Unpopular Consultation

It is a fine democratic principle that important matters outside the scope of party politics may be put directly to popular vote. The problem arises when the politicians fail in identifying those matters that are important to the people.

Last time round, voters decided that abortion is unimportant - less than 50% turnout failed to produce a convincing result. I fail to see that anything has changed in that respect.

Personally, as a man of few strongly held beliefs, I have no firm opinion on the matter and have never had a personal experience that made it relevant to me. Just as in the European Constitution referendum that never took place, I don't like the "question" approved by the Constitutional Court; technical precision and clarity are not compatible here.

Above all, I hope that a majority of voters turn out, even if it is to spoil their ballot papers. Otherwise all we will have is proof that it was an "unpopular" consultation, allowing the politicians to waste time and resources on debating the timing of the next repeat, instead of running the country, which is what they were elected to do. Unfortunately, I doubt that there will be enough votes, so the saga will run and run.