In his speech today, David Cameron said that under a Cameron government, any petition bearing the signatures of 100,000 people would be eligible for debate in Parliament, and any petition with 1 million signatures would result in a bill being tabled in Parliament.
I'm not the first to touch on it - Paul Waugh was - but still, I think it should be debated here on CR. First, it's interesting to see the hand of Paul Judge and his Jury Team in the 2010 General Election! Or, perhaps, the Hannan/Carswell Direct Democracy agenda. Still, wherever the origin of the idea, I think that it is right. We ought to be able to influence our parliamentary discourse, and the national course, throughout a parliamentary session, not just during the election before it commences.
The devil will be in the details. This subject has been much-debated in the European context, where the Citizens' Initiative has the potential to change the nature of the EU enormously, making it far more democratic (or far less undemocratic). As pointed out on the CI website,
twelve EU Member States now provide a kind of citizens’ initiative right at the national level. However, these are designed in very different ways and include limitations on such matters as: the number of signatures required; specific timetables and deadlines; the exclusion of certain issues.
Which is the point. We know from Cameron's speech that the number of signatures required will be 100,000 for a debate and 1 million for a referendum. But in order to ensure that the issue I care about is debated / is the subject of a referendum, do I need to campaign to gather X signatures in a traditional pen-and-paper model, or can it be done online? Do I have 2 months to gather 1 million signatures, or 2 weeks? These things will make all the difference between the referendum pledge being an exciting and potentially revolutionary change to British politics, and one that makes no practical difference to British politics at all. And, as the CI comparison ominously points out, will there be issues which are verboten for discussion altogether..?
Furthermore, what methods of verification are to be used? If signatures are actual signatures, how will they be verified - perhaps, I suppose, using the Electoral Register, which now requires your signature (a development about which as I've expressed concerns before)? If not - if an electronic sign-up will do - then how will that be verified? By dint of your National Insurance number, perhaps? If so, with my Big Brother Watch hat on, I wonder - how will the data be secured? How will petition organisers be required to safeguard the data they harvest? And if electronic sign-ups won't be accepted, why not? In this day and age, isn't it absurd to force people (at the cost of not having their idea heard if they don't comply) to go out on a wet Saturday afternoon and disturb people in their homes one by one by physically knocking on the door, when said people can be far more efficiently and reasonably contacted by other, more modern methods?
Finally, I point out that this is a very brave thing for the Leader to have done. whilst Labour may now regret the creation of the Freedom of Information Act, but it did the right thing in passing it and in making a rod for the citizen to use on the government's back. Equally, Cameron will appreciate that in promising referenda like this he may be creating an enormous problem for any future Conservative government faced with a UKIP-inspired referendum on Europe (or, indeed, a referendum on the death penalty, which is - to restate a cliché - favoured by a majority of the people, but not by those who are supposed to represent the people's wishes [and, to state for the avoidance of doubt not by me]). Nevertheless, it is the right thing to do, so he has done it. He should be applauded for it.
Note: I think it's worth looking at the CI website to see how this issue gets debated in other countries, and indeed to see the countries which already have it in one form or another, like Italy and the Netherlands