As one player withdraws, another enters the field. We Britons awaken this morning to find a series of fundamental challenges on our plate as we enter the 4th week since the Brexit vote which has plunged British public life into chaos. So let’s have a rundown:

1. Over the weekend those who signed the parliamentary petition to have a second referendum held (which gained in the end 4,130,391 signatures), recieved a response from Parliament saying it was stated again and again this was a once in a life time vote, and there would be no referendum, end of story. Except it’s not. Nevertheless the Petititions Committee agreed the House would debate the topic of a second referendum in September.
2. Next week we have the first hearing in the High Court of the legal challenge to the outcome of the Brexit vote, saying the referendum itself was advisory, and that any trigger of Article 50 TEU (Treaty on European Union) can only be authorised by an Act of Parliament, the bedrock of British democracy. The preliminary hearing is set for 19th July
3. On Monday (11th July), the Prime Minister received a letter from over 1,000 Barristers, including over 100 QCs, urging the Prime Minister to put the matter of leaving the EU to Parliament, in an honest debate followed by a free vote. This debate should be preceded by an independent commission on the potential costs, risks and benefits of triggering Article 50; the commission should publish a report, after which, parliament should conduct its vote. They argue this on the grounds that the referendum vote was based on “misrepresentations of fact and promises that could not be delivered”.
4. A group of parliamentarians and other figures, called the Constitution Reform Group, led by Lord Salisbury, are due this week to publish their draft Act of Union bill, in which it is proposed the UK is completely reorganised into a federal entity with the majority of power resting with regional parliaments, taken out of Westminster. The proposal includes the potential for the House of Lords to be abolished, and an English Parliament to be established alongside the Scottish parliament and the Northern Irish and Welsh Assemblies.
5. Andrea Leadsom has dropped out of the Conservative Party leadership contest, leaving Theresa May as the sole candidate for Conservative leader and Prime Minister of the UK. This news comes just as Theresa May announced her leadership bid on the back of the promise to put the Conservative Party “at the service of the working people” of Britain. The 1922 Committee have decided to install May effectively and immediately in office as Prime Minister. In response Tim Farron officially joined others including former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg in calling for an early general election, saying “There is simply no way that Theresa May should be crowned Prime Minister without even having won an election in her own party”.
6. Meanwhile the Labour Party is rocked by its own leadership race and Angela Eagle officially announces her candidacy for the leadership of the party. Despite losing a Vote of no confidence vote among the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP), Jeremy Corbyn has refused to step down considering the overwhelming support he retains among the party membership and among constituency Labour parties (CLPs). The Labour National Executive Committee (NEC) made the decision this week to include Corbyn on the ballot, however excluding members who joined the party after 12th January, and increasing the price to vote in the election for non-party members to £25.

It strikes me that Britain has completely lost, if otherwise never having prior, its sense of democracy. The result last month was along a 52-48 split, one of the closest voting results seen in modern times in Europe. Accepting it, despite all the people coming out saying “we must respect the referendum result” has received such resistance, that it’s getting clearer and clearer that people are not interested in respecting anything in British politics right now.

The series of legal voices coming out of no where on the matter of whether parliament should decide or not is particularly interesting. 1,000 barristers signing a letter incessantly trying to impress the advisory nature of the referendum and the idea that only parliament can authorise this government act is not something we ever see often. The have some good points I might add; the act authorising the referendum did not set any thresholds for turnout or outcome, which is what most votes of this type have – implying the referendum was only advisory. Many who will actually be affected by the referendum result were too young to vote. Scotland, Northern Ireland and Gibraltar all require special attention considering the vote of their populations and the constitutional impact. Finally, the impact economically of this vote needs to be assessed and considered by parliament as we get a better picture of the impact. Their proposal, for an independent Chilcot-esque commission (with supposedly a much shorter time-frame) to assess the impact of triggering Article 50 and produce a report to accompany the parliamentary debate, is also sound. This style of report, as opposed to the documents produced for George Osborne by the Treasury, might hold significant enough weight to be considered properly by the British people without their preformed biases. However there is a small snag – we’ve already voted, and there is a mandate however small, to take Britain out of the EU.

An important point to remember in this discussion is to remember the underlying tenets of democracy. Firstly, democratic government is not majority rule; the point is to, through discussion, come to the best compromise possible which accommodates all the points brought up in the discussion to the best ability of the body as a whole. Secondly, once a consensus begins to form, criticisms and potentially unseen problems with that consensus are not swept under the carpet to be ignored – we constantly challenge the consensus with continued debate. Especially if that consensus is weak, built on false assumptions, and lacking in certainty. The vote is simply the tool we use to turn the democratic process into action, by giving everyone an equal voice in what happens next. However a vote which leaves a 52-48% split is clearly no consensus. The fact that different parts of Britain – Scotland, Northern Ireland, London – are in a completely different world to those in most of England and Wales (and even there, the vote was much closer than it might seem) tells us the democratic process failed. It is true, for parliament to reject the referendum result would be undemocratic, especially without trying to solve the concerns raised in the debate, but to act as if the debate should be closed because of a 52-48 vote is nonsense.

It is along these same lines that we must quickly turn to the two leadership races which seem to be heading in ever more divisive areas. The PLP are determined to keep Corbyn off the ballot paper, despite the legal advice, members of the NEC and much of the membership being opposed and/or declaring there are no grounds for this. Corbyn’s response that he’ll take the NEC to court if they bar him from the paper, whilst entirely justified, will do little for the Party. Nevertheless, for the Labour parliamentarians to be so religiously opposed, seemingly terrified of allowing Corbyn onto the ballot, suggests a deep contempt for democracy. They all know they’d lose in a vote now. They also cannot countenance losing another vote to Corbyn and the wave of democracy that has entered the party since his election last September. I cannot see any way that this process ends smoothly. Now, on the surface, the Conservative race seems to be a closed book – Leadsom pulled out this morning. However this raises a few new questions. Firstly, as Robert Peston pointed out, the direction Theresa May seems intent on taking the country is without a doubt opposed to the intentions of George Osborne and much of the neoliberal right, many of whom made up the Leave Campaign. Furthermore, it now transpires that the only people who voted for Theresa May to be Prime Minister are Conservative MPs. It was questionable enough that only 150,000 Party members would make the decision. If this is the state of British democracy on the right, then things are even worse than we thought.

Finally, the most interesting piece of news is the proposed Act of Union – a draft bill by a series of politicians to re-engineer the UK into a federal, decentralised model based on consent. The leaders of the ‘Constitution Reform Group’ are not the typical radicals you’d expect to be pushing this motion, which will enter parliament for debate this week. Lords Salisbury, Hain and Lisvane however, seem to be willing to consider genuinely radical proposals to keep Britain intact and perhaps even bring it up to speed for the 21st Century. The ‘consensus’ that British government currently rests on is no consensus at all. It was built for an 18th Century Imperialist state with the purpose of keeping the established interests firmly in power. Stability, yes. Democracy, just about. Now, things have changed since then, but the Brexit vote has thrown open all the questions which have not been solved over the past 3 centuries of cautious evolution. The fact Scotland’s priorities lie elsewhere, the fact that a party with 36% of the vote can, completely unchallenged, lead this country into the pit it has fallen, and then replace the Prime Minister without a public vote, the fact the vast majority of the population have not any representation in between their local council and Westminster, and yet have complete control over the direction of the country with 0 regard for the rest of it.

If we are to remain a United Kingdom, power has to be taken out of Westminster, that’s for certain and is written in the draft bill. If that is the case however, then a few more changes have to accompany this. Firstly, whatever assembly(ies) are created in England, they will, I assume, follow the direction of the Scottish Parliament, Northern Irish, Welsh and London Assemblies in utilising some form of proportional representation in its voting system. Thus the trouble which has begun to arise with First-Past-the-Post (FPTP) voting will, hopefully, be erased. The proposal doesn’t say that the new, much smaller, Commons will no longer be voted through FPTP, however we can assume that most important domestic issues will be decided in the regional parliaments. Secondly, the bill explicitly suggests the House of Lords be abolished to make way for a chamber representing the regions of Britain. The other idea is that the Lords be cut down to 400 members, 75% of which would be elected on a federal basis. Either way, this mark of an England long since passed will be finally abandoned. Finally, the bill doesn’t explicitly lay out a proposal for England; instead it suggests either with a single Parliament or a series of city-region assemblies. It seems to me that no federal settlement could work where one of its states is home to almost its entire population, and doesn’t hold all the power, which is the case now. That suggests England will be have to be broken up, but that debate needs to be had either way.

Regardless of the specifics, this bill represents a revolution in British government. For the first time a federal Britain has the support of some major parliamentary figures. We are currently going through one of the most tumultuous times in British politics for decades, and whilst it doesn’t seem like it, the pieces are moving for a sea-change in the way the British people govern themselves.

Sources: The Guardian