Honour the result? Yes - but which one?

I recently had a conversation over a beer with a Brexit-supporting friend (yes I do have them) which caused me to think about the mandate conferred by the 2016 referendum in a way I had not previously considered.

During the course of the conversation it was obvious that we couldn't agree on whether the Liberal Democrats' pledge to revoke Article 50 was democratic or whether it was an affront to the 17.4 million people who had voted to leave in 2016.

Though we never quite got to the point of stating it the implication of the discussion seemed to be that all parties standing in the 2017 and 2019 General Elections should have pledged to uphold the result of the referendum. This is what I had not previously considered - as it just seems to me to be a daft idea to suddenly drop all opposition to something you fundamentally disagree with and to distort the way our parliamentary democracy works. To my mind this goes to the heart of why Remainers and Leavers can't agree on a way forward and consequently why we are in the mess we are currently in - we have fundamentally different views on the way democracy should work. You won't be surprised to learn I believe the Leavers have got it wrong.

Any given Parliament exists only between elections - once Parliament is dissolved and an election called the old Parliament ceases to exist and a new one is elected. A fundamental principle is that no Parliament can bind the hands of a future Parliament - if that was permitted then decisions made and laws passed could become immutable.

Imagine this hypothetical scenario for the current General Election contest:

- On December 13th the results are in and Labour is the largest party though without an overall majority. But if they can agree a confidence and supply arrangement with the Lib Dems then they have sufficient numbers to govern.

- Labour, flushed with its electoral 'success' against the odds decides it wants to push its nationalisation further than it proposed in its manifesto. They have a Clause 4 flashback moment and decide they want to nationalise not just the railways and the utilities but the "commanding heights of the economy" (remember that?) - so that's the banks, industry, roads, rail, airports, airlines, buses, ferries, utilities, broadcasters, housing, commercial premises, etc, etc ..

- The Lib Dems think this is lunacy and won't support it so they insist Labour have to put it to a referendum to get a mandate (notwithstanding the fact that referenda are a really bad idea, period, as we know to our cost). Horror of horrors the electorate think the nationlisation blitz its a good idea and Labour win the referendum.

- The Lib Dems want no part of this and exit the confidence and supply arrangement. Labour can no longer govern as a minority party so they decide to go back to the country to ask for a majority to implement their new plans.

Now - in these circumstances are the Tories and Brexitters going to abandon their lifetimes' work of "fighting the scourge of socialism" by putting in their manifesto a binding commitment to honour Labour's referendum result to nationalise the economy? Are they seriously suggesting that if they win and take power they will propose a bill to implement Labour's new Marxist utopia? Or will they stick to their political principles and oppose it tooth and nail both in their manifesto and then as an elected government with a fresh mandate or as an opposition if they fail to win?

Obviously the question is rhetorical and we know they would oppose it. And so they should - because once everyone is in agreement, democracy is in serious trouble. We know the Tories would ask the electorate for a mandate to support their view that the referendum result was the wrong decision for the country. The principle here is the referendum result cannot bind parties looking for a new mandate at a future democratic event.

This is no different to the existing argument over the EU referendum. Recall that Cameron proposed the EU membership referendum in his 2015 manifesto and committed that Parliament would implement the result if the Tories won. He got a majority and held the referendum which Leave won. He quit and May took over a majority government with which to implement the result however she failed to command the support of even her own party to get a deal through Parliament and went back to the country to ask for a majority for her proposed form of Brexit. At that point the referendum result itself became irrelevant as the most recent expression of the electorate's wishes is the General Election itself and the plans laid out in the Parties' manifestos.

As it turned out, and it's important to note this, she was denied a mandate by the electorate and Labour was also denied a mandate for its own form of Brexit. And that's where we have been for the last two years - two entirely incompatible versions of Brexit competing in a hung Parliament. This is not a failure of democracy; this IS democracy.

Do not forget that from 2016-2017 the Tories were in government with a majority, and the likely support of the DUP and some weak-willed Labour Leavers. The only obstacle to leaving the EU was the Conservative Party squabbling with itself - no other party stood in the 2015 election on a platform of leaving the EU and no other MPs had been elected with a mandate to support leaving.

So where does that leave us today? Well it is clear that the 2016 referendum result itself became irrelevant as soon as Theresa May dissolved Parliament and called the 2017 General Election, and it remains irrelevant in the 2019 contest. All that matters is what the parties contesting the election put in their manifestos. That is their platform - if they choose to "honour the result" in those manifestos then fine if not then that is also fine. But no-one is obliged to - that is how democracy works. To argue differently is to diminish the strength of our representative democracy and of our parliamentary sovereignty. What parliamentarians, and the electorate, should be honouring is the result of the 2017 General Election and forthcoming result of the election in which we are currently engaged.

But we all know the real reason that opposition to a second referendum or to revocation by the Lib Dems is so vocal - it is not that it is an affront to democracy - that argument simply does not hold water. The real reason that Farage, Johnson and co are so vocal is because they think they would lose second time around and they are desperate to get the fetid corpse of Brexit over the line while it is still lukewarm.

Ultimately what this whole sorry saga illustrates is the utter failure of Cameron's premiership. What he should have done is to outline the future trading relationship up front - discuss it the with the EU, get outline principles agreed, base it on something that exists already (eg. the EU-Canada deal) and have the courage to put THAT on the ballot - preferably in his 2015 GE manifesto or else in the 2016 referendum. Proposing a "simple in out referendum" when there is no such thing as a "simple out" was a colossal mistake and that mistake will forever be his legacy.