Theresa May (Front) speaks during the no-deal Brexit vote in the House of Commons in London, Britain, on March 13, 2019.
| unreguser/Press Association. All rights reserved.
Brexit is not binary
Meaningful votes mean less and less. Indeed, outcomes of binary ballots can be fake!
18 March 2019, 4.32pm
The Danish parliament uses plurality voting; the Finns and Swedes opt for serial voting; the Norwegians have provision for two-round voting. Sadly, even when the question isn’t binary – and Brexit is definitely not binary – Westminster still relies on binary ballots.
A binary ballot may be ‘meaningful’ if and when there are only two options. When there are three or more options, however, it might mean next to nothing. Consider a hypothetical debate on five options – A, B, C, D and E – in a parliament of 100 MPs with the following imaginary levels of 1st preference support:
Brexit options
| Screenshot
Help us uncover the truth about Covid-19
The Covid-19 public inquiry is a historic chance to find out what really happened.
A majority vote – “A, yes-or-no?” “B, yes-or-no?” etc. – could be ‘meaningless’ as there are majorities of 70%, 90%, 75%, 80% and 85% against each. There’s no majority for anything.
A different majority vote – “A or B?” “A or C?”… “B or C?”… “C or D?” etc.; there are ten such pairings altogether – could give one of four different outcomes: A, C, D or E. Again, therefore, any outcome could mean not very much.
Brexit options
| Screenshot
Political leaders like majority votes. In parliaments or in referendums, they choose the question and, usually, the question is then the answer. Mrs May is now ‘disguising’ her “C, yes or no?” vote (which she could again lose) as a “C or E?” vote (which she might win). But logically, any conclusion that such a ‘25:15’ majority result, now ‘disguised’ as, say, 55:45, represented “the will of parliament” would be ‘fake’.
In contrast, preferential voting would produce an outcome which was accurate and ‘meaningful’. Such an outcome might be the 1st preference of few but, if it were the 2nd or 3rd of umpteen, then maybe it would indeed get the highest average preference score. Such preferential voting is a “best interpretation of majority rule,” (Oxford Concise Dictionary of Politics), and should be the basis of parliamentary decision-making.
Why should you care about freedom of information?
From coronation budgets to secretive government units, journalists have used the Freedom of Information Act to expose corruption and incompetence in high places. Tony Blair regrets ever giving us this right. Today's UK government is giving fewer and fewer transparency responses, and doing it more slowly. But would better transparency give us better government? And how can we get it?
Join our experts for a free live discussion at 5pm UK time on 15 June.
Hear from:
Claire Miller Data journalism and FOI expert
Martin Rosenbaum Author of ‘Freedom of Information: A Practical Guidebook’; former BBC political journalist
Jenna Corderoy Investigative reporter at openDemocracy and visiting lecturer at City University, London
Chair: Ramzy Alwakeel Head of news at openDemocracy
Comments
We encourage anyone to comment, please consult the oD commenting guidelines if you have any questions.