We need a referendum on Starmer's 'Change'

Starmer’s government has saddled up for a full Parliamentary session but the question of Labour’s legitimation remains. This is not merely a new administration but one with a comprehensive socialist plan it wishes to implement. The potential impact of ‘Golden’ Brown’s grand strategy on our constitutional arrangements is arguably far greater than the Brexit issue. Labour are pushing it through on the positive assent of 20.2% of the electorate in a dangerously low turnout, and even some of those who did vote Red may be experiencing buyer’s remorse already.

If we had agreed in 2011 to introduce the Alternative Vote (AV) the turnout would likely have been far higher (as it was in the 2016 EU Referendum) and the results could have been startlingly different. Imagine for example if Reform’s 14.3% vote share was boosted by Tories who had switched to the Liberal Democrats as a plausible alternative, plus other Conservatives who had simply abstained in despair.

The disconnect between Westminster and the people is wider than ever. Starmer cannot simply equate his majority in Parliament with the popular will. The freakish General Election result might be enough for a change of train driver in the ordinary way but is not sufficient to authorise a complete change of track and destination.

In 1816 Thomas Jefferson suggested that since the world belongs to the living only, the people should be able to amend or rewrite the constitution under which they are governed, when half those alive at the last one have passed on. Unless we accept the divine right of kings and their appointed Prime Ministers, our legislative body should have the imprimatur of those from whom power originates. Of those who expressed a preference at the ballot box in July, 66.3% must be counted ‘not content.’ There must be a better system for getting general agreement to an historic decision.

Parliament itself shows us a way when electing a new Speaker of the House of Commons. A series of ballots is held, each time ejecting losers, until one candidate has more than half the votes in the last round. This method takes subsidiary preferences into account and so is a sort of Alternative Vote.

Labour has radical and, so it hopes, irreversible proposals for our system of government. Let them put those ideas to the electorate by a simple nationwide yes or no. If there is more than one such scheme put forward, let us choose and approve by AV.

The alternative is to press on regardless, blocking the escape valve in the pressure cooker with police action, propaganda and media collusion while turning up the heat. When Elon Musk said civil war in the UK is inevitable he may have been thinking about more than riotous, so-called ‘right wing’ demonstrations against unlimited migration.

We need a constitutional referendum.