Professor McGiffen Publishes Paper on Brexit and Democracy

Professor Steve McGiffen recently had a paper published in the peer-reviewed quarterly journal Socialism and Democracy [McGiffen, Steve. (2017). On Brexit and Democracy: Response to Emma Bell. Socialism and Democracy. 31. 74-81. 10.1080/08854300.2017.1379796.] Professor McGiffen provides the following Op-Ed summarizing his article.

"Bell wrote a paper on Brexit, which was published in Socialism and Democracy. While it made a number of telling points, it also contained a great deal with which I disagreed. I wrote to the editor criticizing her piece and he invited me to write a response. My central point was that while most young people voted against Brexit, there was also a huge Labour vote from the same age group in the general election, which wiped out the Tory majority. There is a contradiction in this, as much of what the newly-radicalised Labour Party under Corbyn includes in its political programme would be illegal under the Lisbon Treaty.

The UK government, unlike the power structures of the EU, is relatively easy to remove and replace. For the first time since 1983, a real social democratic party is challenging for power and the Tory government is ripe to be ousted. The Labour manifesto for last year's general election was arguably the party's most left wing ever. Although Labour failed to win on this platform, it deprived the Tories of their overall majority, forcing them into coalition with the far right (Northern Irish) Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), whose main aim is to preserve the protestant-unionist ascendancy in the North of Ireland.

In my paper I cite a number of instances where the Lisbon Treaty clashes with Labour commitments: on industrial policy and state aids; on the renationalisation of private rail operators and the Royal Mail; on the normative content of trade deals both for goods and services; on commercial aspects of intellectual property; on foreign direct investment; and on the Multilateral Investment Court, which in the Trade Union Council view, will 'undermine domestic legal systems, threaten workers’ rights and public services” and enable “corporate lawyers … to claim legitimate policies passed to protect workers and society are a form of ‘indirect expropriation’.'

The referendum 'debate' was a disgrace to the country, but lies and half-truths were told by both sides, which scarcely distinguishes it from general elections. Moreover, the referendum was at least democratic insofar as the side which got the most votes won. In general elections, the prize of government invariably goes to a party which most of the electorate did not vote for. No party has won more than 50% of the votes cast since the Second World War.

Bell fails to define some of her most important terms. Democracy is conceived rather narrowly in purely parliamentary terms. Democracy is not simply a matter of elections, however, and Britain’s undemocratic nature is not limited to its electoral system. It has an unelected head of state and an unelected upper house; successive governments have deprived local authorities of substantial powers and resources; and no attempt is made to ensure that the people are well-informed about the decisions they are electing people to make on their behalf.

Finally, Bell does not really ask, let alone attempt in any sustained way to answer the question of why the people of the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union, whose predecessor it joined over forty years ago. UKIP and the Conservative right, in inadvertent collaboration with the Guardian-reading liberal 'left', succeeded in transforming what should have been a debate about economics and politics into a culture war. A large slice of the electorate appeared to be voting on the basis of their beliefs about culture and identity, in relation to which EU membership is in reality scarcely relevant. By the day of the vote, the referendum question might as well have been 'Are you okay with foreigners?'"