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This month has seen the return of two political tools that we don’t always get the privilege of using in the eUK: Prime Ministers Questions and Referendums. Both are means of engaging with ‘the public’ and involving them in political decisions and accountability.

What I am going to discuss here is how we can make these both legitimate and so useful in the eWorld. Hopefully the current government will take aboard some of the points raised in this article, as I believe that anyone who sincerely wants to see PMQ’s and referendums take on a bigger role in the eUK should have a vested interest in making them fair and pragmatic.



Referendums

Referendums have become a hot topic this month, as the eUK will be asked to vote in a referendum on sirius membership shortly. However, as in real life a key element to a credible referendum is planning, and that planning must involve people from both the ‘yes’ and ‘no’ spectrum of the issue.

Without cross party involvement or support, a referendum isn’t a referendum it’s simply an opinion poll. Likewise, a referendum can’t be called a referendum by merit of the CP calling it such (as the issue is more pertaining to Congress than the executive). Everyone has to agree to plan and hold a referendum for it to be legitimate and for it to hold the political weight of a referendum. Individuals and small groups can’t hold referendums of their own accord, as it unfairly empowers that group to influence topics of their choosing. If referendums are going to happen, people from both sides of the argument have to agree to it happening, Without that, in theory, anyone can do a referendum on anything at any time. In other words one group can’t dictate the referendum terms to all sides .

In eRepublik, where ideas on the issue of Sirius membership are quite diverse, the obvious solution is to transplant that onto the political framework provided, and to simply ensure that each (significant) party is involved in the planning, regulation, and broadcast of the referendum. The reasons for this are very simple - we can only expect groups of individuals to wholly accept that the referendum is fair and non-biased if they have been involved in the planning and dissemination of the referendum. This is the key element of what has so far been missing this month; we’ve been told a referendum will happen, but we haven’t been told who is involved in running it, in counting votes, in spreading the details on how to vote and who will be asked to vote. In short, it hasn’t been transparent.

This vastly reduces the credibility of the referendum, and again just reduces it to an opinion poll. If those wanting to hold the referendum sincerely want it to be fair, then they have to make the process open to scrutiny - if their intentions are honest there won't be anything to scrutinise - and the best way to do this is simply to allow a cross party committee to organise and disseminate the referendum. It should never be down to only one side of the debate to plan and spread a referendum.



In short, to legitimise a referendum all the main parties have to agree that the referendum holds political weight (through congress or otherwise), and they must agree that it will hold the power to determine policy. As outlined above, that isn’t something an individual party can do. The best way to make each party confident that the referendum is fair and evenly spread among the populace is to involve politicians from those parties in the planning and spread of the referendum. That way, no one can argue the result is unfair, either due to it only reaching a certain demographic or being organised by biased individuals - and surely that is what everyone wants from a referendum in the first place. Including all parties also has the bonus of influencing congressmen to actually uphold the result of the vote as well as making it easy to disseminate and making generally fairer and of course, making it legitimate.

These are all procedural issues, it should also be pointed out that when the cross-party group discusses how the referendum should be held, they should make clear the conditions of the referendum:

A clear question - yes/no or yes/no/undecided?
A minimum required turnout (if 10 people vote, is it still legitimate?)
An agreement on what majority is needed to pass the motion (simple majority or supermajority).
A plan on how to spread the referendum
No campaigning in referendum spreading!
A clear voting period

Again, that increases the legitimacy of the referendum, and by organising this before the vote takes place we not only save time, but we ensure everyone is happy with the vote and that it is devoid of corruption or dodgy interpretations or simple unfairness.


It’s in all our interests to make sure it is regulated and fair

Prime Minister’s Questions

PMQ’s is a great way for the public to get answers straight from the CP. Again this has been planned this month, but we have to be careful on how it is organised. Transparency has again been an issue with people’s trust in PMQ’s, and so I will briefly examine the best way for PMQ’s to happen and how to restore people’s faith in question time.

Firstly, and most importantly, we have to rememeber that PMQ’s is not for the CP, it is for the Public. This is essential! PMQ’s is about outreach and accountability. It isn’t a display of achievements, it is an institution specifically set up to allow people to scrutinise the CP. So any CP who sets it up and doesn’t want to be scrutinised, shouldn’t set it up and should ponder on why they don't want to be accountable.

With this is mind, a few ground rules seem appropriate:
PMQ’s should not be chaired by the PM!
PMQ’s should not be chaired by a political ally or friend of the PM!
PMQ’s should be chaired by an impartial person, either a fair member of the public or someone who is expected to be fair anyway, like the speaker of the house of commons.



The reason for this is simple. Questions should face as little prescreening as possible. In fact, they should receive hardly any screening at all. The minute the CP or someone sympathetic to the CP has the power to decide which questions the CP actually answers, PMQ’s becomes a sideshow. The CP should be willing to answer all questions that are asked (again, PMQ’s isn’t meant to be flattering, so why dodge anything) because PMQ’s is about information and accountability. It isn’t about choosing select answers and select pieces of info to broadcast to the public. It is about public inquiry. The one possible exception is if a piece of info could be harmful to national defence, if campaign plans are asked about etc. but even that is down to interpretation - there is quite little that the military module offers that can’t be anticipated or that needs to be secret.

Some other guidelines that are helpful for someone organising PMQ’s
Set a regular time and day!
Publish the logs!
Allow anyone to ask questions!

Regular time - we’ve already had one session of PMQ’s be cancelled, the best thing for PMQ’s is for them to happen at a convenient time every week so people know where they can as a question. They should also be in a secure channel where people can be given voice to ask their question when it is their turn. Publish the logs so people who hate IRC or who couldn’t make it can see what was asked and what was answered, that is after all the whole point. Lastly, don’t deny people the right to ask questions, as well as the reasons outlined above, anyone should be able to make inquiries into what the CP is doing, no matter how young they are, as at the end of the day they can do more harm, and if they want to know something, they have a right to know.

My suggestions for this month are therefore to have either a cross party committee either of congressmen or private individuals, or for the speaker to organise and chair PMQ’s. They can allow all questions in an orderly fashion and the CP can face the music and answer questions, making themselves accountable and informing the public at the same time. Fab!



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Personally, I am very pro-referendum. But it has to be done properly. There is no point doing it, only for a week or so down the line for people to say it wasn’t fair or was illegitimate. We don’t want to spend flip flopping over whether or not it was legit, we have to get it right the first time, or we risk looking like fools to the international community. Doing it slap dash is simply irresponsible. There can be no room for interpretation or doubt on referendums as important as this.

Likewise, PMQ's is great. But we have to make sure it remains a means of public inquiry and accountability, not a theatrical showcase of a CP's achievements, because that isn't the purpose of PMQ's.


Thanks for Reading.
Mr Woldy.

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