The Harrogate Agenda: update

By Richard North - August 24, 2022

For today’s piece, I need to do some housekeeping on our 5 November Harrogate Agenda meeting which I announced on 14 July on this blog.

Although we had provisionally booked a room that would take a 100, my preference was for a smaller meeting and, it seems, that is a more realistic proposition. But, while we are able to book a room to take 30 people, so far only 17 have booked a place, which is not enough to make the meeting economically viable.

From any meeting, I intend to draw the inspiration to update our pamphlet, which emerged from the founding meeting ten years ago. With enough material, I may transform the pamphlet into a short book, which should set the tone for our movement for the next ten years.

To that effect, it is my intention that we should have a meeting where – as with our founding meeting – the attendees do most of the heavy lifting, sharing their views on the direction we should take, and addressing some of the weaknesses in the original agenda, producing ideas which we can build into the new publication.

For instance, there are two topical items that have dominated much of the recent discussion on this blog: the water shortage and related issues; and the energy crisis. A meeting would be a good opportunity to examine whether and how The Harrogate Agenda could have affected the course of events and made things better.

Arguably, had our demands been in place in 1989, when Thatcher set out to privatise the water industry, the process – under demand number 4 (people’s consent) – would have been subject to a referendum, whence it could have been stopped by a majority negative vote.

However, bearing in mind that privatisation was quite popular that the time and had built up a head of steam, there is no certainty that the majority would have voted against the private ownership model, in which case we would probably be in much the same position that we are today.

Once consent has been given, though, there is provision under demand number 4 to return to the issue, and for consent to be withdrawn – using the referendum mechanism once again. By this means, the industry could be clawed back into public ownership.

And yet, simply to do that could create more problems than it solved. The status quo ante, with regional water authorities which subsequently became the privatised companies, was by no means satisfactory, so a straight withdrawal of consent, delivered by means of a popular vote, would not be enough.

Instead, or additionally, there would have to be proposals in place for a new, more satisfactory structure. And, on top of that, there would have to be imposed a formal series of work programmes to address the water leakage and resource problems, and to deal with the vexed problem of sewage discharges.

The problem here is that the referendum is not the idea mechanism for defining such complex details as institutional structures, and even less so the best way of setting out detailed work programmes requiring major technical and engineering decisions.

Furthermore, in the original Harrogate Agenda draft, we rejected the idea of compelling the legislature to frame new laws. I felt that such a process is prone to abuse by well-funded or dedicated single-issue groups, and by the popular press or television. This would, I suggested, expose law-making to rule of the mob. Giving the public direct access to the law-making process could thereby end up in petty tyranny.

In essence, the underlying principle rests on the premise that we separately vote in our governments via general elections. Through these elections, they acquire mandates to govern, and they must be allowed the room to govern.

Dealing with the technicalities of making improvements to the water and drainage systems could be a case in point. At no time during the ongoing controversy have we seen from commentators or activists any coherent proposals for improvement.

Any such – as with the Surface Water Task Force – proposals would have to come from expert groups and then be processed into legislation before there would be a role for referendums. What might be appropriate is to develop a system where government could draft several versions of specific legislation, setting out different options, to be put to the vote.

It is discussion on concepts such as these which are needed to take The Harrogate Agenda forward, and no more so than with the second of the topical controversies, the energy crisis.

Certainly, before the government implements an extremely expensive rescue package – if that is its intention – the detail should be put to the electorate for a vote – any proposals possibly offering several options, allowing people to pick the one they most favoured, or even rejecting all of them.

As to what we would do about the electricity and gas industries, that is a knotty problem which may or may not be amenable to a referendum. Any decision to bring companies back into public ownership might well be subject to a referendum, but then we would have the same problem we would have to confront with the water industry – the structures and roles of the bodies in public ownership.

That apart, I am having difficulty is assessing how we would use The Harrogate Agenda mechanisms to force the restructuring of the energy industries which is so evidently needed. The issue here is that while there might be general agreement that restructuring is necessary, I see no consensus emerging on what measures should be taken.

Broadly, we see so many different views expressed as to the causes of the problems, and the remedies needed, that it might be difficult to imagine that the bulk of the electorate would even be capable of steering a path through rival proposals, sufficiently understanding the issues to be able to render a referendum valid.

Sometimes, things need to be left to experts but then, on the other hand, it could be argued that the experts in this instance have made such a mess of things that a popular vote could only bring improvement.

In this context, there is something which I didn’t make clear in the pamphlet. Demand number 6 makes provision for a constitutional convention, from which it is expected that a codified constitution would emerge. Any such constitution would then be guarded by the supreme court, which in relation to referendums, might have a wider role.

Before any referendum could be held, I would advance that it must be reviewed by the supreme court, to assess whether it was compatible with the constitution. It would not allow, for instance, a vote on an issue where the outcome would lead directly or indirectly to a breach of the constitution.

But I also wonder whether the court might take a wider role and be asked to examine specific subjects, to determine whether a referendum was a suitable mechanism for decision on contentious issues related to them.

This then brings us to another extremely topical issue – the war in Ukraine, which started six months ago to the day. We saw at the time Johnson pledge immediate support to the Kiev government, and given the urgent need for a response, this could hardly have been put to a referendum.

But this is the sort of decision which could, after the event, be ratified by the electorate by means of a referendum. The application of the concept of ratification is one which needs to be clarified. It might certainly have applied to the imposition of sanctions, where – depending on who you wish to believe – these could be partly responsible for the problems we have with energy.

Again, it might not have been possible to organise a referendum in advance of sanctions being applied, but it would have been nice to have been asked whether they should remain in force.

This, and the other issues raised, need to be discussed at length, and if you wish to take part in that discussion, reserve a place at the meeting by contacting Niall Warry by e-mail using this link or directly via [email protected].

Finally, in view of the increasingly severe demands for payment from our energy suppliers, it may well be appropriate to discuss widening out our movement to encompass civil disobedience to protect ourselves from those demands.

I can see that, on 5 November, we could have a busy time but, should not enough people wish to take part directly in the development of The Harrogate Agenda, I will completely understand. It is an expensive do travelling to London and taking part, especially with the cost of living crisis. If we don’t make 30, though, by the end of August, we will have to let the room go and continue the debate online.