6th September 2021
Long ago, before 2016, ‘mandates’ were not taken that serious in the politics of the United Kingdom.
To the extent that a mandate from a general election made any constitutional difference, it meant that in practice (and by convention) the house of lords would not block anything that had been in a manifesto of the majority house of commons party.
There certainly was not any firm obligation on the government to bring each manifesto commitment to the floor of the house of commons, let alone pass any legislation.
And from time to time – for example, with the poll tax (‘community charge’) endorsed in the 1987 general election – a government will reverse a policy contained in a manifesto within the same parliament.
Because, long ago, mandates were seen as weak things in our representative, parliamentary democracy
And then.
And then came the 2016 referendum on membership of the European Union, which had a small though clear majority in favour.
This result – in a non-binding referendum – became ‘the will of the people’.
The result was a mandate that no person or institution would be allowed to gainsay.
If senior judges said that there needed an act of parliament for the Brexit notification to be made, they were howled at as ‘enemies of the people’.
Members of parliament opposed to the departure were similarly denounced.
An electoral mandate was no longer a weak thing.
The mandate was the strongest thing in politics.
A force so strong that nothing could stand in its way.
And then.
The United Kingdom departed from the European Union.
Now, the same government that insisted that ‘the will of the people’ was absolute is now seeking to renege on its manifesto commitments.
The international aid budget has been cut, and it looks like the ‘triple lock’ commitment and tax commitment are both going, perhaps this week.
The government no longer cares that much about mandates.
The government no longer cares about the will of the people as expressed through a ballot box.
Mandates are weak things again.
It has been a strange few years, politically.
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Is there not a distinction to be drawn between “mandates associated with a GE manifesto” (Salisbury convention etc) and “mandates associated with a UK-wide referendum”. Notable examples of the latter would be those on voting reform (notably 2011) and those related to EEC/EU membership (1975, 2016, and Blair’s putative referendums on the EU treaty and the Euro).
In the latter case, the rationale appears to be be that the government felt it might not be able to get (or prevent) legislation passed in the HoC unless MPs felt constrained by the “mandate” of a prior referendum.
‘Is there not a distinction to be drawn between “mandates associated with a GE manifesto” (Salisbury convention etc) and “mandates associated with a UK-wide referendum”.’
Plainly, there is.
I beg to differ.
A mandate delivered by a UK wide referendum allows the ERG to do exactly what they want to do, while a mandate associated with a general election allows the ERG to do exactly what they want to do: there is no distinction nor any difference.
The ERG did not have any kind of mandate. They exploited the situation in Parliament for their own ends. The only thing that allowed them to have that kind of influence was the minority government combined with May’s unwillingness to seek cross party support.
I think the point is that there are many MPs who voted in favour of triggering article 50 subsequent to a referendum “mandate” who would have voted against triggering article 50 subsequent to a mere GE “mandate”.
In the immortal words of Gil Scott Heron: ‘Mandate, my ass.’
Crazy as this may sound, I think that the words “mandate” and “mandatory” are not simply different grammatical forms of the same word (ie, respectively, noun and adjective); I think that the adjective is in fact a stronger term than the noun. So an electoral “mandate” entitles the winning party after a general election to institute a particular policy from its manifesto, but is it actually “mandatory” that the new government does this? Who is to demand this? A mandate is essentially a justification or support for the government doing something it wants to do anyway; whether it actually does it, in the circumstances in which it finds itself (eg circumstances which it can claim have “blown it off course”) is another matter.
“The government no longer cares that much about mandates…”
Did it ever?.
Mandates come and go – it’s a word of the ‘moment’ often conjured up by legacy media (editors) who create a theme which are then conveniently used by politico’s until the theme gets ‘tired’ or falls by the wayside.
Other words that are similar – themes that have their ’15 minute’s of fame’ include subsidiarity ( remember ,it was all the rage after Maastricht ☺️) oh and for a while, everything had to be ‘sustainable’ even the rain. Latterly ‘resilience’ seems to be making a play for the column inches.
Thing is , words come into and out of fashion….maybe we need a mandate setting out their periodicity?
The poll tax is an interesting one. The blowback from fulfilling that particular manifesto commitment accelerated the end of Thatcher’s premiership.
Major stood for leader on a platform of (inter alia) replacing it, and to some surprise retained a slim majority at the 1992 general election, arguably ratifying the change of policy.
It was such a disaster that the local element for funding local government has become ossified as a result: 30 years later, we are still using 1991 valuations to determine rates of council tax.
Only a fool would stick doggedly to a policy for five years when circumstances have changed, it has not worked as expected, and it has become unpopular with the fickle electorate. (When was the Brexit referendum again?)
Back to the contention that Britain’s unwritten constitution – including the strength or weakness of any manifesto commitment or electoral mandate – is simply whatever one can with in the governance of Britain.
They also have ‘mandates’ both to reform social care and not to increase income tax, NI contributions and VAT.
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”
springs to my mind but i have to admit as a german i may
misuderstand its meaning
Spot on and came to my mind too!
You know that thing where your boss acts like an idiot because he is and you have to carry the load and the company still survives. That’s the UK at the moment… for a while.
We’re certainly on a journey but without that ring l worry that we won’t get back again to responsible politics.
Whatever twist that journey takes we mustn’t accept ‘it’s just Boris’ become the default setting on our Politics. Misinformation, broken Manifesto pledges and those lies need to be called out until we are blue in the face and again some more to let the world know that we see them and this Johnson Government is not without opposition that takes many forms.
Up the Hobbits, down with lying Politicians.
The thing about the 2016 Referendum mandate is that it has been used to trump later mandates from GEs and prevent a suggested confirmatory referendum. The Lib-Dems were castigated for campaigning to stay in the EU in 2019 because “the will of the people” was to leave, even though polling showed this was probably no longer the current will of the people. The public was not allowed to change its mind. Any move towards a second referendum or using a GE mandate to reverse the referendum outcome was labelled undemocratic. It sickens me that the UK has undergone, and continues to undergo, the chaos of leaving the EU even though the majority in favour of that was tiny and quite possibly transient.
The idea that referendum results last for a generation is dangerously undemocratic. A snapshot of opinion in 2016 with a very narrow outcome becomes the defining directive for 20-30 years. Another issue affected by this is electoral reform. The 2011 referendum didn’t even have PR on the ballot (AV is arguably worse than FPTP) yet politicians opposed to PR contend the matter has been settled “for a generation”. The Lib-Dems were stitched up by the Tories, presumably believing changing to AV might be a stepping stone to PR, when in fact its unpopularity ensured FPTP won, pushing meaningful electoral reform further away than ever. The Government is using the “once in a generation” argument to try and prevent another Scottish Indyref, even though the circumstances have changed significanlty post Brexit.
Of course major constitutional change can’t switch back and forth with the frequency of GEs, but the subject of a referendum must be properly chosen to test the issue (as it wasn’t in 2011) and the issues properly and honestly debated (as they weren’t in 2016).
“…. A snapshot of opinion in 2016 with a very narrow outcome becomes the defining directive for 20-30 years….”
Me thinks you might have misunderstood the importance and/or longevity of the outcome of the 2016 referendum.
The 2016 Referendum still remains the largest plebiscite ever recorded in the UK – given a majority of 50%+1 was agreed by Parliament in the (then) Referendum bill , seems a bit churlish to worry about the narrowness ( 1.4m votes).
I’m intrigued too as to your quoting 20-30 years as the defining directive for Brexit. The last time we had an EEC/EU referendum was 1975 – strikes me that there is an elegant symmetry in having an additional EU referendum in say 45-50 years.
The good news – both UK and the EU are both likely to smaller entities with Scotland having colonial ( Brussels) status and the EU likely smaller outwith Hungary/Poland else smaller still should the eurozone implode given its inherent design faults.
The 50%+1 was agreed by parliament on the basis that the referendum was advisory and non binding. It turned into anything but. The size of the vote is irrelevant. The result shows the country was split very nearly down the middle. Yet afterwards the feelings of the losing side were not taken into account in the fom Brexit would take.
Farage said if the majority to remain was small he would keep campaigning to overturn it. In the event there was a small majority to leave and that was the end of that. No revisiting the result was entertained.
During the campaign no one, not even Farage, talked about a hard Brexit. No one in their right minds would want to leave the single market we were told. Yet here we are with a hard Brexit and a confrontational approach to EU relations.
I’m not suggesting we should reverse course now, but I would far rather see a positive approach to resolving trade issues, not attempts to tear up things already agreed. Not the confrontational and tone deaf approach of Lord Frost. The UK cannot afford to lose trade with its largest and closest neighbour.
“The 50%+1 was agreed by parliament on the basis that the referendum was advisory and non binding. …”
This was known before the referendum.
Politically, it is /was extremely binding – the advisory bit has been explored in detail as to why it was advisory.
Again, without wishing to detract from the main blog post, the ‘how we left the EU’ wasn’t, so far as I recall on the ballot paper – at least, it wasn’t on mine.
Maybe, with hindsight people ought to have thought harder about the options that a ‘leave’ vote could result in – sadly, not enough votes cast to remain.
I’m more sanguine about the outcome – firstly, we the UK had a pretty fractious relationship with the EU for best part of 45 years – not clear to many that UK had comparable objectives to the EU ( a more integrated, economic and Political union).
We’ve a little local difficulty with the NIP currently – this will take time’ to resolve but it’s more than likely that a suitable EU/UK fudge can be brokered.
Longer term, the TCA is likely to be built on – pretty sparten at present but will hopefully prove fruitful consequent upon the EU letting go of being the ‘ jilted lover’ and the UK committing to keep its international obligations.
Give it another 5-10 years – still much emotion/anger to play out.
Thank you, that is very encouraging and counters the Misery Sells phenomenon.
Nevertheless it was non-binding. The Cameron government could have argued that 52% was not a strong enough mandate for such a huge constitutional change. It could have said that the economic and political benefits of membership were far too important to lose. It wouldn’t have been popular, but it would have been carried by parliament.
I agree that the “how we leave” question could not have been put on the referendum ballot but the way we ended up leaving was not discussed as a possibility at all in the campaign. Leave politicians talked about Norway+, retaining single market access. It was not until May decided on her red lines that a hard Brexit became a serious possibility. People who supported Brexit were mostly happy with that because they all wanted out no matter what it cost the UK, as polls showed. The other half of the country felt betrayed and ignored.
The UK had a fractious relationship with the EU on some matters, mainly in the 80s. On most matters it was happily integrated. On some it was a driving force, pushing the EU away from federalism and at the heart of creating the single market (one of the best things Thatcher did). We got generous opt outs and rebates, giving us a very advantageous relationship. It was only the kneejerk “blame Brussels” from politicians seeking to avoid blame themselves and from the media seeking popular headlines that created public bad feeling about it. Finally we had the nonsense about “metropolitan elites” being the only beneficiaries and ordinary workers losing out (when their jobs were supported by trade with and grants from the EU).
As a remainer I reluctantly accepted the result (I was never going to be enthusiastic about it as some leavers said remainers ought to become). But I would have preferred a cross party consensus on how it should be done so that all opinions were respected and taken account of. It should have been possible to get a Commons majority on that basis. Our negotiation should have been been properly thought out before Article 50 was invoked. The gung ho “we hold all the cards” approach was a total failure. And we will all pay for this for decades.
Lot’s of could/should & would in your paragraphs Kevin – the trouble being that we’ve to live in the world that it is – not how we would like.
.”… It should have been possible to get a Commons majority on that basis….”
This I doubt – we had an avowedly Remainer Parliament post 2017-2019 – we were in a Constitutional shambles given the then Speaker had given up on any pretence of bias on his europhilia.
Yes, it will be decades to play out.
Brexit was also a binary issue – Parliament didn’t help itself in this process.
John,
Of course it’s all hypothetical, the nature of our recent discussion is what might have happened or could have happened. Although the 2017-19 parliament was remainer by majority (because most knew Brexit was a mistake) it did appear to respect the non-binding yet binding result. So yes I do think a cross-party majority could have been found for a softer Brexit. Thus respecting the wish to leave while retaining a sensible trade relationship with the EU. It was at least worth trying, but May kept it along party lines.
The Speaker’s actions were all to let members have a voice when the Government was trying to prevent Parliament having a say. He was doing what all Speakers should do.
“So yes I do think a cross-party majority could have been found for a softer Brexit….”
I would posit, nicely, that history isn’t quite ( or at all) on your side.
You might recall , during the turbulent times days of the May government, a number of supposedly ingenious devices were created to get the original Withdrawal Agreement over the line – well, surprise it didn’t. Timescales c. March/April of 2019.
The device, used on more than one occasion, was two indicative votes on various options for Brexit – ranging from being in the Customs Union , Norway 2.0 ( Boles) , revoke Article 50, Confirmatory Public Vote. Essentially, all ‘watering down ‘ a hard brexit.
The results at the time showed no clear concensus – indeed, there were more MPs who did not vote in favour of any motion on the Monday (283) than there were on the Thursday (102); there were also more MPs who voted for or against on all motions (388 on Monday compared with 281 on Thursday).
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/indicative-votes-2-0-where-did-support-lie/
What this really demonstrated was a highly disfunctional HoC that couldn’t vote its way out of an increasingly Eu-phile paper bag.
I shan’t delve into the darker practices of the Benn Act which undermined further the outcome of the Referendum & tied the negotiation hand’s of the then Johnson government ahead of the Nov 2019 election.
All those things you describe happened after May chose to attempt Brexit along party lines with a minority government. My point, which you ignored, was that a consensus on Brexit was possible with a constructive cross-party approach. That would have helped heal the division in the country with all sides feeling they were being listened to.
These are well trodden ( and recorded) tropes of winning x party and intraparty support of Mays WA agreement. It didn’t happen 😔
https://ukandeu.ac.uk/the-brexit-deal-and-party-divisions/
and earlier at MEP level:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-brussels-declaration-eu-membership-no-deal-labour-conservatives-a9091856.html%3famp
But the point you make, is that there are innumerable ways to skin a dead cat. That’s the problem – the cat’s dead.
I find your answer unnecessarily dismissive. This is a discussion raised by David revisiting Brexit. I’m entitled to my opinion, which is not a well trodden trope. You won’t engage with it, just dismiss it as irrelevant.
The cat may be dead but its rotting corpse continues to be a major issue. May never sought cross party consensus. I think we would all be better off had she not been so autocratic and done so. What is your opinion on that? If you won’t address that then please don’t bother replying to my post.
Even the Guardian doesn’t support your version of event’s.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/apr/29/mps-could-vote-again-on-brexit-options-if-talks-break-down
I’ll leave it at this.
John,
Once again you are referring to a different time period to me. That link is from 2019, long after Article 50 was invoked and May set her red lines. By the time MPs got to vote on the WA it was already agreed with the EU. That wasn’t the point I made, not even close. So why reply to what I didn’t say? Are you deliberately being obtuse?
From the outset, May never sought cross-party support to define what we wanted from Brexit. Had she done so we might have had a fairer, softer and less damaging Brexit. Resulting in a more united attitude to the outcome. Instead, she conducted negotiations on party lines and thus never built a wider majority to support it. We still have a deep split between Remain and Leave supporters as a consequence.
You made a simple assertion on Sept 6th stated that May did not seek cross party negotiaitions. No mention of Article 50 is made. I felt the need to set the record straight.
The Guardian article records that cross party talks were held with senior figures from both parties – this is a matter of fact, albeit later on in negotiations.
Had more Labour MPs agreed May’s WA bill that failed 3 times to get support, the resulting Brexit with the original ‘backstop’ would have been significantly softer than the one we eventually got.
Indeed, May’s WA was initially called BRINO – Brexit in Name Only given that all of the UK would be in the Customs Union of the EUs regulatory orbit.
Using retrospective dates to support your arguments is always a risky business.
Once again you misrepresent what I said. There were no doubt negotiations to attempt to get opposition support for the WA, I don’t dispute that, but I was always referring to the initial approach to negotiation before A50 was invoked. That should have sought cross-party support. Brexit was never a party issue. Pro/anti EU feelings exist in both major parties, and possibly in the LibDems too. Yet May chose to make it party based, polarising the Commons.
Trying to get opposition support in 2019 was too late as the WA was already agreed and contained the results of May’s red lines including no access to the single market.
The first time I raised the point that cross party agreement had not been sought in reply to you was on 7 September @11.50 and I also mentioned Article 50 in the same paragraph. I quote:
“As a remainer I reluctantly accepted the result (I was never going to be enthusiastic about it as some leavers said remainers ought to become). But I would have preferred a cross party consensus on how it should be done so that all opinions were respected and taken account of. It should have been possible to get a Commons majority on that basis. Our negotiation should have been been properly thought out before Article 50 was invoked. The gung ho “we hold all the cards” approach was a total failure. And we will all pay for this for decades.”
So it was very clear what period of time I was addressing in our exchange. It was of course all hypothetical. May didn’t do that and drew her red lines without even consulting the cabinet let alone the Opposition.
As I remarked earlier, you have to recognise real life for what it is – not what you’d like it to be.
Half the country didn’t want it to be like it is. I would have preferred a less divisive Brexit with better trade outcomes. I thought at the time that a cross-party approach was the best way to achieve that and was very disappointed that May took things in the direction she did.
It’s my ( long experience) that life is rarely as good as you think it is – equally, it’s rarely as bad as you think it is.
Or as my old grandmother used to say ‘ suck it up buttercup’.
There is no comparison between completely free trade, movement and services with 27 other nations and the current situation with massive obstacles to trade, no free movement and no services agreement. We’ve gained nothing and lost a lot.
As for suck it up, that is the typical response from Brexiteers. What happened to magnanimity in victory? The sooner you realise you will have to suck it up too the better. The problems of Brexit have barely begun.
Everything tells me that I’ve likely been around a bit longer than you – perhaps explains why I’m a bit more sanguine about the medium /longer term outcomes of the Brexit ‘process’ than you.
Absolutely agree about being magnanimous in victory – but, as I grow older, I’m also learning to be an even better winner.*
* as told to me by an exceedingly nice old Brigadier for whom I’ve still high regard
I’ll let you guess whether I voted leave or remain, as if that matters any longer, but I do find this constant relitigation of the referendum and subsequent events somewhat irksome. Woulda coulda shoulda. We’ve left already.
How long will it be before the UK has a population that is no longer defined and divided into sheep and goats by reference to how they may have voted 5 years ago?
Please forgive my ignorance; but what is the ‘triple lock’?
So that the state pension should rise and definitely not fall, it was agreed that it would rise in line with whichever is the highest of inflation, earnings, or 2.5 per cent.
I doubt anyone sane reads a manifesto, still less believes in manifestos.
Mr Cummings has a most revealing essay ‘Fish Rots from the Head’ available free from that most reputable source Guido Fawkes. Fascinating reading and not only for its logical construction and coherence but the insight as to the lengths some will go to remain in power. Most amusing.
Truly a great many chicken are coming home to roost and we are preparing yet more of the same. This cannot end well, but I suspect not so much a bang but a whimper.
Has Brexit become unpopular with the electorate? I think it’s too soon to say: some Leave voters have gone remarkably quiet, but others have doubled down and are still blaming the EU – egged on of course, by the likes of the Express, etc. Only when the Express, Mail and Telegraph turn will we know that the public don’t want the Brexit they have got.
The curiosity of the Brexit vote, was that representatives of the official Vote Leave campaign were tightly policed by Mr Cummings and his team in not offering a prospectus for what might come after a ‘no’ vote. While Mr Farage vacillated between ‘lines of refugees’, and ‘it will be like Norway’,
Cummings’ charges were promptly whisked away from public view if they dared speculate on the post-Brexit polity. Aside from ‘money, laws and borders’, things were immensely vague. Readers will recall the ‘Australian style points system’ as a solution to ‘how’, but nobody was clear about which applicants would acquire a premium, or why.
To the extent that we associate election outcomes with a ‘mandate’, the end point is often articulated in documents, both long and short. To interpret exit so openly was to lay the path for the extremists.
Much discussed on some other blogs, the key rationale that Vote Leave used was to proactively ‘not have a plan’ as it could ( and would) have been used as a hostage to fortune.
I’ve some sympathy with this approach.
Another blogger, Richard North enthused and came up with Flexcit or EFTA/EEA+ ( a customised Norway model) – unfortunately both Cameron/Osbourne both dissed this option early on in the Referendum campaign as to make it politically toxic –
When it came to the myriad of Parliamentary debates in 2019, it became obvious that the majority of MPs were of the ‘remainer tribe’ or ‘disconsolates’ and understood little or nothing of the benefits of EFTA/EEA or the similarly named Norway model.
The important difference between an election and a referendum lies in the people wanting an impossible combination of things. In an election, different parties can advocate different policies, but it’s quite hard to end up implementing an impossible combination (because the politicians will expect that voters will concentrate on the bit that they didn’t get and not give credit for what they did).
If you present a sufficiently simplified proposition in a referendum, however, you can easily get the voters to vote for something which is incompatible with something else that they want.
Of course, that is liable to result in the losing side then mocking the winners as the consequences emerge.