A proposal to put ongoing immigration power directly to voters became, in the end, a test of whether Parliament’s failures justify bypassing it. No won, with 340 votes to 228, but the debate was less a rejection of public concern about immigration than a rejection of referendums as the remedy.
The argument the floor rated highest was a defence of representative government: “Our parliament is an elected representative,” one No voter wrote, warning that direct voting offered “a route to knee jerk decision making”. Another put the case more bluntly: “Do the job we hired you for.” The wider No argument was that elections, manifestos and ministerial accountability were imperfect but preferable to a permanent campaign of plebiscites.
Yes voters were not short of anger; their case was that successive governments had ignored a public demand for stronger borders. Its most-respected voice widened the question beyond economics, asking “what future we want to have”, while another said the government “cannot be trusted to do what the public want”. The two sides often talked past each other: Yes argued about legitimacy, national identity and control; No answered that a new voting mechanism would not make politicians deliver.
The sharper finding was that concern over immigration crossed the divide, while confidence in the proposed machinery did not. Some No voters wanted firm borders but rejected the route — “I want firm borders” — and others said the current rate “cannot be sustained” but that this was “not the answer”; a few Yes voices favoured a Swiss-style extension of direct democracy. The least-respected contributions abandoned institutional argument for sweeping claims about migrants, while the strongest posts stayed focused on trust, accountability and capacity.
The room did not vote against public involvement in immigration; it voted against making citizen ballots the standing legislature.
22 Opinions
Our parliament is an elected representative. We vote them in to make decisions on our behalf. Don’t like them then vote them out but direct citizen voting is a route to knee jerk decision making.
Yes because the government cannot be trusted to do what the public want and we want illegal immigration stopped!
Not sure that this solves the problem ... which in this case is parliament (under successive governments) failing to deliver on the clearly expressed will of the people. Don't see how direct citizen votes changes that. Even with the Brexit referendum, the Cameron and May governments did their utmost not to execute on it , leaving Johnson to bodge it through at the 11th hour.
Interesting question. We need to define citizenship for ourselves, and what our citizenship means to us. The flip-side of that discussion is who we would exclude/include in that definition. The only migrants with a chance of a functional life in the UK are those who would be willingly accepted.
Immigration policy is as much about who we want to be as a nation, what future we want to have, then how we manage the economic situation. Do we want to end up like Japan, homogeneous but with a terminal population collapse, do we want to end up an island of strangers, do we want to try something different? The government only cares for political expediency and economics.
The public are consistently strongly against high levels of migration, but politicians keep on doing it. Putting it to a direct citizens vote would mean a far stronger and more effective immigration policy.
We vote in parliament to decide these things, might not have the party you want ,that's another thing. If all decisions are put to vote would we need MPs?
We have already seen how disastrous "direct citizen votes" can be. Immigration is perhaps the single issue on which the public is least informed and easily manipulated by populist scaremongers.
I would have said yes if the population didn't have an immigration problem already. You can't trust people to solve immigration problems if they support immigrants. The government support immigrants & illegals this is why we have the problem but if the electorate was to be in charge of it then the problem would be completely uncontrollable. We should only allow migrants as they go home.
I’d like to see people given the vote on this … but I’m losing faith in the system of voting. It seems open to being manipulated and when referendums have taken place they are still being undermined - Labour still saying Brexit was wrong , Scottish referendums still being suggested to change the vote. I think the ruling parties know what the people feel about unchecked economic migration but they will never act.