A letter to the Times which was published on Friday, June 8th 2012.

Lord Owen’s assertion that the British people should be given a direct say in our future relationship with the European Union by way of a referendum is dead right, but the choices posed by the question must be options which are in the British Government’s power to enact (report, June 7). His question 1 – “Do you want the UK to be part of the single market in a wider European community?” – is both too vague and not something that this country can give effect to, involving as it does an unknown number of other countries which may or may not wish to be in Lord Owen’s outer circle.

The countries with which the UK would be associated under the Owen plan are all, with the exception of the Czech Republic, present and former members of the European Free Trade Area (Efta). Why invent another grouping? Britain cannot force the present four members of Efta to accept us back but informal soundings suggest that we would be welcome to rejoin. If the other former members also chose to rejoin Efta that would be fine by us but it would be their decision not ours.

The only choice, therefore, that can intelligibly be put before the British people is: “In or out of the EU?” There is no middle way, disagreable as this may be to the British political class with its addiction to fudge.

A letter to the Daily Telegraph which was published on 29th April 2000.

The proposal by Lords Owen, Healey and Prior to extend the referendum principle to Government Bills of “first class constitutional importance” (report, 26th April) is a welcome move towards a more direct democracy in this country, but it could be carried much further.

Switzerland has long had both a right of Initiative and a right of Optional Referendum which are triggered by a minimum number of electors, 100,000 in the case of the Initiative, 50,000 in the case of the Referendum.  In addition, all government proposed constitutional change is automatically subject to Referendum.

The Initiative allows electors to put their own proposal for constitutional change to popular vote, along with the government’s counter-proposal.  Scaled to the British population, this would required about 850,000 electors.  There is a minimum time before essentially the same proposal can be voted on again.

The Optional Referendum right allows electors to call for any Government measure to be put to popular vote.  Scaled to the British population this would require about 425,000 electors to obtain a referendum.

Of course such a massive extension of democratic rights, which can be extended down to local government level too, would be resisted by most of the political class.  But with government by representative democracy giving way to government by pressure group, it may well be that the people themselves would welcome direct democracy à la Suisse.