Lewis Baston

25th Oct 2011

People who want change tend to call for referendums. People who oppose change tend to win them.

The European referendum of 1975 was a concession to Tony Benn and the then-dominant mood of the Labour Party in favour of withdrawal from the EEC, but it ended up emphatically endorsing the UK’s membership, with a huge swing in support in favour of Europe during the campaign. The referendums on Scottish and Welsh devolution in 1979 ended up with a huge No vote in Wales and a Yes vote that was too narrow in Scotland to overcome the turnout threshold its opponents had written into the Scotland Act. The experience of the Alternative Vote referendum in May 2011 should be sufficient to demonstrate that opinion polls in the early stages of a campaign are false friends to the pro-change forces.

The exceptions to the general rule are interesting. The ones that change away from the status quo tend to happen at the end of a very long period of public discussion and encapsulate an informed consensus that already exists. This was the case in Scotland over devolution in 1997 and London and Northern Ireland in 1998, and on further powers for Wales in 2011. Only in a few local mayoral referendums, and in Wales in 1997 (plus arguably Scotland in 1979) has change won without being an established consensus first.

Referendums tend to disappoint people who want change for at least two reasons. The campaign forces the people who like the status quo to articulate their case, which is often drowned out in normal times by the noise and enthusiasm of the pro-change forces (as it was on electoral reform and Europe). Second, the electorate often instinctively fears change, even if they do not much like what they have already – in fact, hard times often make people more cautious about any change, as we saw in the 1992 election. To win a referendum, the case for change has to be familiar to people, feel as if it is important, and to win on both emotional and logical considerations.

There was considerable interest at the Conservative conference in the lessons of the AV referendum for ‘winning’ a vote on Europe. However, the victory of ‘No’ on AV has more lessons to teach the pro-EU side in any referendum – how to activate fears of change and put the cause for change on the back foot. The case against EU membership is not a matter of consensus, and few electors care all that much about it. The anti-EU forces are a mirror image of the Yes to AV campaign – fascinated by a subject that bores the electorate, self-regarding with their own private language and their own conventional wisdom. An In/ Out referendum is just as much a trap for people who oppose the EU as an AV referendum was for electoral reformers. As a pro-European, I say ‘bring it on’. But don’t let’s bring it on until we wouldn’t be pouring petrol on a financial conflagration, eh?

Lewis Baston is co-author of “Don’t Take No For An Answer” – the comprehensive story of the AV referendum