Referendums and New Labour's Constitutional Reforms

Abstract

New Labour’s use of referendums was a microcosm of their project of constitutional reform as a whole: radical in some ways and conservative in others, piece-meal, plausible in theory, but with serious unintended consequences. With their 1997 manifesto, New Labour was offering a marked approach with the past. Their reintroduction of referendums after what had been an 18-year hiatus was part of that project, demonstrating that the New Labour project was indeed new and different. Referendums were central to key New Labour reforms such as devolution and European integration; they played both political and legal roles in helping to achieve these reforms. It was not only New Labour’s decisions to hold referendums that were important but their decisions not to hold referendums were crucial too. Their decision not to hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, despite promising to do so, was as important for the current status of referendums in the United Kingdom as any decision about referendums they did take. This decision was crucial because it laid the foundation for the referendum on European Union membership in 2016, one of the most significant post-war events in the United Kingdom. This paper will argue that New Labour’s legacy on referendums is principally that of compounding confusion. The status of referendums in the United Kingdom’s constitutional arrangements was confused before New Labour, but that the piecemeal approach taken by New Labour exacerbated this. Some piecemeal evolution may be inevitable in an uncodified constitution. Nevertheless, New Labour had an opportunity with the passing of the Political Parties, Elections, and Referendums Act 2000 to provide clarity about the role for referendums in the United Kingdom. They chose not to do so. The use of referendums by New Labour also, at least arguably, gave rise to some elements of a constitutional convention that referendums are required for certain types of constitutional change. The difficulty is that while the actions of New Labour gave rise to (at least some of the elements of) a constitutional convention, their actions were not consistent enough to determine what the content of that convention was.