A CENTRAL point about representative democracy was described by Edmund Burke to the electorate of Bristol in 1774. To summarise it as bluntly and unfairly as possible, it was that he could now tell the voters to drop dead.

Since it is still regularly cited as a guiding principle of our parliamentary system, however, what he actually said was: “Your representative owes you not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving, you if he sacrifices it to your opinion.”

That is not just a handy get-out for MPs who disagree with their constituents, though lots of them (on subjects as historically varied as the Corn Laws, capital punishment and enacting Brexit) have taken advantage of it.

There’s plenty to be said for it: for one thing, voters (even if you mean just the ones who voted for the winning candidate) don’t have a shared view on every conceivable subject. Most people are happy to devolve at least some of their opinions; few have, or want to have, a position on everything. People (including MPs) don’t always know what they want, or what’s in their best interests, or the national interest, or they tell lies about it, or hold mutually inconsistent opinions, or change their minds.

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The party set-up is in part a recognition of that sort of generalist approach – though the whipping system is one of its obvious deficiencies. In Burke’s day, MPs were much more obviously individuals.

What’s more, the majority of the electorate is often downright wrong, something you will no doubt have noticed yourself. The same, naturally, is true of MPs, but voters can at least get the final say, by chucking out any MP that disagrees with them too much (as Bristol did with Burke, at the earliest opportunity).

I was thinking about this because of Nicola Sturgeon’s belated decision to oppose the development of the Cambo oil field, after she’d spent a lot of time trying to dodge the issue. Her reluctance was easy enough to understand: fossil fuels are (in the political arena, by near-universal consensus) a Bad Thing, and so allowing them looks like a Bad Thing. But opposing them endangers at least the short-term interests, not to say livelihoods, of many tens, probably hundreds, of thousands of Scots, as well as the national economy.

So is this a noble Burkean elevation of national, or global, interests above those of quite a large number of voters? That’s always a risky electoral proposition but, to take the Corn Laws as an example, it might be the long view and the right thing. It is also an odd one for the leader of a party that, until five minutes ago, tried to prove the viability of independence by telling us how much money there was in oil. But leave that aside. After watching her swanning about COP26, I can readily believe Ms Sturgeon is sincere about ditching fossil fuels, and besides, the oil price has fallen.

Even if that’s so, however, it’s not just about principles or signalling. Politicians are supposed to be making considered overall judgments. In this case, it’s not just about whether opening up Cambo would send the wrong message on Net Zero, but whether ruling it out will actively help. I don’t know, and I suspect the First Minister is well aware that she can’t be sure either.

But she does know that, no matter how fast we move towards phasing out (or, as COP ludicrously puts it, “phasing down”) fossil fuels, we won’t get rid of them overnight, that lots of Scottish jobs directly depend on them and that – as the recent spike in gas prices showed – a reduction in their supply has a huge economic impact even on those with no direct connection to the industry.

It would be interesting to know if she knew, or guessed, that Shell would pull out, or perhaps thought that expressing her opposition might encourage them to, but in the end that’s only a political calculation about which side she ends up on, and whether it will do her any good.

This is just as true of her opponents; the Scottish Conservatives clearly think that voters would rather safeguard oil industry jobs and the economy than get to Net Zero more quickly and expensively. Time will tell who is better attuned to the public mood.

But the overall political calculation is not about party interest or public opinion but how, in practical terms, to mitigate the enormous costs of the new green consensus. Ms Sturgeon is far from alone in having to grapple with that; Westminster is similarly committed, though it hasn’t yet definitively ruled on Cambo (on which it has the final say). So are all the COP signatories, even if you doubt how many of them will live up to their promises.

And so is the other half of Burke’s proposition: the electorate. If there’s such a thing as an implied contract between politicians and voters (a persistent strand in political theory that I’ve always had my doubts about), then – although most of us take it for granted – perfidy, betrayal, bad faith and dishonesty isn’t the preserve of the politicians alone.

Lots of people have a sincere and strong commitment to environmental issues, and march and protest in their thousands on the issue. Even among their number, it isn’t always matched by action. It turned out that several of the leaders of Insulate Britain, while prepared to block the M25, hadn’t been prepared to insulate their own homes. Those with less fanatical, but smugger, views – which is probably now the majority of us – are happy to pay lip service to wanting greener policies, even as we fill up the SUV, leave the TV on standby and scrape potato peelings into the wrong bin.

It’s often assumed that we are slightly more honest when it comes to casting a vote; we may say we’re in favour of higher taxes, but usually decide against it. I’m not sure how far that goes, but a few more decisions like the one on Cambo may make it clearer. The point about greener policies is that they’re going to cost us, and to work properly, cost us more – an awful lot more – than we seem to think they will.

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