Brexit Crisis: The Difficulty of Using Referendums in National Decision-Making

The Brexit crisis, which has occupied Britain and to some extent the European Union for nearly three years, has practically provided an opportunity to analyze the reckless and unprepared use of referendums in national decision-making. The Brexit crisis has also revealed significant shortcomings in Britain's electoral and parliamentary system, which was once considered the world's leading model of democracy. In medicine, a contrast agent is used in radiography to make it easier to see disorders in the body's organs and systems. Without this agent, even the most intense radiographies may not reveal physiological and anatomical damage. Brexit, which Britain has been grappling with for three years, can also be seen as a contrast agent that displays both the negative impacts of the nostalgia for the British Empire on the mindset and actions of the current political elite, as well as the structural problems of the political system in this country, and the pros and cons of a mechanism called a referendum more than ever before. Brexit was partly shaped by the illusion that it could control immigration, which is a somewhat inevitable aspect of the globalization of economy, politics, and culture, while simultaneously enjoying unrestricted trade relations with every corner of the world, benefiting from it, and perhaps transforming Britain into a more powerful player, akin to the 'glorious' era of the Empire. However, the delusions of Brexit supporters led them to overlook the complexities of regional, international, and national relations, particularly now highlighted by the sensitivity and necessity of maintaining the border between the two parts of the island of Ireland, namely Northern Ireland as part of Britain and the Republic of Ireland as a member of the European Union. Keeping this border open and controlled is a crucial part of the Good Friday Agreement (1998), which ended the long-standing conflict and disputes between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland just 20 years ago, ensuring free and uncontrolled economic and cultural connections between the two parts of the island, including with Catholics. During the armed conflict between Catholic nationalists in Northern Ireland, who sought to separate this region from Britain and join it with the Republic of Ireland (Southern Ireland), and the Protestant unionists who supported remaining with Britain from 1960 to 2008, border posts between the two parts were sometimes targeted by armed attacks from Catholic separatists. In that conflict, which ended with the 1998 agreement, a total of 3,500 people were killed. Now, with Britain's exit from Brexit, this historic agreement cannot simply be disregarded, and the 500-kilometer border, where economic, human, and cultural exchanges occur without control and barriers, with 30,000 citizens from both parts of Ireland and a multitude of goods crossing without taxes and customs daily, cannot be subjected to restrictions again, as the gravest consequence of such restrictions could be the revival of tensions between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland. Is it an internal or external problem? Of course, the 'immigration problem' cited by neoliberal Brexit supporters has effectively been a pretext to blame the poor state of social infrastructure, inadequate healthcare services, and the lack of necessary investments in education and security—largely the result of the neoliberal austerity policies of the past forty years—on the European Union and its open borders and the easy movement of migrants (labor) within it. This does not mean that the European Union has not had shortcomings and errors in several issues, including the level of democracy and regulations related to inclusive social security, but the problems of Britain, which has a special status and privileges within the European Union, stem more from domestic policies than from this membership. The 'immigration problem' is also a somewhat different story from what British neoliberals, who nostalgically yearn for the empire, narrate. World War I weakened the foundations of the British Empire, and World War II accelerated this trend. The independence of former colonies, especially the Suez Crisis in 1956, which forced Britain to retreat from the war against Egypt, highlighted the reality that the era of that empire had definitively ended and Britain had become a player in the second tier of the world. The establishment of Commonwealth countries from former colonies did not help maintain the economic and political authority of the imperial era; rather, it fueled a wave of migration from former colonies to the metropolis (Britain) and led to the formation of immigrant minorities, long before labor migrations within the European Union began, from which Britain also benefited with more positive and fewer negative consequences. However, these points were less emphasized during the campaigns leading up to the Brexit referendum. The radiographic aspect of Brexit in the structure of British democracy also revealed the weaknesses of the electoral and parliamentary system of this country, especially while one of the (somewhat accurate) accusations made by many high-ranking political representatives and diplomats of Britain against the European Union has been the weakness of democratic mechanisms within it. Like the dream of restoring Britain's 'greatness,' this illusion has also prevailed among a part of the political elite that their democratic system still stands out in the continent and the world, while in some continental countries, democratic mechanisms and the development of the parliamentary system are now much more advanced than early 20th century Britain, which was once a leader in this regard. The vulnerable electoral system against populism is a clear weakness in British democracy, as a large portion of the country's population is not represented in Parliament due to the electoral system. The 'majoritarian' electoral system in Britain, under which only one representative from each constituency enters Parliament, effectively leads to the disregard of many votes cast. In this context, for example, the Green Party in the 2015 parliamentary elections, with a total of 1.1 million votes, had only one representative in Parliament, while the Scottish National Party, with 1.4 million votes, sent 56 representatives to Parliament. Worse was the situation for the UK Independence Party (Ukip), which, despite obtaining 3.8 million votes (12.6% of the total votes), only secured one seat out of 650 in the House of Commons. Meanwhile, the Conservatives, with 11.3 million votes, which is only three times the votes of the UK Independence Party, obtained 331 seats in Parliament. For this party, only 36.9 votes were enough to hold an absolute majority of seats, a situation that is no longer seen in many European countries, where voters do not face such exclusions. In other words, the British Parliament, unlike electoral mechanisms based on 'proportional systems,' represents only a portion of the society of this country, and there is no balance in the representation of all sections of society within it. The advantages that the two major parties, namely the Conservative Party and the Labour Party, gain from this unfair electoral system effectively create a disincentive for them to change and improve it. In such circumstances, the situation becomes more critical when a radical and populist tendency gains power within one of the two major parties, as the holding of the Brexit referendum and the crises that followed it are not unrelated to the strengthening of such a tendency within the Conservative Party. The referendum and the conditions that must be observed: Brexit also served as a contrast agent in examining the political structure of Britain, highlighting how sensitive the use of a mechanism called a referendum (direct democracy) is in public and national decision-making, and how its application must be subject to caution and the provision of essential prerequisites. At least at the European level, the standards and criteria of the Venice Commission regarding the healthy and legitimate conduct of referendums (Code of Good Practice on Referendums) provide a good basis for evaluating the Brexit referendum. These criteria, which were drafted and published in 2007, are primarily relevant for the 61 members of the Commission (47 member states of the Council of Europe and 14 non-European countries) and are also advisory for them. The criteria address the explicability of the necessity of a referendum; they explain the quantity and quality of an acceptable vote, clarify the duties of both sides (opponents and supporters of the subject put to the referendum) towards each other, and particularly discuss the preparation of the referendum and the comprehensive, inclusive, and unhurried enlightenment about the options, their contexts, and consequences, as well as the precision and lack of bias in the questions, and the technical and legal components and requirements for holding a referendum. Based on this, a referendum held in a tumultuous environment and misusing the moment to consolidate and perpetuate the power of a non-democratic force or one with a distorted relationship with democracy, a referendum that presents options as incomplete, vague, or fabricated and does not provide citizens with a suitable opportunity to critically discuss and challenge the options in a public interaction, effectively violates the formation of a democratic and informed will of the voters and has little relation to democracy. The Brexit referendum, of course, was held in a democratic society, but its execution was far from a democratic referendum where voters have the necessary opportunity and means to scrutinize and critique the claims of both sides and gain the necessary awareness of their consequences. In this context, one can refer to the experience of the referendum on the relative liberalization of abortion in the Republic of Ireland, with a Catholic society where the level of religious tendencies among citizens is higher compared to many European countries. The preparation for this referendum, held in June 2018, was accompanied by an unprecedented process of awareness-raising about various aspects of abortion liberalization. In particular, for six months in Parliament, a selected group from various citizen sectors engaged in discussions with various experts, women who had been affected by abortion in one way or another, and supporters from both sides, exploring and enlightening the various aspects of the issue. All these discussions were broadcast live on the national television. The result of this enlightenment and awareness-raising was that the outcome of the referendum in a country with strong Catholic beliefs among citizens was something many did not even imagine; 64% of eligible voters participated in the referendum, which is a notable figure on a European scale, and 87% of voters supported the relative liberalization of abortion. A qualitative vote backed by the awareness and sense of responsibility of each citizen regarding the decision made when going to the polls. In other words, a referendum is democratically valid and legitimate when it presents different options and its preparation genuinely leads to the formation of an informed will regarding the ins and outs and pros and cons of all options. Such a process was almost absent in the case of the Brexit referendum, and now that the consequences of the winning option have just become clear, Britain has plunged into one of the unprecedented crises in its contemporary history, without a clear outlook on the quality of its exit from it.