Professor Jane Suiter:

I am here to talk about citizens’ assemblies. Of course, we have all heard a growing chorus advancing the idea of an all-island assembly prior to any referendum. As Professor John Doyle said, the central insight is that nobody wants a rerun of Brexit, where people did not know what they were voting for. However, I have to caution that we need to be careful and cautious about this. Citizens’ assemblies and other deliberative methods are no panacea. There are significant risks, as well as opportunities, which are heightened in a divided society. They are heightened further when the political issue at stake is one of identity.

We all know the advantages, especially down here, because we have the assemblies. They are potentially multifaceted. They can help counter elite manipulation and they can facilitate perspective taking and empathy-building, both of which will be very important. They can increase reflection and deliver systematic improvements in democratic outcomes. The problem is that we have to remember that the two principles at the heart of assemblies in deliberation are inclusion and moderation, which are vital. Inclusion means that any decision-making process must include, on equal terms, all those subject to its decisions. Moderation means that if we enter into such a process, we must be prepared to moderate our claims in the face of opposing views of our fellow participants. These are difficult conditions to meet in any world, but they are particularly difficult to meeting when they are deliberating in a divided society.

On top of that, good deliberation takes planning. There are many people who think that it is just not possible and that it could backfire. If it did backfire, it could inflame sectarian conflict. The best way forward is to first hold assemblies on both parts of the island separately, possibly with different lanes. Give people the opportunity to listen to one another from either side, much as members have been doing down here in their own deliberations. In that way, there could be an overarching assembly as well as a Norther Ireland-only forum where they bring in voices from people here. They can have them with different topics. We can also hold an assembly in the South. We need to discuss all the policy implications that we have been hearing about here, but we also need to discuss other kinds of issues, such as identity, where we have seen with polling that people have unrealistic expectations about not changing constitutions, not changing anthems and so on and so forth. All of that needs to be open to deliberative scrutiny. We need to remember that we must be inclusive and we must be open to moderation. That means, in the first instance, having at least two assemblies and then building towards an all-island version.