How Politicians Betray Referenda

It is worth perhaps noting that in the PPC Roadshow, or perhaps better named the Russell Labey Roadshow, the expenses to the taxpayer amount to £820 for the video produced to present it to the public, while meanwhile, the posters produced by the Parishes come out of the Constable’s Private Pockets.

Going back to the last referendum on the matter of the Constables, the  principal people working on the wording of text of the "Yes Campaign" were Steve Pallett, James Rondel and myself with additional input from Steve Luce and Juliette Gallichan but there was input from everyone. Amy Vatcher was also involved as a youth member with a friend of hers – it was not just “old fogies”! Steve Pallett was the main co-ordinator and did a huge amount of work  driving everything ahead  - finances, logistics of Parish Halls, speakers  etc

Everything went through the team for approval as well, which included the Constables but also other members of the team.  

The funding was raised purely from members and donors who supported the campaign, and there was not a high level of funding from any individual, or indeed in total. From memory, I don’t think the amount raised exceeded that of Russell’s video, but it came from lots of private supporters, not indirectly from the taxpayer as is the current case. Certain people have spread a myth that it has a huge amount of financial support, but it didn’t. It was just spread strategically, and indeed the website was set up my myself using a free website resource.

Mike Dun was perfectly capable of forming a team and has complained bitterly online that he had to go it alone. It was well known that Simon Crowcroft was in favour of No, so why on earth didn't he help the "No" team?  Why didn't Reform or the Reformist bunch support Mike at the time?

Meanwhile, there was some taxpayers money spent. The Yes and No Campaign each had a video message on Vote.Je, together with material in the online site and the paper document for all the election candidates, but this was distributed fairly.

As it can easily be seen, the Constables are not in favour of the current proposals, and Chris Taylor, who sits on PPC has indicated at the Parish Hall meeting there that he was not in favour, but I notice there is no evidence he was given any taxpayers money to run a campaign for a different point of view.

This is where it differs from the much more even handed A,B and C Referendum Campaign, where, whatever the merits of any point of view, it was not one sided. Even the last Referendum has two sides.

Russell back then was in favour of retaining the Senators, and actually backed the Option C – I remember him speaking at Les Quennevais meeting.

It is not the first time politicians have betrayed the result of a Referendum, as of course the original ABC result was ignored by the States of the time.

So I wondered if any of that was expressed in the Minutes of PPC, both discussing the proposals, the decision to take it to the Parishes, and the decision to spend money on a video. Unfortunately, the PPC Minutes online reveal no discussion of this whatsoever. So much for transparency! Indeed, if it were not for the FOI request, we would not even know that. The amounts may be small in the scale at which the States spends money, but the level of transparency is disquieting.

So why is there a campaign around the Parishes, when there is not going to be another Referendum on these proposals, and  the last Referendum in 2014 – only the election prior to the previous one, came out strongly in favour of retaining the Constables in the States?

According to Russell Labey, tthe referendum on Constables, taken in 2014, is now out of date.  It’s only two years before the UK one on Brexit, and the general consensus of opinion on that (insofar as such a thing is possible) is that either the referendum should stand, and be implemented (in some manner), or a second referendum should be held, because time has moved on an people have changed their minds. Yet Russell wants to discard one Referendum, and not have another one.

He argues that it has been superceded by the comments made by election observers. Furthermore the referendum was in any event undemocratic insofar that Mike Dun was the sole campaigner for the ‘No’ vote.

But as stated above, other people could have gone on Mike’s team, and didn’t, and perhaps they need to explain why. If someone doesn’t get enough supporters in an election campaign, does that invalidate votes? Moreover, Mike Dun had an equal platform on Vote.Je and in the Vote.JE election material.

And if the result has been superceded, then surely by the same logic as those proposing a second referendum, that should be the way forward? That it is not suggests he does not have the confidence that the people of Jersey will deliver the result he wants, the same reason that Sam Mezec withdrew his proposal for an elected speaker as soon as an amendment was passed for it to go to a Referendum.

I find it amazing, but not entirely unsurprising, that populist politicians who claim to speak for the people of Jersey nevertheless do not trust the people of Jersey to make the right decisions. In this case, fearful of the popular desire, a referendum is avoided at all costs. 

And this can also be seen in the fact that unlike in the UK, the States have persistently flinched from the notion that a Referendum should be binding, even if allowances are made for a minimum threshold of turnout. [The UK didn't have the Referendum as binding but honoured it as such].

Lastly, I would like to echo the words of Deputy Labey made when the ABC Referendum came before, and was rejected by the States:

"I, like other Members, am still quite embarrassed to be debating this proposition today in the middle of a recession when I feel that we really ought to be focusing our time, money and energies on jobs, economy and homes."

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose!


Postscript:
For arguments in retaining the Constables see
http://tonymusings.blogspot.com/2018/10/preserving-subsidiary-sovereignty-of.html