I’ve been looking back at Brexit through the rear-view mirror of Alberta’s runaway referendum train. And I’ve been studying David Cameron, the British prime minister who called for the Brexit referendum in 2013. Ran a re-election campaign on the promise of one. Was handed a majority government in 2015 in part on the basis of that promise. Ran a campaign to remain in the European Union in 2016. Lost. And then resigned the next day.

I’ve been thinking about how the story of David Cameron and his Conservative Party differs so starkly from the story of Danielle Smith and her United Conservative Party and the looming referendum they have orchestrated in the province of Alberta.

Smith, in contrast with Cameron, has never promised a referendum to decide Alberta’s place in Confederation, nor run an election campaign on that promise. On the contrary, she has always been coy and calculated with respect to her position on national unity. She says she supports a “sovereign Alberta within a united Canada.”
You don’t need to be a scholar of public international law to know that if Alberta is sovereign, Canada isn’t united. If Canada is united, Alberta, as a sub-national province of Canada, is not sovereign. We’ll leave this detour into basic international law there. Suffice it to say that you can’t have your sovereignty both ways.

My grandfather, who commanded Canadian warships during the Battle of the Atlantic and on D-Day, used to say that “actions speak louder than words.” So what can we learn from Smith’s and the UCP’s actions that can provide us insight into their position on Canada?

Looking back to Brexit and the example of Cameron’s Conservative government helps to illuminate the premier’s true stripes.

The idea of a Brexit referendum was first articulated in the form of a promise. This promise was made by Prime Minister Cameron in 2013. The promise was that if his government was returned to power in the next general election, they would hold an in/out referendum to determine whether the United Kingdom should remain a member of the EU. The Conservative Party wrote this promise into their platform in the 2015 election. They would negotiate new terms with the EU and let the people have their say on whether they agreed with those terms by 2017.

The Conservatives ended up winning an unexpected and slim-majority government in the spring of 2015. That year, they passed the European Referendum Act, which wrote into law Cameron’s 2013 promise and set a date for the UK to decide whether they would leave or remain in the EU.

This was a major piece of legislation that was introduced in May shortly after Cameron was returned to No. 10 Downing Street. The legislation went through a very standard and thorough parliamentary process, with first, second, and third readings playing out over a period of months, and culminating in royal assent being given on December 17, 2015. The European Referendum Act came into legal force the following year, in February of 2016, and put the now notorious Brexit referendum on the calendar for June 23.

At the same time, Cameron’s government renegotiated the UK’s position in the EU. The terms of that renegotiation were put on full display for all in the UK to vote on, just as Cameron and his majority Conservatives had transparently and democratically said they would do if re-elected.

Cameron, for his part, was decidedly not in the Leave camp. He campaigned forcefully for the UK to remain in the EU and fully anticipated that, after all was said and done, the Remain side would win. The UK would remain in the EU under improved terms, the Euroskeptics would be appeased, and he would carry on as prime minister.........

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