The D-word is a tool of insult – but what is democracy?

“As a democrat I cannot try to subvert the expressed will of the people,” my MP told me when I pointed out that “to obey the will of the British electorate” as expressed in the Brexit referendum is not half as simple as it sounds.

The only good thing to come out of six months of uncertainty since July 23rd is the current discussion about what we mean by democracy. When the government goes to the Supreme Court to defend its right to use the powers of absolute monarchy to get its own way, we should all be keen to define our terms.

The D-word has become a tool of insult. Every day, someone appears on the media to repeat the mantra that “to question the result of the referendum is to undermine democracy”.

On the contrary, I say: to question is democracy in action. It is the expression of a free people and the only way we have to know we are going in the right direction.

The one thing we must not do is assume that we know what it means. Democracy does not mean reducing a very complicated issue to a vote between two words (Remain and Leave) and handing power for what happens next to a prime minister assisted by any unelected bureaucrat she appoints to help her.

Neither does it mean deciding today what we will do in five years’ time, however the future pans out.

Those who pontificate about the misuse of democracy always start by oversimplifying it because they know the concept is inherently absurd. Democracy is the paradoxical act of turning a plural into a singular. When 46 and a half million people are consulted it’s naive to declare that “the people have spoken” and that they have declared themselves in favour of a single recipe for future action complete to the last detail.

In recent weeks, several over-excited Leavers have been trying to pull a fast one by claiming that Britain is shifting from a representative democracy to a direct democracy – at least for important issues. This, they say, is happening by “convention”. When you are working to an unwritten constitution as in Britain you can claim anything you like has become accepted “by convention”; and if no one objects, then that’s settled.

Direct democracy sounds like a brilliant idea until someone points out that polling the electorate is the easy part. It’s the day after the vote that the real problems begin. What if a promise proves difficult or impossible to deliver? What if the losing side has some good points to make – do you just ignore them and let the winners take all? And then there are all those infuriating details to be worked out which turn intentions into legislation. Who decides how to adapt the will of the people to reality? There is an unavoidable danger that some zealous politicians misinterpret the will of the people: they want less immigrants but not if it means understaffed hospitals when they fall ill.

Tedious, I know, but Britain is a representative democracy for a reason. We elect MPs to act for us in the long gaps between elections and referendums, to scrutinise decision makers and negotiations, and to do the day-to-day horse-trading necessary to implement even the smallest decision we the people trust them with.

The British political system depends on one element balancing another. If you side-line parliament in favour of direct democracy, the risk is that you let the prime minister behave like a monarch of old, using the Whips (curious name) to enforce sheep-like conformity in the House of Commons.

Democracy is about more than elections and more than referendums. It is not something to be left to MPs and PMs. It is the sense and courage to talk to each other despite our differences; to continue informed, intelligent debate even about decisions that have already been taken.