The People have Spoken
But who are they, and can they change their mind?
On Thursday morning, the 21st of March 2019, a petition gained signatures by the second. By late afternoon, it had received more than one million, and by the weekend more than five million signatures. It called on the United Kingdom’s government to revoke Article 50 and remain in the European Union. On the same day, Theresa May, prime minister of the United Kingdom, visited Brussels to negotiate Brexit with the European Union, again.
The petition states that:
“The government repeatedly claims exiting the EU is ‘the will of the people’. We need to put a stop to this claim by proving the strength of public support now, for remaining in the EU. A People’s Vote may not happen — so vote now.”
Meanwhile, in a speech Theresa May gave on the 20th of March, she expressed her belief that ‘the people’ want the government ‘to get on with it’. She does not believe that ‘the people’ want a second referendum, because they already told the government what they want.
Clearly, these ideas of what ‘the people’ want are quite different. The reason could be that they rest on different ideas of who ‘the people’ are.
When Theresa May speaks of The Will of the People, ‘People’ cannot refer to the sum of all citizens or individuals living in the United Kingdom. After all, not everybody voted for Brexit. Of over sixty million people who live in the United Kingdom, a little more than seventeen million voted to leave the European Union. Most of those who live in the United Kingdom did not vote for Brexit.
So, why do May and the government keep referring to ‘The Will of the People’? The People they refer to is a social entity created by the referendum. The People is not reducible to all individuals living in the United Kingdom. Only the majority of those who voted gave the government a mandate to leave the European Union by voting for Brexit. The government now has to enact this ‘Will of the People’ in the best interest of all, even though many did not want to leave in the first place.
This is problematic, and has been from the start. In trying to leave the European Union, the government had no idea whether The People wanted a ‘hard’ or ‘soft’ Brexit. The Will of the People, as established by the referendum, was no longer reducible to identifiable individuals. To determine how to proceed, the government could thus not go back to The People and ask what they meant by Brexit. This would have required another public vote to determine a new Will of the People.
Meanwhile, the individuals who actually live in the United Kingdom continue to be divided. Many are fed up. And over one million marched in London to demand a second referendum. This time, the result might be different.
What happens if the majority of individuals living in the United Kingdom, or even those eligible to vote, changed their opinion, and now wanted to remain? The Will of the People stays the same, it has been determined in June 2016. This could mean that, even if a large majority of those eligible to vote now wanted to stay in the European Union, the United Kingdom could leave, because of The Will of the People created by the referendum.
One could argue that this is simply the fate of the losers of a referendum. A referendum determines the will of the majority of those who vote — what else should a government go by?
But the turbulent years since the referendum brought the Irish border conundrum to the stage, revealed that the campaign was not conducted fairly, and showed us, day after day, a government in a state of disarray, unable to decide, let alone think.
Given these circumstances, it might seem reasonable to give the people another say on the matter, instead of the government blindly pursuing the decision of an abstract People, no matter what.
The Will of the People has not changed. But the people’s will might have. The question is who the government will, and should, listen to.
