Democracy is a process, not a single vote
Comments on socialistresistance.org2010sA comment by Alan in the thread under “A million on the streets of London” on socialistresistance.org.
The publication's own web text.
Editor's note. Under Andy Stowe's report of the march in London for a second Brexit referendum on 23 March 2019, Dave Whitney wrote that a second referendum would strengthen the far right whichever way it went, that the 2016 result was democratic and had to be accepted, and that signing the petition to revoke Article 50 was “profoundly anti-democratic”.
Dave Whitney argues that is ‘profoundly anti-democratic’ to sign the petition calling for the revocation of Article 50 – a reference to the current petition currently approaching 6m signatures. Those signing, he says, are calling for the government to ignore the result of a referendum, which also Theresa May’s principle mantra. The same arguments would apply to a second referendum.
The problem with this is that it reduces the democratic process to a snapshot on a particular day and under particular conditions, and after that you are stuck with it whatever happens and however much the circumstances change. Surely the right of people to change their minds is as much a democratic right as taking the decision in the first place. Democracy has to be a process and not a single event, not a single vote and then ‘hard luck, too late, you took the decision three years ago and you will have to live with it’.
It is true that the 2016 referendum campaign, and the outcome of the vote, stirred up xenophobia and racism – massively in fact. It is also true that the xenophobic right would be furious if the decision of 2016 was overturned. But there is no way out of this situation without a very nasty confrontation with the xenophobic right other than to stand aside and let them complete their deeply reactionary project. Nor should we be intimidated by their threats.
There is another reason as well. The 2016 referendum result has lost all credibility. There is now a huge credibility gap between what people were told in 2016 and what has now become extremely clear in the course of debate. The British border in Ireland was not an issue in 2016 yet it soon became clear that Britain cannot withdraw from the EC and become a part of a different regulatory regime unless Ireland had been reunited in advance. Bravado statements about this does not resolve the problem.
At the same time two million young people (who have by far the biggest stake in all this) have come onto the electoral register since 2016 – enough some argue to change the result in and of itself. There is a huge demographic scandal taking place. Old people (those over 47 to put a figure on it) are deciding the future of young people whilst blocking them from having a say.
The importance of a second referendum (whichever way it might go actually, although the indications are that it would go for staying in) is that whatever direction it sets starts with a public endorsement – either a re-affirmation or a change. Without such a vote the debate will go on for years as to what people really wanted when the decision was taken.