Part 1: On Brexit
The Will of the People
Firstly, there is no such thing as a singular “will of the people,” or even a single “people.” This is a slogan designed to pull us in emotionally because it sounds right, without any grounding in reality.
- The original referendum had a turnout of 72% – slightly over ⅔ of the registered voters. Those voters were then split roughly down the middle. This means that actually only just over ⅓ voters felt strongly enough at the time to actually vote to leave the EU. Another ⅓ felt strongly enough that they wanted to remain, while just under ⅓ either didn’t know, didn’t care, refused to vote or couldn’t vote for whatever reason.
- What does “leave” actually mean? There are multiple possibilities within that, none of which are compatible with each other:
- Leave, but remain in the single market and customs union – “Norway style”
- Leave, and leave the single market and customs union but strike a free trade deal with the EU – “Canada style”. This has two further major sub-options to be considered:
- Leave, but with some other kind of deal, whether negotiated by Teresa May or an as-yet-unspecified deal certain government Brexit supporters say they could get but haven’t provided any details around. See option (b) re Irish border.
- Leave with no deal at all. See option (b) re Irish border.
- Whatever the “will of the people” in June 2016 was – however diverse and nebulous that actually was, as per point 2 above – that can’t be said to be the same now. So much more information has come to light, and the topics surrounding Brexit have been explored in so much more detail, that those same people will in many cases have different views or more in-depth or nuanced views than they did at the time of the first referendum. The only way to know the “will of the people” now would be to measure it again.
- The composition of the “people” has also changed. Some previous voters will have died. Others have come of age. There’s also a question on whether the voting age should be lowered as well, further changing the voting demographic. Regardless of what way these people might vote, it’s undeniable that “the people” in 2016 are not the same as “the people” in 2018.
Legality of the Referendum
We all, presumably, have absolute faith that our opinions on this issue are entirely our own, developed independently within our own heads based on the information we choose to consume and how we process it.
The reality, however, is that we are all susceptible to outside influence, perhaps even more than we might imagine.
It is now undeniable that some of that outside influence of people’s opinions during the 2016 referendum were certainly illegal, and almost certainly unethical, and perhaps even treasonous.
To allow ourselves to be shackled to the result of the referendum knowing this raises serious doubts about the strength and, indeed, sovereignty of our democracy.
Lifted from Wikipedia, we now know at least the following:
- On 9 May 2016, Leave.EU was fined £50,000 by the UK Information Commissioner’s Office ‘for failing to follow the rules about sending marketing messages’.
- On 4 March 2017, the Information Commissioner’s Office also reported that it was ‘conducting a wide assessment of the data-protection risks arising from the use of data analytics, including for political purposes’ in relation to the Brexit campaign. It was specified that among the organisations to be investigated was Cambridge Analytica and its relationship with the Leave.EU campaign.
- In October 2017, a study by researchers at City, University of London identified 13,493 Twitter accounts that posted a total of about 65,000 messages in the last four weeks of the Brexit referendum campaign, the vast majority campaigning for a “Leave” vote; they were deleted shortly after the referendum.
- A further 26,538 Twitter accounts suddenly changed their username. The research findings “raised questions about the possibility that a coordinated ‘bot army’ was deployed, and also about the possibility that Twitter itself may have detected and removed them without disclosing the manipulation”.
- After denying it for over a year, Facebook admitted in November 2017 that it was targeted by Russian trolls in the run-up to the Brexit referendum. According to Facebook, Russian-based operatives spent 97 cents to place three adverts on the social network in the run-up to the referendum, which were viewed 200 times.
- On 10 June 2018, The Guardian reported that investigators from The Observer had seen evidence that Leave.EU funder Arron Banks had met Russian officials “multiple times” from 2015 to 2017 and had discussed “a multibillion dollar opportunity to buy Russian goldmines”.
- In February 2017, the Electoral Commission announced that it was investigating the spending of Stronger In and Vote Leave, along with smaller parties, as they had not submitted all the necessary invoices, receipts, or details to back up their accounts. In April 2017, the Commission specified that ‘there were reasonable grounds to suspect that potential offences under the law may have occurred’ in relation to Leave.EU.
- In May 2017, The Irish Times reported that £425,622 donated by the Constitutional Research Council to the Democratic Unionist Party for spending during the referendum may have originated in Saudi Arabia.
- In November 2017, the Electoral Commission said that it was investigating allegations that Arron Banks, an insurance businessman and the largest single financial supporter of Brexit, violated campaign spending laws. The Commission’s investigation focuses on both Banks and Better for the Country Limited, a company of which Banks is a director and majority shareholder. The company donated £2.4 million to groups supporting British withdrawal from the EU. The investigation began after the Commission found “initial grounds to suspect breaches of electoral law”. The Commission specifically seeks to determine “whether or not Mr Banks was the true source of loans reported by a referendum campaigner in his name” and “whether or not Better for the Country Limited was the true source of donations made to referendum campaigners in its name, or if it was acting as an agent”.
- In December 2017, the Electoral Commission announced several fines related to breaches of campaign finance rules during the referendum campaign. The Liberal Democrats were fined £18,000; The Immigrants Political Party was fined £2,500; the Traditional Unionist Voice had to pay £1,850; and Open Britain (formerly Britain Stronger in Europe) paid £1,250 in fines. The maximum possible fine was £20,000.
- In March 2018, Deutsche Welle reported that Canadian whistleblower Christopher Wylie “told UK lawmakers during a committee hearing…that a firm linked to Cambridge Analytica helped the official Vote Leave campaign [the official pro-Brexit group headed by Boris Johnson and Michael Gove] circumvent campaign financing laws during the Brexit referendum”.
- In May 2018, the Electoral Commission fined Leave.EU £70,000 for unlawfully overspending by a minimum of £77,380 – exceeding the statutory spending limit by more than 10%, inaccurately reporting three loans it had received from Aaron Banks totalling £6 million including “a lack of transparency and incorrect reporting around who provided the loans, the dates the loans were entered into, the repayment date and the interest rate”, and failing to provide the required invoices for “97 payments of over £200, totalling £80,224”. The Electoral Commission’s director of political finance and regulation and legal counsel said that the “level of fine we have imposed has been constrained by the cap on the commission’s fines”.
- In the same month, the Electoral Commission issued fines totalling £4,000 to one pro-EU referendum permitted participant and two pro-EU trade unions.
- In July 2018, the Electoral Commission fined Vote Leave £61,000 for not declaring £675,000 incurred under a common plan with BeLeave, unlawfully overspending by £449,079, inaccurately reporting 43 items of spending totalling £236,501, failing to provide the required invoices for “8 payments of over £200, totalling £12,850”, and failing to comply with an investigation notice issued by the Commission. Darren Grimes representing BeLeave was fined £20,000, the maximum permitted individual fine, for exceeding its spending limit as an unregistered campaigner by more than £660,000 and delivering an inaccurate and incomplete spending return. Veterans for Britain was also fined £250 for inaccurately reporting a donation it received from Vote Leave.
- The Electoral Commission referred the matter to the police. On 14th September 2018, following a High Court of Justice case, the court found that Vote Leave had received incorrect advice from the UK Electoral Commission, but confirmed that the overspending had been illegal. Vote Leave subsequently said they would not have paid it without the advice.
How to Make the Final Brexit Decision
The final decision around Brexit will be the most important, and the most impactful in British political history since the decision to join the EC. The decision must not be made without the maximum possible engagement of the wider population.
The options available for engaging the population in making the final decision appear to be:
Second Referendum
The advantage of a second referendum is that it would identify, as close as possible, “the will of the people” as it is right now, at the very time when the final decision has to be made.
The only way such a referendum would work is by increasing the number of options available on which to vote. All leave scenarios as detailed above should be included. In addition, remaining in the EU must also be an option.
But there is potential danger in this.
All of the weaknesses of the initial referendum could easily apply to a second. The wealthiest campaign backers are easily able to soak up the fines imposed on them well after the fact if they breach campaign and electoral law.
In fact, the wealthiest hedge funds, stock brokers, and currency traders were able to make huge profits out of the referendum result, easily dwarfing the sorts of fines the Electoral Commission was limited to.
In addition, there is no current political or technical answer to the short of data mining and data-powered political targeting which we now know Cambridge Analytica and AggregateIQ (a Canadian company) were providing in the USA and UK. What’s more, there’s very little that could prevent foreign entities using such tools to influence such votes. If anything, a simple referendum with a limited set of options is even easier to manipulate in this way.
It’s also clear that holding a second referendum would cause even greater division and anger in the UK. The idea of a second vote has already been called a “betrayal.”
For many leave voters, who justifiably have felt for many years that they’ve been neglected and harmed by political policies, the outcome of the referendum was a victory.
Regardless of the harsh realities of actually leaving the EU, they won. And not only did they win, but the people they feel they beat were the same political classes who they perceive as having neglected and harmed them over the years.
To such people, any path which opens the door for the UK to remain in the EU after all feels like their victory has been taken away. They’ve had something stolen from them, and that same political class has regained the upper hand without feeling the full effects of the blow they were sure they’d dealt.
To such people I say that the result of the referendum absolutely has been respected.
For over two years, our government has pursued all options to deliver Brexit. We now know what actually leaving the EU will look like in more concrete terms – something very few people really knew in 2016.
But the reality is that all of those Brexit options will leave us worse off.
However bad your current situation, or the situation you believe others in this country are in, it is now an indisputable fact that leaving the EU will not solve those problems.
British people won’t become richer, they won’t have more chance of getting employment, they won’t get a better salary, they won’t have access to more benefits, it’s even possible that total immigration would go down – certainly not in the mid-to-long term.
So, the result of the referendum has been respected by the government sincerely pursuing Brexit to reveal all of those things. Now we have enough evidence to back up those points about the realities of leaving the EU, the question has changed. New question, new referendum.
General Election
If the final decision on the outcome of Brexit is to sit with Parliament, rather than a second referendum, then a general election must be held beforehand.
In that case, the Conservatives must come to a consensus within their own party of which Brexit option they will take – that they will continue with Brexit now seems beyond debate.
Labour must therefore provide true opposition, as is their role and responsibility as the opposition party.
They must oppose Brexit and lead an election campaign based on the positives of remaining in the EU and how they will operate as a continuing member of the EU and also how they will manage the internal affairs of the country to improve the lives of all voters, especially those of leave voters who have so many justifiable grievances.
The other “major” parties now need to make it clear that the decline in the standard of life and of happiness for so many voters – leave voters especially – is not down to membership of the EU but in fact down to the policies of our own governments over many years.
They should (as their position is almost exclusively one of remaining in the EU) back remaining in the EU but provide a vision of an improved future within the EU. They should bring new policies to the discussion which will truly benefit the people, but which will be more easily achieved with the prosperity and freedoms we have through our EU membership.
People’s Assembly
In short, a people’s assembly is made up of members of the public, not politicians, who are randomly selected to be broadly representative of the demographic makeup of the country.
The assembly would be provided with only factual information and expert analysis, which they would use to discuss the issue. When the assembly meets, the session might include expert presentations, Q&A sessions, debate, roundtable discussions, and so on. Ideally, the sessions would be broadcast, and the views of the public may be submitted to be discussed in advance of the sessions.
Ultimately, the assembly would provide a report or reports to the government which should be considered to be truly representative of the informed view of the nation.
In this case, then, the final government decision would be made based on the ultimate consensus of the people’s assembly. In order to do that properly, a delay would first have to be sought in the UK withdrawal date and/or Article 50 would have to be rescinded.
My Desire for Brexit
Simple: I don’t want it to happen. I believe that the evidence firmly backs the position that the UK and its people will be worse off by any measurable statistic if we leave the EU.
I also believe that the freedoms and opportunities provided to us by the EU cannot be matched through any other mechanism.
To have the freedom to move around, to live and work, to have a family, and to do business across thirty countries is unparalleled anywhere else in the world.
Considering that some countries even restrict internal travel for their citizens, this is both a freedom and an opportunity that we must not take for granted in any circumstances.
The world is both seeming to expand but also become more connected. The way to prosper and to make the most of our lives in this wide world is to become more connected with our fellow world citizens, not to separate ourselves from them.
But the EU is not perfect, much like our own government. It is imperative that we use this entire referendum/Brexit process to learn. The government must own up to its failures not just in recent times but also going back across successive governments.
We must look carefully at the failures of housing, NHS funding and privatisation, public transport, the social security system, funding for the emergency services, and more. And it must be made clear that we have and have always had sovereignty to manage these issues ourselves, and they have not been dictated to us by the EU.
As such, we have and will continue to have the power within our government to make them better, to right the wrongs of past governments, and to genuinely provide a better future for our people. All while remaining a member of the EU.
We must also formulate a position on how to reform and improve the EU.
We must lead the way in showing how the EU can be more accountable and transparent to the people of its members.
Before all of the troubles of leaving the EU became so starkly clear, there were significant movements to leave the EU in other European countries, such as France, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Hungary and so on.
These countries have seen what’s happening to the UK and the attitudes of their people towards the EU have become more favourable, but it seems clear that there would be huge popular support for reform of the EU now, rather than leaving it or abolishing it.
The UK has always been one of the leading members of the EU, but now could be even more so by embracing everything we have experienced and learnt since 2016 and using it proactively and positively to help build an even better EU and even better societies for ourselves and our fellow European nations.
Part 2: On UK Politics
The Future of UK Politics
Regardless of the outcome of Brexit, the UK must find a new politics. So much of what has happened over the last few years – dating right back to David Cameron deciding to hold the EU Referendum simply to bolster his own position as party leader – has shown that our political system is no longer fit for the modern world, or this modern UK.
We must have immediate and powerful reform on not just the political system in this country, but also of who is – and can realistically be – a part of it.
Parliamentary Reform
Although there is no single figure, the balance of reporting and estimates places the personal financial cost to a candidate of running a general election campaign to be somewhere around or above £30,000.
That’s of their own money. And of course anyone with a hope of getting elected can’t work another full time job at the same time as campaigning.
The end result is clear and soul destroying: while anyone is allowed to run for election, only the rich can be elected.
On top of that, the lack of term limits for our MPs means that our Parliament suffers from “career politicians.” This is all they do, in some cases all they ever have done, and their intention is for it to be all they ever will do. And the longer they stay in Parliament, the more likely they are to get side work doing newspaper columns and public speaking and book deals to bolster their income well into retirement – when they’ll probably be put into the House of Lords.
The solution? Limit the number of terms an MP can serve in Parliament. I believe this should be either two or three terms, meaning a maximum stay in Parliament for any one person would be 10 or 15 years.
This will force parties to bring through more new faces and ultimately many more people will be directly involved in politics in this country.
To deal with the problem of only the rich being able to afford getting a political career off the ground, we must limit the total campaign cost per party per seat. Each party will have a pot which must be used, and all campaign spending must be made from that pot, with no single candidate able to claim above the per seat limit.
In the long term, I would see this money not coming from private donations to parties, but rather directly from government accounts. Any person or party capable of demonstrating via a form of pre-election support register that they meet a certain threshold of support will qualify to receive the funding. This will further increase the accessibility of a political career for all members of our society regardless of income or social class.
Additionally, we are plagued with politicians who deny their responsibilities by failing to attend debates and votes in Parliament. Check your MP’s voting record here.
Currently there is no record kept of the attendance at Parliament by politicians. I believe there should be a minimum attendance threshold, and a minimum percentage of parliamentary votes – 80% – which must be participated in by any MP.
Government by the People
But beyond that I advocate for the single biggest change to our political system that we would have ever seen: the permanent introduction of a People’s Parliament.
This would be brought in through a phased approach, beginning with the very same People’s Assembly concept introduced earlier.
The phases would look something like this:
Phase 1: People’s Assembly
As drastic as this may seem, it is now already being used by some governments around the world. Even in neighbouring Ireland, a Citizen’s Assembly has been introduced and its first major task was to provide a report for the government on the issue of abortion prior to the referendum on that subject.
The UK’s People’s Assembly would take a similar form. An assembly made up of randomly selected citizens will meet regularly to become informed, debate, and ultimately provide guidance to government on the most serious issues facing our country.
The government will be bound to respond to the reports, and will debate them in Parliament. This will lead to certain recommendations being brought into UK law or regulations, being considered by further independent bodies, or being rejected.
Phase 2: People’s House
Our government is currently made up of two Houses: the Commons and the Lords. The role of the House of Lords is to review and scrutinise, and where it deems necessary to challenge and amend Bills from the House of Commons. As such, it is able to require the Commons to reconsider their decisions.
Under Phase 2 of this reform, a third house would be introduced: the House of the People. This would be a permanent house made up of randomly selected citizens who would be required (and legally permitted) to take a leave of absence from their ordinary employment for a fixed duration.
While they would act in the same way as the People’s Assembly, the full time nature of the House means that the topics they can consider would be more numerous. In essence, they would be able to become informed and debate on any topic of governance and provide reports to Parliament which would have to be considered and responded to.
The House of Commons would become the “middle” house of government, and the House Of the People “lower” house.
This can be considered Phase 2(a). However, it would in time be followed by Phase 2(b), which would be the removal entirely of the House of Lords.
The “checks and balances” function currently provided by the House of Lords would be taken over additionally by the House of the People, creating a circular structure whereby reports from the House of the People may lead to Bills from the Commons but these would be reviewed and occasionally amended by the House of the People.
Phase 3: People’s Parliament
The ultimate step in creating true representation, true equality, and true public ownership of our democracy.
In the final phase, the elected House of Commons itself is removed. The only form of government we have will be one made up of randomly selected citizens chosen to be broadly representative of the makeup of our country.
A separate, independent body made up of civil servants and members of the judiciary will administer and chair the People’s House, and provide guidance and assistance with the actual process of drafting Bills, but this will ultimately become the responsibility of the People’s House.
With this final reform, we would see the ultimate act of service by a politician: that of making themselves redundant. In implementing this, politicians would be choosing to put themselves out of a job for the greater good of our country.
The Heart of the Pathway
All great movements, whether political, technological, philosophical, musical, educational, or otherwise all start with something simple: an idea.
My idea is that we are all, ultimately, not so different. Nobody would choose a better life for themselves at the expense of others if a better life for everyone was on the table. That’s what this provides.
We would move gradually but definitively to a system whereby the political system is truly representative of the people. Facts, ideas, and analysis would all be available to government fairly and transparently, having been checked for accuracy beforehand.
The window for manipulation and abuse of our electoral systems will be firmly shut.
As the world continues to both grow and yet become more connected, we will not so much be swept along by the tide as we will ride the wave with flexibility, confidence, and character.
We will be true leaders in Europe, and in the wider world. Our democratic model will pull others towards us. We will make the decisions as we see fit, which will see us make progress in every aspect of our lives, and only in ways which benefit all.
This is the idea which is at the heart of my Pathway for the UK’s future.
The Roadmap for the UK's Future 
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