YOUR VIEWS

POLITICIANS see their job as deciding what the public needs not what they want – the electors just get in the way. Likewise the Cabinet see their job as deciding what the party needs not what they want – the MPs just get in the way.

The upcoming referendum in the UK over AV (the Alternative Vote) has nothing to do with assessing the population's opinion on this matter – it has been artificially created to glue the artificial union of the Conservative and Liberal parties. This is only the second nation-wide referendum in our history – the other was in 1975. Ostensibly this was called for by the new Labour Government over the continued membership of the EU (European Union) which had been joined two years earlier by the then Government – the Conservatives. Again the government was uninterested in public opinion. The real motive was to patch up internal Westminster politics.

The Labour Party was split over the EU, 2 to 1 against but a majority of the then shadow cabinet was in favour. To remove this internal vitriolic argument from the run up to the election their manifesto carried the promise of a referendum - Let the People Speak! The conservatives were largely in favour (the reverse of now) so overall the new House of Commons was in favour and the Labour Government could have gained its way immediately. Parliament has its own time honoured customs one being that you cannot chum up with the opposition to ride rough shod over your own side. By holding a referendum which as predicted voted yes, then a free vote in Parliament with the same outcome Harold Wilson got his way even against the left wing majority of his party. Michael Foot and his faction could only mutter in their beer “The People have Spoken – the Bas'*ds!” Nothing to do with gauging public opinion.

Referenda are an anathema to politicians as welcome to MPs as Christmas is to Turkeys. They can be so complex as the Lisbon Treaty (promised but dropped in 2008) to be virtually unintelligible to the average voter and that certainly includes me. I have neither the interest nor the time – that's why our MP's get paid their £60000 + expenses. There are topics which the man in the street can grasp and have a well founded moral argument. What springs to mind are castrating child molesters & beheading murderers (and in this Saudi order). These are suitable questions for a voter to ponder but will never show up in referenda because an almost certain vote in favour is not to the liking of our betters in Westminster. In the very rare event you participate don't worry if your choice is not that of the Governments. Referenda are not binding anyway. The first three votes on the Lisbon Treaty were all against. France and Holland ignored the result and went ahead anyway, so much for their democracy. Ireland, whose constitution gave no option but to have the referendum also bypassed it by holding reruns until the plebiscite got it right or perhaps just worn out. Instead of voting on a trivial AV system why not referend on an Iceland Style Constitution where if some 25% (?) of the voters sign a petition a binding referendum is mandatory even on laws just passed?

Mike Lillico
Playa de Palma