Yes? No? Does anyone care?

Civitas, 4 May 2011

With the first UK-wide referendum since 1975 approaching, it could be worth asking: how many of the population have to vote to make the result a meaningful one? Perhaps more important than the vote itself are the issues which could be thrown up about the state of British democracy.

Yesterday saw reports indicating that as little as a third of the British electorate may vote in Thursday’s referendum. Evidence on the ground (also known as conversations with friends over the bank holiday) reflects this low figure with respondents stating: ‘I forgot to apply for a postal vote’ or ‘I threw my postal vote away by mistake’ and even ‘I would but polls are not open at a convenient time’. Aside from such excuses and a plethora of others, there were honest and brazen admissions of ‘I just don’t care’. Will the above-quoted figure prove to be correct, and if it is will the UK electorate have sunk to new levels of apathy?

The outlook is not too promising if general election turnout proves to be a bellwether for popular political engagement. Turnout levels have been generally falling since the 1950s, and this for the most important political decision the country has to face. There are few outside of politics who attach a similar measure of importance to Thursday’s plebiscite and reports indicate that turnout could be as low as half of that usually seen in recent general elections. What about other elections and referendums, what do turnouts in these tell us?

At first it would appear that referenda are not the nadirs of political engagement that the forecast for the impending referendum suggests. In the majority of referenda held in the UK, including the only other UK-wide referendum (that of 1975), turnout was, on average, respectable at around 56 per cent. However this average ignores the fact that in the most recent referendum, in Wales earlier this year, only 35 per cent of the electorate turned out to vote. Furthermore all other referenda concerned national political self-determination and the devolution of (relatively) extensive political powers; it could be due to this that the majority witnessed relatively high turnouts. Supporting this hypothesis is the Greater London Authority Referendum held in 1998, which did not witness a significant transfer of political power and so saw only 35 per cent of Londoners turn out to vote. Further worrying portents are evident in local election turnout figures, the 2009 local elections attracting the attention of only 35 per cent of the electorate. This provides a warning to those who hope that by holding some local elections simultaneously with Thursday’s referendum, turnout will be increased.

If the omens concerning Thursday’s turnout are not good, what are the ramifications of this for the result itself? Ironically it looks likely that a minority of the electorate will make a decision on an issue that affects the majority. This would be particularly unusual as many other countries, including the US, impose significant hurdles in front of any constitutional change, such as a ‘supermajority’ (two-thirds of voters in both houses). Even the UK has previously required that 40% of the electorate must vote for change for the result to be binding (something the House of Lords tried, but failed, to impose for this plebiscite).

The esteemed constitutional expert Vernon Bogdanor has argued that if only a minority vote, any decision resulting from such an ‘illegitimate’ referendum would itself be open to serious criticism and could even lead to a ‘constitutional crisis’. The on-going political battle between the ‘yes’ and ‘no’ camps could in fact be a prelude to the real political battle that develops after the result. For many people AV is a half-hearted reform, a view shared one suspects by many supporters of the ‘yes’ campaign. It would be ironic if such a widely ignored vote sparked a far more important debate about the role of direct democracy and plebiscites in British politics.