The problem of majorities

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Giving people the choice between two options and counting the number supporting each is a reasonably effective way of making decisions. What it is not, however, is a way of changing minds. Whilst ‘the rules’ of the debate and vote might state clearly that the majority verdict on any question will be the one implemented, what rules cannot mandate is that the minority will somehow change its mind and wholeheartedly support the decision taken. This is a statement so obvious that it should not even need to be said, but we all know that when a party loses an election, it doesn’t simply pack its bags and dissolve itself, it continues campaigning for the next election.

And yet… The expectation of many Brexiters was that all they had to do was win a majority, and everyone else would get behind it and use their abilities to resolve all the problems the Brexiteers had caused by promising an impossible scenario. The expectation of unionists after the Scottish independence referendum was that a party which only ever existed to promote the cause of independence would simply change its policy to reflect the will of the majority. In both cases, they seem to have been genuinely surprised that those who felt the wrong decision had been taken by the majority could and would continue to campaign for what they believed to be right. The problem that many majoritarians face is their own unwillingness or inability to understand that the outcome of a vote changes few minds. Changing minds requires persuasion and argument. Democracy might require people to live with the outcome of any vote until they can change it, but it does not – and cannot – oblige them to like it or remain silent. A democracy which does not permit people to continue to argue their case is not a democracy at all.

And that brings us to the Tory Party and yesterday’s vote. The party’s MPs certainly took a decision, and took it by a clear majority. But the expectation which Johnson and those around him seem to have that the fears some MPs have of losing their seats at the next election will now evaporate because ‘the majority has spoken’ is equally unrealistic. A simple majority system doesn’t mean that those who fear that his law-breaking and dishonesty will lose them their seats will suddenly become proud of those self-same attributes. Given Johnson’s propensity for believing that he can bully, bluster and lie his way out of any situation, I’m not as convinced as many seem to be that his fate is now sealed in the relatively short term. It ought to be, but that depends on a degree of self-awareness which is alien to him. I suspect that those in his party who continue to oppose him face a longer and harder battle than they might currently expect. A different leader would recognise that losing the confidence of at least 40% of his MPs makes him a lame duck and that fighting that fact does more harm than good to his party, but the current leader has no more interest in his party than he does in the population at large. His Conservative opponents and supporters alike may be seriously underestimating Johnson’s capacity and willingness to take them all down with him.

Electoral arithmetic

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Last week, the leader of Nigel Farage plc demanded that his ‘party’ be given a role in future negotiations over Brexit, whilst also demanding that the UK leave the EU without conducting any such further negotiations.  His basis for issuing this demand was that his ‘party’ won 40% of the seats in a parliament which has no responsibility for the issue in question after receiving 32% of the vote.  In his mind, this is an overwhelming democratic mandate which should oblige the government to accede, because his ‘party’ stood on a clear platform stating that it should be allowed a seat at the non-existent table where no negotiations would take place, and 32% of the electorate supported that demand.  It slightly overlooks the fact that, whether the other 68% voted for parties supporting different varieties of Brexit or not, they unquestionably did not vote for the only party arguing for that policy.

This is, of course, the same man who argues that in a referendum where 52% voted for Brexit and 48% against, the 48% can be ignored because they lost.  52% beats 48%, but at the same time 32% apparently trumps 68%.  The requirements of democracy (or even majoritarianism which is what we have) only apply to other people. 

There is, though, one part of his little missive with which I half agree, and that’s the bit where he claims that his ‘party’ has the “most recent and winning democratic mandate on Brexit”.  I say ‘half agree’ because 32% of those voting isn’t much of a winning mandate for anything; but in principle, he’s right about the result being the ‘most recent’ indication of feelings about Brexit.  And, perhaps unwittingly, he’s conceded a great deal there, because it’s an admission that a mandate won in one vote only applies up until another mandate is won in another vote, and that the ‘mandate’ can change over time.  I’m not sure that a letter hand-delivered to number 10, which he probably only ever thought of as a stunt giving him another excuse to play the betrayal card, was intended to be quite so revealing about the nature of democracy.

A majority isn't enough

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One of last week’s posts talked about the problems of equating ‘democracy’ with simple ‘majority rule’, and argued that there has to be more to democracy than that, particularly in relation to securing and ensuring the rights and freedoms of all citizens.  Brexit has highlighted one aspect of the problem: whilst (according to the rules under which referendums are held) a majority of 50%+1 is considered sufficient to determine the question, making a major change on the basis of such a narrow majority – especially a change which has major implications for the lives of all citizens, including those opposed to it – leaves a country in a situation where 50%-1 of the population are potentially unhappy with the decision.  There’s a serious question to be asked about whether securing the narrowest of all margins in a public vote is really a good way of determining the ‘will of the people’; in the narrowest conceivable scenario, it’s really only the will of half the people.  There is a lesson here for independentistas as well.

Some have suggested that there should be a requirement for some sort of ‘super majority’, such as 60% support, before a change can be implemented following a referendum.  The main problem that I see with that approach is that it creates a built-in bias in favour of the status quo, even if the status quo enjoys only minority support.  As an example, if the two options on a ballot paper are a) remain part of the UK, and b) become independent, and if the electorate were to vote 40%+1:60%-1 in favour of independence, on what ‘democratic’ basis can the 40%+1 be declared ‘winners’?  Any rule other than 50%+1 means, effectively, that the ‘losing’ side can end up winning, which is as unsatisfactory to me as the idea that a simple majority can always impose its will on the minority.

I see the UK’s ‘winner takes all’ approach to elections as being a significant part of the problem.  In the case of the Brexit referendum, it meant that a party which secured only 36.9% of the vote in the 2015 election was rewarded with an absolute majority of seats in parliament, and then called a referendum (for which it was the only party to have campaigned) in order to placate the even smaller minority of anti-EU individuals amongst its members.  Had they been given only the 37% of seats which their vote earned them, then the referendum would never have been called and the subsequent shambles would have been avoided.  There is a very real sense in which a properly proportional electoral system creates a potential lock on reckless referendums, since it effectively requires a majority to vote for a party or parties supporting a referendum before one can be held.  In such a circumstance, a referendum is closer to being a confirmation of what people have already voted for rather than the prime method of taking the decision.

It does not, though, overcome my other reservation about a potential referendum on independence for Wales, a reservation which has grown considerably in the light of the outcome of the 2014 independence referendum in Scotland and the 2016 EU referendum across the UK.  If a referendum posing a binary question between two propositions can only fairly be decided by a simple majority (for the reasons outlined above), then the narrower that majority the greater the extent to which the referendum exposes a split amongst the population.   (And ‘expose’ a division is all it does; contrary to what many have argued, the two referendums to which I referred did not create the difference of opinion).  Imposing such a major decision made by barely half the population on an unwilling minority (on whichever side it is found) is, as we have seen with Brexit, a deeply unattractive proposition. 

On some questions there is a possibility of a ‘middle way’ if those involved are willing to look for it (in the case of Brexit, for example, a closer relationship with the EU than the PM has been willing to countenance).  But sometimes there is no middle way.  Certainly, powers can be gradually transferred to Wales under a devolution model, but at some point, there is an inevitable binary question – does sovereignty lie with the crown in parliament or does it lie with the people of Wales?  ‘Devolution’ avoids that question (and can continue to ignore it as considerable additional powers are devolved), but the price of avoiding it is that devolution is always unilaterally reversible by Westminster; independence is not.

For independence to be the ‘will of the people’ therefore requires, in my view, more than winning a simple majority in a referendum; it requires that the people as a whole are ready and willing to accept it, even if it’s not their preferred option.  That has been a central problem with Brexit – the Brexiteers campaigned with the sole objective of winning the vote (by any means at all, as it turns out), and not with the aim of persuading people that it was a good (or at least reasonable) idea.  Even now, the Brexit ultras are clinging to the idea that the referendum vote gives them the absolute right to impose their view of what it meant on the population as a whole; they are still making little or no effort to persuade.  Majoritarianism is a deeply-rooted concept in a ‘winner-takes-all’ style democracy.

The lesson for independentistas is clear; our job is not simply to press for a referendum and then seek to win a majority by whatever means are available – it is to create the desire for independence and to persuade even those not willing to vote for it that it is a reasonable and acceptable way forward for Wales.  Most of the nations that have gained independence over the years did not do so as a result of a majority vote, they did so because it was the obvious and natural step for them to take.  We need to make it the obvious and natural step for Wales to take.

Too much of the independence movement in Wales is over-focussed on the electoral aspect rather than on developing that desire and creating the environment in which independence becomes entirely natural.  It is perhaps inevitable; the winner-tales-all approach is the familiar territory in which politics in Wales plays out – it’s just another of those instances where we need to start thinking differently before independence.  Insofar as the case is being made at all, it is often made on a ‘transactional’ basis, such as being a means of avoiding Tory austerity.  But building a general consensus around a willingness to accept responsibility for shaping our own futures is much more important – and difficult, of course – than merely calling for a referendum and then looking for a simple narrow majority in a one-off vote in a nation where that ground work hasn’t been done.  Calling for an independence referendum in the immediate future isn’t the same as a campaign to persuade people that independence is the best way forward for Wales.  Advancing Welsh democracy and achieving a consensus around independence requires more than applying traditional Westminster majoritarianism in Wales.

Majoritarianism isn't enough

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There are many Brexiteers who are claiming on a regular basis than any decision to cancel or delay Brexit would be some sort of affront to ‘democracy’, and that people will feel cheated if Brexit is in any way delayed or watered down.  Trump Junior has added his support to the idea that democracy is “all but dead” because the “will of the people” is being ignored.  He’s expressing a view which many of those who voted for Brexit share, and which is being expressed by many.  After all, the argument goes, 17.4 million people voted to leave the EU, and only 16.1 million voted to remain, so ‘democracy’ requires that we leave.  But is that true?  One of the things I learned from my studies many years ago is that there isn’t actually a single simple agreed definition of what ‘democracy’ means.  And one thing which is certain is that there’s a huge difference between ‘democracy’ and ‘majoritarianism’.

If asked to define the word ‘democracy’, I suspect that most people would come up with some variation on Lincoln’s statement about “government of the people, by the people, for the people”, and I wouldn’t disagree with that formulation.  I would point out, though, that it talks about “the people”, not “the majority of the people”, and there’s nothing in the famous phrase which requires that the vote of the majority should outweigh the interests of any minority.  The minority in any binary choice are still part of ‘the people’, and ‘government by the people for the people’ cannot simply exclude them as a result.  It may or may not (no-one is entirely sure) have been Benjamin Franklin who said that “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch”.  It highlights the inherent problem in equating democracy and majoritarianism.  (It’s worth noting, though, that whoever did say it went on to add that “Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote”, highlighting the need to protect minorities from the absolutism of majority rule.) 

I’m not particularly in favour of arming the lambs, but it neatly illustrates the point that there has to be more to a truly democratic process than simply following the will of the majority.  No matter how large the majority, the idea that they always have the absolute right to over-ride the interests, freedom and rights of those who disagree with them is contrary to the idea of all people having rights; and positing extreme examples of what majorities might vote for highlights the problem.  Just to give one simple example – if the majority of citizens in a unitary state such as the UK voted to outlaw all languages other than English, would the government be obliged by ‘democracy’ to implement such a decision?  It’s an unlikely scenario, of course; but it demonstrates that modern concepts of rights and democracy demand that there must be limits on the rights of a mathematical majority.  (The much more difficult question is about who decides where the limits lie, but I’ll leave that one to one side for today.)

Turning back to the matter in hand, one of the problems clouding the debate about Brexit has been the UK’s traditional approach to democracy, which is based very much on the absolute and untrammelled right of the majority, even when it isn’t really a ‘majority’ at all.  Individual MPs are elected on a plurality of votes (which usually means a minority of the electorate), and whichever party can put together a simple majority in one house of parliament then expects the absolute right to pass whatever laws it chooses.  It doesn’t matter that no recent government has received the votes of a majority (meaning that in every case since 1935 more people have voted against the party which ‘won’ the election than for it); under the UK system, a government once formed expects absolute power.  That winner-takes-all expectation helps the current PM to assume that she has a right to the support of parliament for any proposal which she places before it.

It is also that adherence to majoritarianism which leads people to expect that achieving a small but clear majority in a referendum means that the result is inviolable and absolute.  The winner takes all, and the losers must go away and stop complaining, even if the ‘democratic’ result costs them their jobs, their livelihoods and (in the event of some of the more extreme projections over medicines etc) potentially even their lives.  An alternative, rather more inclusive, approach to the democratic outcome would have been to note that the majority was small, to note than an enormous number of people wanted to remain in a close relationship with the EU, and to devise an approach to Brexit which tried to honour the letter (ending formal EU membership) of the vote whilst maintaining close links.  I believe that there would have been (and probably still is) a majority in parliament for such an approach, but the ‘winning side’ has deliberately chosen not to pursue it.  The extent to which a mindset based on traditional UK absolutism has shaped the PM’s approach is open to debate, but a state more interested to trying to govern ‘for (all) the people’ and taking a more inclusive approach to defining the ‘will of (all) the people’ would not have followed the same path.

One of the things that Brexit has highlighted is that the UK’s system of ‘democracy’ is badly broken and needs repair.  It’s more than simply adopting a proportional electoral system, to ensure that the elected parliament more accurately reflects public opinion.  It’s also about developing a better understanding of what we mean by ‘democracy’; what are the limits on the rights of the ‘majority’; and how the rights and interests of minorities are protected.  If anything, Brexit to date has displayed clearly how far away we are from building a form of democracy in which no-one would ever consider that the lambs need to be well-armed.