Democracy in the UK after Brexit

Public confidence in a country's core constitutional arrangements is a basic requisite of democratic success. The debates over Brexit tested that bond severely in the UK. Careful, detailed research is now needed to establish what changes would help restore it. The proposed project will provide that research.

In the years since the 2016 referendum, both supporters and opponents of Brexit have alleged at different times that a 'constitutional coup' has been underway - with judges, ministers or parliamentarians (depending on the accuser's perspective) said to be overreaching their proper powers. These debates raised fundamental questions not just about institutions, but also about the culture of politics and our basic conceptions of democracy. At the 2019 general election, all of the major parties' manifestos called for some kind of constitutional review. The Conservative manifesto (p. 48) promised a 'Constitution, Democracy and Rights Commission' to examine 'the relationship between the Government, Parliament and the courts'. Since the election, the pandemic has raised further questions, regarding oversight of the government's extensive emergency powers, the proper roles of experts, parliament, and the media, and the protection of civil liberties. It has thus heightened the need to understand public attitudes to the fundamentals of our democracy, and to ensure that citizens' views are heard.

This project will inform debates and decisions about post-Brexit governance, through rigorous, independent research into public attitudes, based on a unique mix of three elements. First, a conventional survey will examine public opinion across the UK on democratic principles, institutions, and practices. It will show how attitudes vary across society and gauge how views regarding different constitutional issues are related to each other. Second, a citizens' assembly will explore what people think on these matters when they have been able to learn about them in depth, discuss them, and think through their own priorities. Citizens' assemblies are increasingly seen by policymakers and others as vital means of fostering more thoughtful consideration of key policy questions, and the project will both enable that and gather evidence on how it works. Third, a further survey of the UK population will assess how people respond to the citizens' assembly and the assembly's conclusions, using a series of experiments to assess which parts of the assembly's output are most convincing to the broader public. The combination of these three elements will enable the project leaders to gauge the degree of disagreement between baseline and deliberated attitudes, and examine how far such differences might be overcome.

The evidence and analysis generated through the project will inform debates and high-level policymaking processes relating to democratic reform. It will provide the richest source of information ever collected on UK public attitudes to democracy, allowing in-depth analysis by demographic group, and exploring trade-offs between different options. It will also link attitudes to democratic principles, political culture and options for institutional design - particularly with respect to the balance of power between government, parliament and the courts.

Working in close collaboration with other members of the UK in a Changing Europe team, the project leaders will engage closely with policymakers across the political spectrum throughout the development and implementation of the project to maximise the relevance and impact of the findings. The project's webpages will become a key resource for public discussion on these matters: they will include survey results, assembly briefing papers and presentations, reports, videos, and blogposts. The project will thus advance informed discussion of issues of vital importance to the future health of the democratic system.