The UK would benefit greatly from the wider use of referendumss? Discuss.

A referendum is a form of direct democracy that involves a public vote on a single issue of public policy. It is a way of presenting a debated issue to public decision. The most recent referendum was in the UK; the 2014 Scottish Independence Referendum which asked the question whether Scotland should break away from the UK or not.

There are a variety of arguments both for and against the wider use of referendum in the UK. The use was greatly favoured by Tony Blair and his new Labour government in 1997 because they took the view that referendum was a democratic device that allows people the opportunity to give a direct voice in decision making. Therefore, any decision made via referendum acquires legitimacy because it has popular approval.

Moreover, referendums can encourage political participation which will help the declining participation of the UK in the way that as referendums are where people can get directly involve in the decision making, they will see this as opportuniy to contribute to the political world as themselves, thereby encouraging them to turn out in election to vote and increase participation like in the 2014 Scottish referendum where the participation brough about a turnout of 84.59% compared to the 2010 general election turnout of 65.1%. Shown clearly in the example is the clear difference between participation of direct democracy and representative democracy which would greatly benefit the UK's declining political participation.

Referendums can also provide a single but clear answer to a specific issue in the way general elections cannot because in referendums, a single issue is put forward to the public and they only need to answer it with a 'yes' or 'no' and drop it in a ballot box whereas in general electons, they vote on a paty that has a package of issues in their mandate. There is no guarantee that the electorates agree in all of the the elected party's mandate which is, admittedly, inevitable but still not beneficial to the UK especially if the party's main policies get repeatedly defeated. A good example of this is in Labour's 2001 manifesto which promised regional devolution but in 2004, voters in the North East defeated plans for a local assembly in a referendum in the issue. However, a referendum mends this because by holding a referendum on a debated issue, the government is effectively seeking public guidance on these important and often controversial issue which, inturn, can also mend the current alienation felt towards politicians by the electorates.

Referendums can also pull a ruling government together if there is a division on a certain issue. For example, the only major referendum held nationally in the UK in 1975 was about the UK's membership in the European Community (now known as European Union). The debated issue was whether the UK should pull out of the EC or stay and it caused a deep divide in the ruling Labour goverment but was eventually mended by over 67% of voters wanting to stay in the EC. This is a great beneficial thing to the UK because if another policy should divide the Government, and this is very likely due to matters of today like the devolution of power to Scotland, the UK would suffer as its Government argue against each other.

While referendums can benefit the UK greatly, it can also contradict the UK's implented system of Government. The UK runs on a representative democracy system which means elected professionals say our needs in a much more detailed way in Parliament. On the other hand, referendums are a direct way of democracy in which people decide what happens in Parliament. Through this direct way, the decisions which get decided by a referendum would be less well thought through and could cause more harm than good to the British politics because the general public is less likely to actually have access to knowledge needed to fully understand the issue at hand, unlike the professional elected politicians. These politicians also protect the minorities in their constinuents via the constitution. A referendum would undermine the rights of those protected minorities and result in a 'tyranny of the majority'. The legitimacy of the representativ politicians' decisions would then appear to be weak because they were undermined by referendum-determined decisions like when the Labour's proposed regional assembly in 2001 was crushed by a referendum in the North East which produced a result of 78% saying 'no' and only 22% saying 'yes'.

The use of referendums can also undermine Parliament's sovereignity over the issues of other countries in the UK. The way this is not beneficial to the UK is not only referendums are undermining the sovereignty of Parliament over the UK but it also makes the British constitutionn look inflexible when it comes to deciding over matters of Scotland and Wales. And if favourably popular enough, a referendum can establish a second goverment within the UK which it eventually does with Scotland. Referendums held in September 1997 asked the question 'Should there be a Scottish Parliament?' and produced the result of 74.3% saying 'yes' and 25.7% saying 'no'. Another referendum held on the same time period added the question that asks 'Should the Scottish Parliament have tax varying powers?' and produced a rest of 63.5% saying 'yes' and 36.5% saying 'no'. (Both of these referendums yielded a 60.4% turnout which, in British standards, is quite high). These two referendums resulted to today's Scottish Parliament who decides Scotland issues without the consultation of Westminster; reflecting the now-extinct Parliamentary sovereignty over Scotland due to referendums. How can the UK benefit from its Parliament not having complete control supremacy over its domains?

Balancing the arguments, I conclude the benefits of referendum outweighs its negative consequences. This is because referendums address the current democratic problems of the UK like declining political participation ad the ongoing alienation of the general public by the politicians due to disagreements over the policies which, if used referendums on, can be mended and benefit the UK greatly. The consequences like contradiction to a representative democray and undermined sovereignty is small in scale because who's to say that a much more direct way of democracy is not favoured by the general populace who distrust the politicans and cause the need for self rule?