Wreck the referendum, it's the only option

That’s hardly surprising, though.

The executives of any organisation will have far more day-to-day influence than the board or policy-makers.

But what makes Guernsey truly special is its absence of policy terms. While we elect deputies every four years, whatever was put in place by previous Assemblies is diligently progressed by ‘the system’ irrespective of anything that might have changed in the meantime.

The classic example is the decade – yes, really: 10 years – to draft new animal welfare legislation. By the time it went back to the Assembly for approval it was already out of date and needed revision.

A more topical one is the population management regime, which started its journey onto the statute book before the Great Recession in 2008 and was eventually based on States resolutions of – wait for it – 26 January 2012, 28 June 2013, 29 July 2014, 24 June, 29 July, and 10 December 2015.

Not only was it based on the mistaken belief that people are queuing up to get here, there was also a fair bit of grudge against the open market plus government’s innate desire to control everything woven into it. So it’s not surprising there are some unexpected and unwanted consequences of that, culminating in 1,100 unfilled job vacancies.

It’s also why we’re awaiting legislation requested in 2006 to ban ‘bull bars’ on cars, which no one uses now anyway, and why ‘high priority’ regulations relating to legal aid requested prior to 2000 are still sitting in a queue somewhere.

The point is that the service grinds along with all this historic stuff – some of which is important, to be fair – but the effect is stultifying.

Environment & Infrastructure, for instance, relies on previous States resolutions to legitimise its speed limit proposals. These, as far as I can judge, relate back to 2003 and 2006.

The passage of time makes 15 years ago seem like a foreign country, but what would happen if the current committee took its anti-car, thou-shalt-walk-cycle-or-hop-everywhere policy to the Assembly now?

Sentiment also changes as the years tick by. I may be wrong, but I’m not getting the sense that E&I is held in high esteem at present. To a degree, that’s unfortunate. By the standards of this Assembly, the committee has at least tried to be a doer of stuff. But, as we now see, the wrong stuff in the wrong way and relating to decisions taken by a different group of people in the Assembly reacting to different circumstances.

Which brings me on to the referendum.

We’ve already referred to it here, in Deputy Neil Inder’s telling phrase, as the wreckerendum, but it too is a vivid illustration of decent people labouring away on pointless pursuits unquestioningly locked in place by past decisions.

Today’s requirements are to lift the economy, reinforce the ‘open for business’ message, make it easier and cheaper to get here, mitigate the effects of the ageing population and fill some of those 1,100 job vacancies.

Oh, and somehow survive Brexit.

This Assembly – collectively – doesn’t seem up to the task and islanders are noticing it.

The mood music is more ‘how do we improve the States?’ and less ‘how do we elect deputies?’

So, again, Guernsey’s glacial pace and the absence of synchronising policy to political terms means the referendum is not only poorly timed and a distraction, it’s also asking the wrong questions just when we’re facing an economic and demographic tipping point.

It exists simply because the civil service machine has ground it through the sausage factory at this particular time, not because it’s the right time. And it also runs the real risk of resolving nothing.

Like it or not, about 60% of the island want island-wide voting in its true sense. Until that’s been tried and we reluctantly decide the ability to use a plastic carrier bag as a briefcase isn’t necessarily the best attribute for a chief minister and return to something more sensible, the clamour for island-wide will not go away.

Worse, given the arcane method of preferential and transferable voting adopted (if it’s such a good idea, how come they don’t use it in the States?), you really don’t know what might emerge, as the States’ own promotional video demonstrates.

The next problem is you don’t even know whether your vote will count.

For it to do so, more than 40% of those on the electoral roll – around 12,000 – will have to motivate themselves to do the same. If they don’t, you’ve wasted your time.

So, to recap. For the first time in Guernsey’s history, we’re being asked to deviate from the tried and tested first-past-the-post system of election in favour of something that lessens your chances of getting what you actually wanted.

In addition, in this bizarre five-horse race designed by bureaucrats and anti-IWV politicians, whatever least-worse option eventually splutters to the surface doesn’t count unless enough of you vote.

So reluctantly, we have to conclude that the only safe way of negotiating this is to wreck the wreckerendum.

That’s right. The only guaranteed approach is to boycott the process. Register but don’t vote.

That way, you’re spared a hybrid ‘some of us can put up with it’ option creeping in, keep the prospect of proper island-wide voting alive and send a message to the Assembly to come back after the 2020 general election and do it properly.

Yes, we’re assured our crosses do count – but only if enough show up – and that failing to turn out risks leaving it to the States to decide on island-wide for us.

Baloney. The Assembly has never been more divided, there’s a general election just over the horizon, and no prospect of what would amount to an imposed solution being forced on the island.

So if you don’t vote, you retain the status quo and – should you wish – the freedom to agitate for proper island-wide in a couple of years’ time.

Who knows, there might be an Assembly in place that could deliver it.