The failure of Theresa May’s government to anticipate and then adequately address the political crisis caused by the result of the vote to leave the European Union in June 2016 is vaporising trust in politics. Once voters looked to parliament for reassurance that MPs knew what they were doing and had faith in their ability to weigh risks and move forward by accepting rational counter-arguments. They now see parties that are ideologically polarised, internally incoherent and unreasonably oppositional. This has led to gridlock, rooted in the tension between the referendum’s outcome and the ability of parliament to deliver it. Yet if this situation has been caused by the import of direct democracy, in the form of 2016’s poll, into a representative democracy, could one way to resolve the impasse be to focus on political and institutional reform? That is the claim of those promoting a citizens’ assembly as a solution to the current Brexit conundrum. It is an idea worth interrogating.

Proponents say that proper democracy means more than the right to vote in general elections. It must include deliberation, mature institutions, and checks and balances. It is undeniable that calm appraisal of evidence without the blinkers of party loyalty and ideology has been missing from Brexit debates. Campaigners point to Ireland, which set up first a constitutional convention and then a citizens’ assembly, to ponder Ireland’s biggest post-crash issues. The assembly was composed of a chairperson and 99 citizens, randomly selected to be electorally representative, and met on weekends 12 times over 18 months. It considered five subjects: abortion, climate change, an ageing population, how referendums are conducted, and fixed-term parliaments. Citizens listened to experts, and made recommendations to the Irish parliament.

The great success story of this process was Ireland’s referendum on abortion – a question that has bedevilled its politics for 35 years. It was the assembly’s citizens that voted 64% to 36% in favour of having no restrictions on termination in early pregnancy; it was the assembly that changed the mind of the conservative Fianna Fáil leader when he backed the repeal of the constitutional amendment that outlawed abortion; and it was the Irish parliament that decided to hold a referendum on the issue. The process was instructive: a draft bill was published undercutting the reactionary politics of paranoia. When the national poll was held, an emotive vote was not subverted as an informed public had been insulated from fake news and cynical manipulation. Politicians who saw their constituents having a civil conversation about abortion knew that they must too.

If the Brexit referendum had been preceded by such a dignified process, it would, as Fintan O’Toole observed in these pages, have been a very different experience. Such assemblies can build empathy and chip away at polarisation. True, in Ireland there has been criticism about how representative the assembly was, and how little politicians did about climate change. Representation and reflection are difficult to marry. But if the current Brexit imbroglio highlights anything it is that democracy is about respectful discussion, not just voting.