Reader TTS

The 2016 EU referendum was the biggest democratic exercise in British history. Or so the story goes. It does, however, have a rival for that accolade. No, not the 1992 general election

(though that does beat it). The democratic enterprise I’m thinking of is one whose actual voting figures remain secret but which commands a captivated, committed audience of almost 10

million per episode or over 260 million for the complete series. I give you the BBCs _Strictly Come Dancing_. For anyone not familiar with the format (Where have you been?), Strictly is a

show in which celebrities are partnered with a professional dancer to dance and … Actually, just Google it. The question I want to put is: could the 2016 referendum take any lessons in

democracy from Strictly? What would have been different had the EU referendum been run to the Strictly format? Here’s how it might have gone. At the outset, all the Brexit alternatives,

including the no-Brexit-Brexit we call ‘remain’, would have been presented to the public who would have been asked to vote for their favourite We immediately hit a number of snags. In

Strictly there is nothing to prevent anyone from voting dozens of times for the same dancer or for different dancers. Clearly this is open to abuse so, in the interests of _real_ democracy,

we’d have to limit each person to one vote. Second, there’s no age restriction to voting on Strictly. Government would want to rush to exclude under-18s, EU citizens living here and British

citizens who have lived abroad since Series One of Strictly. Once these problems are overcome, we’re away. Obviously, in Strictly, individuals may vote for any dancer for whatever reason

they like. They may vote on grounds of the dancer’s career in acting in a well-loved soap, their charity work, their looks, their ethnicity, comedic value, their pole-dancing,

grant-receiving status, their politics. In fact, anything; even including their actual dancing ability. So, exactly like the referendum. The rival Brexits are now ranked according to their

share of the public vote and the vote of the judges, and the two lowest-ranking Brexits are brought back before the judges for a decision on which one will be rejected. Here we hit another

problem. Who will be the judges? For this role, Strictly has four individuals with considerable expertise in the field. Our government famously has no time for experts, so in our Gedanken

experiment we will have to rely on parliament to act as judges and a vote of MPs to decide which Brexit will be rejected and which will ‘dance’ again for the public’s pleasure. This process

will be repeated until one by one all Brexits are rejected, save two (three if we insist on being strictly Strictly) who will then ‘dance’ in the final. For the final, the rules governing

how the winners and losers are arrived at differ in an important respect. This time the judges’ votes are merely advisory. They can comment on the relative merits of each performer, but

their opinion has no further force. The winner is selected entirely on the public vote. Parliament should have been able to ensure that its own preference(s) has reached the final – if

necessary, by securing its passage through each ‘dance-off’; but that is the limit of its powers. Crucially, this leaves the possibility that the ‘worst’ (from parliament’s point of view)

Brexit would not only reach the final but actually win it, never having been in the ‘dance-off’ for parliamentary sanction and passing through each round on the strength of the public vote.

On this there are two things to say. First, at least we’d have a clear public favourite. Second, if parliament had selected the Brexits in the first place, it really had responsibility to

make sure there were no absolutely unacceptable options on the list. Yes, I know: big ask. Advantages? * It’s decisive. The route to a winner and the rules governing the process are set out

at the start. * It’s time-limited. There is a clear timetable for the decision-making from the first round all the way through to the final. * Because the public vote at each stage to

eliminate a Brexit, while demonstrating preferences across the range of alternatives, I suggest there would be a greater sense of ‘ownership’ of Brexit across the nation and nothing like the

extreme binary polarisation we see today. In fact, this all seems so positive I’m tempted to dust off the unicorn and prepare for the sunlit uplands. But wait. We really should ask: what

would it be like if Strictly were to be run on the lines of the 2016 referendum? This time the public would be presented with just two couples and asked to vote for the dancers they thought

were best. Again, there would be the familiar mix of imponderable motivations propelling the vote, but a vote, and a winner, there would be. Which brings us to the first catch. One couple

would perform before the audience, be visible, open to scrutiny. The second couple wouldn’t dance. They wouldn’t even be asked to turn up. All the audience would have to go on, regarding the

unseen couple, would be whatever descriptions, claims, promises, criticisms, hyperbole, rumours, hopes, wishes and fantasies that absolutely anyone with an opinion or an axe to grind was

prepared to voice, or stick on the side of a bus. The public would be asked to vote. They would vote either for the couple they had seen dance or for the unseen couple they judged would be

better merely on the strength of what they’d been told. This leads us to the second catch. If the couple they had seen dance won the vote then there’s an end. We have a winner. If, however,

the couple whose dancing was merely ‘talked about’ won, then we would have a next round in which a whole menagerie of couples who were not seen in the first round would be unleashed to show

off their dancing. Only now would the actual detail of their dancing be visible to the public but — third catch – the public would not be allowed a vote. This time it would be the job of the

judges to decide a winner. Various claims would be made that this is what the public voted for and the judges would profess confidence that whatever decision they came to had the full

backing of the public who had clearly voted for this option. It would not be open to the public to vote, even if they were unhappy with the choices the judges were making or if, upon seeing

the alternatives, they decided, after all, that they preferred the dancers they’d actually seen performing in the first round. Sound familiar? At this point you may ask, “Is this any way to

run a ballroom?”. It certainly doesn’t look much like any way to organise a TV entertainment show. And my guess is that your sides would be in danger of splitting were anyone insane enough

to suggest that it might be the way to run a country. One final point: If you really are genuinely determined to find the _best_ dancer, you don’t get the public to decide the matter.

Perhaps this is the real lesson for judging the merits of EU membership that we should take from Strictly. _ STRICTLY COME DANCING IS ON BBC1, SATURDAY, 18.40. _