Requiring referendums to be held on any issue, including the recall of an MP, if there is a petition with signatures from 5% of the electorate.

In addition to referendums being proposed by the Government, the Jury Team believes that referendums should also be called if requested by sufficient members of the electorate, a 'Citizens' Initiative'. This use of a Citizens' Initiative to implement a referendum is now accepted in about half of the states in the US and both at the canton level and nationally in Switzerland and many other countries.

The Blair Government established procedures for there to be local referendums on having an elected mayor in areas of England and for the first time allowed these to be based on a popular initiative with there having to be such a referendum if one in 20 electors (5%) asked for it.  In February 2009 the Conservative Party announced that they would support the idea of referendums at local government level if requested by 5% of the electorate if an increase in council tax broke a certain threshold. However they remain opposed to any similar system at national level.

The Jury Team proposes that the threshold for calling a referendum should be 5% of the electorate, about 2¼ million people for a UK wide referendum, a number which should be achievable for issues of importance to a substantial part of the electorate.  The signatures will be validated by the Electoral Commission.  The referendum itself will be held on the same day as local government elections (usually each May).  

The introduction of referendums to be called by citizens is a significant constitutional change and requires a cautious approach.  The Jury Team therefore propose that this will include the proposers getting the agreement of the Electoral Commission to the question which could not:

• be discriminatory among UK citizens
• require significant government expenditure or tax reductions
• demand the breaking of any international treaty obligation (although it could require the UK to negotiate an exit from a treaty)
• lead to the secession of any part of the United Kingdom (this could only be effected through a government referendum)  

Again conscious of the need for a cautious approach, in order not to force through a policy against the government by a very small majority, to be successful a Citizens' Initiative will have to get support from 55% of those voting with a turnout of at least 50%.  The government will have six months in which to get appropriate implementing legislation through Parliament.  If a proposition was not passed, no substantially similar Citizens' Initiative could be put to a referendum for a period of five years.

There is little doubt that Citizens' Initiatives will rekindle interest in politics.  They will lead to the formation of a wide range of civil society groups interested in the specific issues.  

A particular case of a Citizens' Initiative will be its use to decide whether an MP should be made to face re-election because of their behaviour.  In this case 5% of the electorate in the particular constituency will have to sign the required petition and the question as to whether there should be a by-election for the seat will be included on the ballot on the next local government election date.  If passed by 55% of those voting with a 50% turnout then a by-election will be held eight weeks later.

In order to ensure that each referendum question is properly considered there will be a limit of seven national referendums to be voted on at each local government election date.  The Policies described above in Section B and in this Section C will be legislated over the first three years of the next Parliament and will be put to a referendum, seven in May 2011 (or earlier), and four in each of May 2012 and May 2013 (the English Parliament, Welsh Assembly and Scottish status referendums counting as one slot for this purpose).  The Government will have the right to propose up to four further referendums annually after that.

The proposed legislation for Citizens' Initiatives will allow up to three of the resulting referendums (assuming that the 5% trigger threshold is reached) also to be held in May 2012, 2013 and annually beyond then.  In the event of more than three Citizens' Initiatives reaching the 5% threshold then the three with the greatest number of signatures will be accepted.   

This policy is strongly supported by opinion research with 70% thinking it is a good idea and only 15% thinking it is a bad idea.

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