Bad
for democracy, bad for government and bad for the voters
Just like the series I have
been running named ‘From the Vault’ I intend to run the next series concentrating
on my two great passions which are constitutional and electoral reform. My
other two passions have been European matters and the governance of Wales.
Ever since my twenties the accounts
of the struggles that led to the Peterloo massacre, the Tolpuddle martyrs, then
the rise of the Chartists, the Rebecca Riots and later the Suffragettes have
always been my motivation to concentrate on the themes of fairness, equality, human
rights and democracy. Needless to say on the wider international scene it has
been Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Mandela that have inspired my thinking and
political beliefs. Viewers of my speeches on YouTube will notice how much of
all those events and heroic figures are so often the cornerstone of the
speeches. Just as in more modern times I have been inspired by the bravery of
the students in Tiananmen Square and the factory workers in Gdansk.
Now linking all those events
and people has been the innate desire of the human spirit for fairness, freedom
and democracy. Whilst it’s true very many of the battles fought for have been
won with the passage of time and they were achieved at enormous human cost and
sacrifice however, it still remains the case that the United Kingdom is nowhere
near being a modern, representative and democratic Union. In fact I have
frequently drawn attention to how often the British are described as ‘subjects’
and not ‘citizens’.
Whenever the topics of
democracy and fairness are raised there always appears a ‘core’ group of
powerful vested interests in the establishment, political elite and the media that
invariably parade as the ones who are concerned over the unity of the country
and the retention of its values and traditions. They even pray in aid how much our
‘Mother of Parliaments’ is so revered across the world but they conveniently overlook
the fact that we have the second largest second chamber in the world, other
than China. Also the House of Lords is the only fully unelected second chamber
in Europe. Then if all else fails they always resort to the age old political
arguments linked with the creation of uncertainty, fear of the unknown, the
implications of any untried and untested
proposal be it House of Lords reform, a fairer voting system or a federal
structure of governance for the United Kingdom. None of the people that were
involved in the events listed above had any fear of the unknown.
Although not the main topic
of this blog whenever a federal structure of governance for the UK is proposed its
opponents quickly step in with the usual arguments I have just stated but fail
to recognise that over twenty five countries have such a system including
Germany, Canada, Russia, United States, Australia, Brazil and the like. It is
also ironic that in granting independence to some of our erstwhile colonial
territories we saw fit to grant them federal systems of government notably
India, Pakistan, Nigeria and as I have already indicated Canada and Australia. Good
enough for them but not the UK!
The Electoral Reform Society (ERS) has been in being over 130 years and when it was formed in 1884, then called
the Proportional Representation Society, its founder declared:
‘I trust ….the Mother of
Parliaments, may once more take the lead among the great nations of the world
by securing for herself a House of Commons which shall really represent the
nation’. But we’re still waiting. The establishment, political elite and vested
interests have worked ever so hard to deny a true representative democracy to
the people.
Over the last 35 years they
have found themselves having to respond to public clamour regarding fairer
voting arrangements but interestingly they have only ever deployed the tactic
of conceding when it does not impact on the voting system to the House of
Commons (the jewel in the crown of the political establishment!). The
consequence of such a haphazard, unplanned and schismatic approach has been the
creation of a patchwork quilt of voting arrangements across the UK.
There are four different
voting systems in use for elections in Scotland with three different ones in
Wales and one for Northern Ireland. Then quite ironically despite setting its
face against the use of the Single Transferable Vote (STV) method of voting for
Westminster elections the governing elite of the two major parties have been perfectly
content to see the system used for all election in Northern – council, Assembly
and European Parliament elections. STV is also used for local elections in
Scotland. So there is no reason why STV should be opposed and if that voting
method is essential to ensure true representative democracy in Northern Ireland
why not for ‘the Mother of Parliaments’!
The Northern Ireland
situation in fact is quite revealing with regard to the use of STV for the local
council elections. Those councils in Northern Ireland do not have powers over
education, roads and housing yet they have a fairer voting system than for local
authorities in England and Wales.
So local authorities in
England and Wales with far greater powers have to operate under the First Past the
Post system of voting which often results in power being over-concentrated in
one party or another. The outcome is that vast swathes of the electorate in
those councils effectively go without having any party political representation.
What is more they often feel neglected if their area is not represented by a
member from the ‘ruling party’. That I assume was one of the main arguments for
the use of the single transferable vote system in Northern Ireland – odd that!
Again the opponents of reform point to the fact
that a referendum was held in 2011 on electoral reform and the voters rejected
the proposed change. That’s true but its timing was completely wrong and ill
conceived —voters were being asked to consider electoral reform whilst in the
middle of the most austere times in living memory for tens of millions of
people. So there was an issue of priorities in peoples’ minds. In addition what
was on offer to the electorate was not a truly representative alternative. At
first glance the outcome appeared disappointing and that it was a serious
rebuff. However, six million people (32%) voted to change the system and 13
million (68 %) voted to keep things as they are. In my judgement to have received
32% in support is not only positive but heartening given the circumstances I
have just described.
It also augurs well for the immediate future and the task urgently
facing us because as the recent ERS petition of some 500,000 signatories indicates
the public appetite for change is not undiminished. So there is no time to
waste. That is why I am heartened to learn that there is to be a meeting in the
House of Lords September 9th Committee room 3A to discuss
arrangements for a coordinated campaign. Not only do we need to work towards a
cross-party campaign and establish a broad based convention, ERS must be
organised closer to the people by strengthening regional groupings, better
integrating with groups of local constituencies.
The governance
of the UK Union is in a fragmented state, its Second Chamber is unelected and currently
in quite some disarray whilst our electoral arrangements within the four
nations are inconsistent exaggerating national
and regional divisions. There is a general understanding that the First Past
the Post system is increasingly failing the
British electorate. There is increasing disproportion between seat won
and votes cast, the randomness of election results is becoming almost perverse
and as a consequence it is of little surprise that voter turnout is in decline.
Voter apathy is evident and there is a general feeling of being devalued.
So now is the time. We have nothing to fear but Fear itself.