On the 13th February the Swiss held a binding referendum to seek the views of people on four legislative proposals. All four questions were on the same ballot sheet.
The people only suppoted one of the four rejecting the other three against the government's wishes.
The results and topic were as follows:-
- Agreed to limit tobacco
advertising
- Rejected ban on animal testing
- Rejected abolish of stamp duty on Swiss companies
- Rejected increase funding to Swiss media.
Further details are here which I'm afraid you will have to cut and paste as this blog still doesn't do links that open:-
https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/results-of-the-vote-of-february-13--2022-switzerland-medias-tobacco/47271566
As I've covered before on this blog Switzerland has three tyypes of referendums:-
1. Popular - which allow the people to make proposals
2. Facultative/Optional - which allows the people to approve or reject gvoernment legislation
3. Mandatory - Needed if the issue alters the constitution.
This is real democracy in action as it is the people's views that should be paramount over their elected representatives who should be their servants and not their masters.
One day ...We are a long way off binding referendums but they would be great to see. It might take a while for us to use them properly, but that would be such a positive step.
ReplyDeleteIt would be illuminating if Niall could read these results across to the UK if THA proposals were in force and explain the effect with the same results.
DeleteI'm afraid I don't understand the point you are making??
DeleteSo, you have posted a link to a set of Swiss referendum results but haven't provided any context regarding how those votes, or similar votes, would play out in the UK if we were using the proposals of The Harrogate Agenda.
DeleteHaving read through THA my view is two of the Swiss votes would not have been binding on the legislature as they were popular initiatives, i.e. issues raised by the people. So, under THA that purports to make the people sovereign they can't actually compel the legislature to act, only make them aware of their feelings.
Also, I don't think the other two votes would have bound the legislature of the UK if subject to THA because of the turn out which was less than 45%. THA doesn't go into detail about what the actual qualifications would be to compel the Government to act, but in the case of voting for or against new laws it does suggest a majority of the electorate, not a majority of those voting.
So, under these terms none of the votes would have compelled the UK Government to change anything.
If any of the above is not true I would appreciate corrections.
OK - I see your point now and of course I am not able to second guess how the British people would have voted on the same four issues nor at this stage confirm what referendum bench marks the THA will have.
DeleteBut that is not the point. All I was showing was with Swiss DD the people rejected three out of four proposed laws which is not something we are able to do here.
There is obviously alot more detail yet to be added to the original THA 30 page pamphlet but at this stage you either agree with the principles of our fourth demand 'The People's Consent' or you don't.
Do you agree with the principles of DD or not?
Niall, I think you are being a little disingenuous as THA makes quite clear that referendums for new laws demanded by the people would not be binding as it was described as ‘mob rule’. This is what THA states about referenda initiated by popular demand. ‘Nevertheless, we believe that such referendums should not be binding’. So, as I stated, two of the four Swiss referendums would have compelled nothing if such votes were held in the UK. Also, the turn out was less than 45% so not a great advert for DD, on those proposals at least.
DeleteWRT your question asking if I support DD, as you have stated before, THA comes as a package so forms part of the overall proposal and in that context it would be one of the few times I would agree with Margaret Thatcher and say no to referenda.
The main reason for that is that the laws to be voted on would come out of a Parliament that in no way reflected the way the Country voted at the General Election, so despite your assertions that the voting system is not the important thing here, it very much is. A centre right party usually receives a majority in Parliament despite never winning a majority of the vote so the laws produced by Parliament will reflect that reality. I imagine a sensible threshold set for a referendum to be valid would probably rarely or never be reached, so we would still almost always be subject to laws imposed by Government formed by a party most people didn’t want.
As I have said before, THA ignores a gaping deficiency in our Governance, that the voting systems does not reflects peoples votes, skews the outcomes of elections, compels people to vote for parties they don’t support and invalidates any vote that wasn’t cast for the winning candidate. The fact that THA has nothing to say about all of that is at best surprising and at worst suspicious. It also looks odd that you look to one part of the Swiss system and ignore the rest. Swiss Governance is more reflective of the votes of the electorate so perhaps the reason that referenda turn out is so low is because the people, by and large, have the Government they want?
To me, THA looks like the proposals of people who are politically centre right to right wing, who prefer to be governed by the party most closely aligned to that political view even though they never win the majority of the vote, but also want the right to strike down any laws emanating from Parliament that don’t properly reflect their views. THA does not support the outcomes of referenda instigated by the people to be binding on the legislature. So much for a sovereign people.
I think the retention of an evidentially unfair voting system is a backstop in case the set thresholds for referenda are never reached, i.e. at least from THA developers perspective the laws will have generally come out of a centre right Parliament and that suits them.
I’ll bat a question back to you, under the proposals of THA, the same sex marriage act could have been challenged and overturned by the people of the UK. Do you think that would be right bearing in mind that it had no practical impact on the lives of the vast majority of the people of the UK?
I'll second that!
ReplyDeleteIt would be interesting to list all the referenda the Swiss people have, which equate to the people making a choice, with our system. The last choice we had was in 2019 I believe. The choice was between three manifestos. We chose the Conservative party. Naturally the manifesto we chose contains an entire programme for government, not individual policies or decisions. Some of those policies have most likely been reversed or not implemented. Contrast that with the list of things the Swiss people have directly decided on themselves rather than their political class.
ReplyDelete