Summary
The murder of the MP Jo Cox has cast a very long and dark shadow across the closing days of the EU referendum. The nature of the campaign and how her death might influence the result are a matter of conjecture. On this week's Moral Maze we're going stand back from that speculation and ask a much bigger question - has this referendum been good for us and good for democracy? The intense campaigning has been going on for many months now and comes hard on the heels of the Scottish independence referendum. Arguably, both have been characterised by trenchant, sometimes bitter and even abusive debate between two sides passionately and honestly committed to their positions. And, arguably, both referenda have left large parts of the electorate dissatisfied by a seemingly endless round of fact-free claim and counter-claim. Are our expectations unrealistic? Have referendums been, for all their faults, exercises in democracy that have engaged and inspired people in a way that party politics increasingly fail to achieve? Should we, like Switzerland, hold more of them? Is there a better way? Should we turn to technology and the internet for answers? 76% of people in the UK own a smart phone; with the growth of social media and online petitions there's a movement that believes the future of democracy is online, where it will engage more people in a wider variety of issues, putting more power directly into the hands of the electorate. Will e-democracy encourage more passionate engagement in issues and be a powerful force for progress? Can it cope with complex issues and complex societies with tens, or hundreds of millions of voters? Will we always need representative democracy to protect us from the tyranny of the majority, however that majority cast their votes? Chaired by Edward Stourton with Mona Siddiqui, Matthew Taylor, Giles Fraser and Claire Fox. Witnesses are Paul Hilder, James Bloodworth, Dr Philip Cunliffe and Tim Stanley.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're listening to a programme from BBC Radio 4. |
| 0:03.7 | Good evening. I'm going to ask our panellists to do something unusual, which is cheeky of me since this is the first time I've sat in this chair. |
| 0:11.7 | I want you to cast your minds into the future and to try to discern the verdict of history on this referendum campaign. |
| 0:19.2 | Not on the result. I don't even need to ask you to put that |
| 0:21.6 | out of your minds because we don't have it, but on the process. Right at the last, we've had a |
| 0:27.3 | reminder of how charge the referendum rhetoric has become, with Michael Gove comparing pro-EU |
| 0:32.8 | experts to Nazi control scientists and the former Prime Minister John Major, calling the Brexiteers the grave-diggers of our prosperity. |
| 0:41.4 | So will we look back on the past few weeks as an adieu, a point at which our politics became truly sick, mendacious, hate-filled and fear-fuelled? |
| 0:51.2 | Or is that rhetoric a quite proper reflection of the fact that this is an issue of |
| 0:55.1 | great moment, which has really engaged people's passions, but it has in fact been a healthy |
| 1:01.0 | process? The question matters because there's so much cynicism about the way politics is |
| 1:06.2 | conducted today, and it touches on issues which have preoccupied philosophers since the dawn of democracy. |
| 1:13.0 | How do you properly reflect the will of the people without letting that slip into a tyranny of the majority? |
| 1:19.7 | Could the referendum offer even a hint of how we could refresh our democratic system |
| 1:24.5 | and encourage voters to engage with the political process again. |
| 1:28.9 | Or has it simply underlined that really complex questions are best left to the people we elect |
| 1:33.7 | and pay to think about these things? Our panellists tonight are Giles Fraser, Church |
| 1:39.1 | of England Priest and Guardian columnist, and for the record, Charles, you are voting how? |
| 1:42.9 | Leave. |
| 1:43.9 | Mona Siddiqui, Professor of Islamic and Inter-Religious Studies at Edinburgh. She's in our Salford studios because Mona, you got stuck on your train in Lancaster. I'm not sure I need to ask you how you're going to vote because you're chair of the Remain campaign in Scotland, so I assume you are a Remainer. Absolutely, I've already voted. Claire Fox from the Institute for Ideas. |
| 2:02.9 | You'll be voting? |
| 2:04.4 | I will be Brexit. |
... |
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