regardless of how Brexit and the EU develop from here.”

There was also an opportunity to recover popular trust in politics by examining new ways of reforming political institutions and processes.

“This would mean moving to a codified constitution subject to legal protection – as most countries in Europe have – a more representative electoral system, some form of proportional representation, the establishment of rules for referendums, the proper and honest consideration of the consequences of devolution, and the physical redesign of the Palace of Westminster to reflect a changed political world in which a two-party system will probably not persist.”

Bishop Baines was introduced by the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Huddersfield, Professor Bob Cryan, who welcomed the late Harold Wilson’s son, Professor Robin Wilson, accompanied by his wife Joy.  The lecture series is co-organised by the University in tandem with the Huddersfield Episcopal Area and its Bishop, Dr Jonathan Gibbs, thanked the lecturer and conducted the Q&A session that concluded the lecture.