UK Politics
General Discussion for politics in the UK.
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There was never a need for a referendum, Parliament has the absolute authority to change how its elections are run.
They should have insisted it was part of the coalition agreement, but didn't.
Like student loans, it was ultimately less important than being in power.
So the minority party, should have forced through a major constitutional change, which voters hadn’t voted for - in the name of democracy? And the idea of the referendum was bad.
Interesting take.
Well when you put it that way....
The reality though is that both Labour and the LibDems had electoral reform in their manifestos - see Labour's 2010 manifesto here, page 92 - and as their votes combined were more than the Tories (approx 15 million, versus 10) you could argue that clearly that was the will of the people, and it should have at least been subject to a vote in the Commons.
Now that obviously didn't happen, and I'm not even saying it would be a successful option in negotiation, but what did happen was that the LibDems thought - and Clegg has said this himself - that having governmental stability was more important. Even if that meant passing a lot of pretty nasty shit.
In my opinion The LD clearly thought it was the will of the people and persuaded the Tories to run the referendum to prove this and give the change political legitimacy