Another advantage is that they give the people a direct say, therefore increasing democracy in the UK. They also provide a greater participation; this ensures that voting does not just take place every 5 years. By having the public involved more often in voting, it gives them the incentive to be more educated with politics, and how to help the government better the society that they live in. This also links to the use of referendums helping to legitimise important issues made by the government. An example of this is devolution. In 1997 referendums on this issue, both Wales and Scotland voted in favour of devolution, thus giving consent to the government to implement this and legitimising the decision.
Referendums can also help strengthen a government. If a referendum is used this could increase public support as it shows that the government listens to the people. However, if a referendum is not used when promised, such as the Labour government promising a referendum on the Euro but not actually having one, the public support can be decreased, and therefore becomes a disadvantage.
Moreover, people believe that referendums should not be used more widely. Firstly a referendum leaves the decision in the hands of the public. However, the public do not always have the whole of society’s interests at heart. In fact some may use referendums to express their dissatisfaction with the government of the day rather than voting on the question at hand. Furthermore, the whole population of the UK are not necessarily educated with the subject matter. This means that they are essentially voting without understanding what/how is will affect them, or not even voting at all. This may lead to low turnouts, and therefore a lack of legitimacy.
The turnout of a referendum can have a massive impact on its affect. For example in the London 1998 referendum questioning whether or not there should be a mayor, there was a turnout of only 34.1%. Not only does this prove the fact that a referendum’s results are not always something that the majority of the population wants, but it also affects the referendums legitimacy. Moreover the turnout of a referendum cannot be predicted and therefore unreliable. For these reasons I think that referendums should not be widely spread across the UK.
Overall I believe that referendums should not be widely spread across the UK, as they are not always legitimate. They also go by the rule of majority rules. This means that small minority groups could easily be overlooked, and their opinions and views would almost be seen as insignificant. However having a stable government with representatives, allows all minorities’ views to be put across. The point of having politicians represent the population is that they have political experience and knowledge to make correct and justified decisions. Referendums undermine the part of representative democracy as the general public is mainly badly informed, uneducated in politics and lack political experience. This means that although referendums give the public what they want, what the public want could be very bad for the country in the long term.
by
lanasami (student)
