The British Parliament and by virtue the Westminster system is the oldest of democratic institution and very much the basis of many country’s governance across the globe. However, after 42 years of ever closer integration and delegated sovereignty, it is unsurprising that Brexit is the most monumental challenge to the UK’s unwritten constitution and Parliament.
This challenge has reached its precipice, with the immovable object of Parliament and unstoppable force of the people colliding. Our politics works on the basis of representative democracy, where the people elect representatives to a Parliament, whose decisions are ultimately sovereign and binding upon everyone. This is to ensure the balance of effective governance and effective representation of citizens. Referenda are an anomaly, since they present the opportunity for direct democracy to be exercised. This brings us to the current situation, whereby Boris Johnson claims to act on behalf of the people, against a Parliament who are supposedly trying to subvert the will of the citizens they represent. The problem arises when both forms of democracy are legitimate forms of democracy, for very valid reasons on both sides.
Especially for advocates of Brexit, in Parliament and the population at large, it is repugnant that some in the political establishment are proactively trying to thwart the largest democratic exercise is modern political history. On the other side of the debate, it is fantastical to even comprehend suspending representative democracy through prorogation, especially when it is conducted by those who should respect it the most, the Government of the day. Suggestions of holding a general election after Brexit day and ignoring a Vote of No Confidence (and thereby involving the Queen in politics, a constitutional red line) further these claims.
And so the debate has been framed: Parliament versus the People; representative versus direct democracy; a coup from both sides. The biggest danger of all, however, is suspicion of the political system and the equity it should deliver. The legitimacy of both representative and direct democracy is eroding, but what else is left?
By Connor Smith