Quote:
The Downing Street e-petition website continued to make headlines this week as Tony Blair wrote to the 1.8 million signatories opposed to the Government's road pricing plans. The Prime Minister committed a future Government to take the public's views into account before deciding on legislation, concluding: "The public will, of course, have their say, as will Parliament."
The trouble with this approach is that while consultation sounds a good thing, the reality is that it simply keeps the ultimate decision in the hands of the politicians. The only way to ensure ordinary people are properly heard is to hold a referendum on this and other issues of major public interest. As I wrote last week - a petition of 1.8m signatures should not force a Government to abandon a policy. But it should make ministers realise that they are dealing with an issue that people want a direct say on. If the Government had been bolder, it could have defused the frustration people feel over this issue by announcing that it would hold a referendum to allow everyone to have their say and at the same time test how direct democracy would work in practice.
Encouragingly, not everyone is as slow on the uptake on this as the politicians and the idea of Citizens' Initiatives has been widely debated over the last week. I was asked to write an article for the Guardian Comment is Free website about how the Government should respond to the petition, while the Sunday Telegraph leader argued that there was a case for allowing petitions to trigger referendums. Last week's Bagehot column in the Economist also discussed Citizens' Initiatives, noting that David Cameron is "said to be interested and the chancellor, Gordon Brown, who wants to show he is not the top-down micro-manager depicted by his enemies, could be too". Professor Matt Qvortrup, an expert on referendums, appeared on BBC Radio 4's Today programme last Saturday and BBC Radio 2's Jeremy Vine show on Wednesday to debate the issue. Click here then select the item at 8.45am to listen to the Today programme interview or here then select Jeremy Vine, Wednesday, for the Radio 2 item (it aired just after 1pm, one hour into the show, and it is possible to skip to that point).
Referendums are also on the agenda in Darlington and Birmingham where people are demanding their say on whether elected mayors should be introduced. This is currently the only issue on which British people have the right of a Citizens' Initiative - if five per cent of voters in a council area sign a petition in favour, a referendum on the subject must be held. A referendum can also be triggered by the council without a petition. The Darlington Referendum Group last week confirmed it had collected the 4,000 signatures needed and submitted these to the council for verification. In Birmingham, a campaign for a referendum has been launched after a public meeting at which 60% of people were against the idea of having an elected mayor but 70% wanted a referendum. Since 2000, when the system was introduced, 34 areas have held referendums, with 12 triggered by petition.
Best wishes - Saira Khan
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Much as I agree and support Our Says ideas, I can't help but feel they are deluding themselves.
It was hard enough getting referendums out of Westminster, before it was refurbished into an EU rubber stamp shop. One of the major reasons Switzerland tell the EU to **** off (I should say the Swiss people, not the politicians who are almost as bad as ours), is they know referendums just don't fit the EU cetralised control approach.
I think it would be worth Nigel Farage calling Saira and having a chat. A) to explain that UKIP support the idea of direct democracy and B) Explain why it can't and won't happen under and EU controlled LibLabCon-sensus.
23-02-2007, 11:49 AM
Our Say deluded
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