Richard Dawkins wrote an article in The New Statesman last week saying the UK needs a new political party. I have to say that I do not agree with Richard Dawkins on everything, but on this occasion I think he is moving in the right direction.
Dawkins thesis is that there should be a new European Party of which he said:
The “European Party” would attract Labour voters and Labour MPs disillusioned with Jeremy Corbyn. The European Party would attract Europhile Tory MPs — and there are plenty of them. The European Party would attract a high proportion of the 48 per cent of us who voted Remain. The European Party would attract big donations. The European Party might not win the next election, but it would stand a better chance than Labour or the Lib Dems under their present name. And it would provide the proper opposition that we so sorely need.
As I said, this may be the right direction, but I think some refinement is needed. First, I am not sure it is really appropriate to give a new party a single issue name: this has always been a problem for the Greens. Politics is bigger and more long lasting than that.
Second, Europe is not enough to unite people. It's important, but any new party has to also address the failings of 2008, the end of neoliberalism being nigh and the need for a resulting new economic order based on an economics that reflects the reality of the state being something rather more than a household.
Third, a new party has to be built on a consensus that the state has worth, not least as the essential underpinning for the equally important (but not more so) private sector.
Fourth, sustainability has to be in such a party's DNA or the young are not going to relate to it.
Fifth, and last (for now) there's another key issue, which is that the party should be based on what I might call the mutuality principle. At it's core this picks up a theme whose origin Dawkins may not approve of: in essence it's the command to love your neighbour as your self. This is pretty fundamental to any functioning society as far as I can see, and so to any political party seeking a broad based appeal. I woukd hope the attraction is obvious. It says loving ourselves is fine, and as a matter of fact we know this is fundamental to wellbeing so it's got to be a good starting premise. The failure of neoliberalism is that it stops there. The mutuality principle takes this forward: there is a duty to love others as well. The result is a very different society from that which we have. I believe this is the basis for real progress without obsessing, as both existing main parties do, about ownership.
If these points could be taken into account and some practicalities (like limiting the amount anyone person could donate to exercise control) could be considered then I believe there is real mileage in a new party. I am in fact not sure what else at present breaks the log jam in English politics. Not that this means it might either happen, or succeed.
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Richard,
one thing missing. With our current electoral system any new party don’t stand a hope in hell to get any MPs. Another party to divide the centre-left and let the Tories run away with power yet again.
We need to get our prorities right. Electoral reform to introduce Proportional Representaion is essential. Then we can see a flurry of new interesting parties that reflects the variety of people in UK. And before people jumps; no AV is not a proportinal election system. So no we have not had a referendum on PR.
Accepted
Here is a draft from a new progressive blog I am working on which has many of the same ideas
Creed
We believe in society that works for the many not the few, which minimises wealth inequality, maximises education opportunity, delivers health and social care for all and provides decent housing and well-being for all its citizens.
We believe in society that cherishes all the children of the nation equally, irrespective of race, religion, gender, age or sexual orientation.
We believe that we hold the Earth in stewardship for future generations and that we have obligation to do what we can to enhance sustainability and combat climate change.
We believe in a mixed economy where both the private and public sector works in partnership where for example the NHS and rail should be in public ownership and all retail and most manufacturing in private ownership.
We believe our Society is enhanced by multiculturalism and celebrate diversity, but understand that too little has been done for areas which have been left behind by automation and international free trade over the past four decades.
We believe in objective truth not dogma and that decisions must be made on the best available evidence. This is of increasing importance as the use of agnotology is on the rise.
We believe new economic and social thinking is needed. Neoliberalism which came to prominence in the Thatcher/Reagan era, which puts money and markets before people, has worked for the few not the many and has been in crisis since the 2008 banking crash.
We believe we are on a journey and there is a need to both educate and be educated, but that radically new economic and structural models are needed.
We believe in having as close a relationship to our neighbours particularly the EU and believe in a spirit of cooperation and friendship rather than belligerence.
Agnotology may not be an easy sell…..
Agreed but the concept is of increasing importance. Industrial scale dishonesty seems to be the order of the day; it may not be quite as advanced here as in Trump’s USA but I predict it will get a lot worse in Brexit Britain.
Joseph Goebbels said: “The bigger the lie, the more it will be believed.” We’re definitely moving into that territory.
The “creed” is a first draft and constructive comments always welcome.
I expect agnotology from the right wing press but as Jonathan Powell points out in the new European this week (on the Irish border remaining frictionless after Brexit but it could be on any number of issues)
“The BBC, with its misguided commitment to ‘balance’, reported both statements with equal weight as if they were equivalent. They missed, and continue to miss, the point that impartiality is not the same as relativism. Balance between truth and a lie is not balance, but is to undermine any value in reporting at all. Failing to question an assertion that has no basis or to at least challenge a minister to produce some evidence of what they are saying is an abdication of responsibility by the national news service for which we all pay.”
I wholeheartedly agree with that
One, slight, change I would make to an, otherwise, encompassing creed:
We believe in society that cherishes all the people of the world equally, irrespective of race, religion, gender, age or sexual orientation.
This, slight, change would hew, more closely, to the treatise laid out, by Richard. If we are to have a party, a party which is, currently, vital to providing a real choice, it must have, not only the flavour of Europe, it must have a global perspective. This would allow, those of us, progressively minded people to reach out, not only across the UK and Europe, but to all peoples of the world. Diversity and multiculturalism are, rightly, spelled out in the creed. These ideals must be brought to fruition by assuring, the right, all individuals have to immigrate to not only our country, but all countries. It is, through this diversity, that we gain strength, culturally, economically and through the electoral process.
I agree with the idea
What I could not agree with is the Green Party’s commitment to open borders, come what may
This is not practical at a point of time
It is not culturally possible except over an extended period: assimilation is necessary on all sides and that takes time
Control of migration is necessary as a result
It’s not racist and it’s not nationalistic: it’s about managing the process of change, not preventing it
‘Children of the nation’ is (I suspect deliberately) vague. One upshot of the referendum has been to bring one kind of discrimination, which has always been widespread, systemic, legally enforced and largely unquestioned, into sharper focus – discrimination according to nationality. Depending on the place of their birth people who have made the UK their home may be excluded from public funds or welfare, may be discriminated against in job selection, may not be able to vote, and may have their right to be in this country revoked by changes in law. Solving this issue is difficult because of how much it is intertwined with immigration, but it might be good to address this more explicitly in your creed.
Note a comment I have just made
I agree with you
But equally migration has to be a democratically managed process where debate is possible
Creating a new party seems to me a very bad idea. As Rene Bach has pointed out it would split the left of centre yet again. Furthermore it would be difficult for it to gain enough traction in terms of membership as people don’t easily give up allegiance to a party they have long supported. Much better to build on the movement for a progressive alliance, whereby parties on the left and centre agree to support one anti-Conservative candidate in as many marginal seats as can be agreed with the purpose of bringing in a PR electoral system. A lot of work is already being coordinated to this end by Compass and the campaign group Make Votes Matter. Hopefully we would then end up with a coalition government where many different voices could be heard and where one hegemonic party could not ride roughshod over the rest of us.
This is possibly the topic ‘du jour’. I’m pretty sure progressives across the country are asking the same question. And there is no simple solution. I agree with all your criteria. For me one of the essential ‘pillars’ of any new party must be a macro-economic policy that rejects the ‘balanced budget’ premise of neo-liberalism, allowing for and encouraging long-term government investment in the state.
I’m a member of the Green Party because it most closely matches my political agenda, but you’re right that its name has always proved a limiting factor in gaining more widespread popularity. Progressive Party? Social Democrat Party? Equality Party? etc. etc. None of these seem appropriate for the 21st century in terms of a name that might coalesce a cross section of the electorate.
If any new party can succeed there will have to be a strong element of compromise but it must embody core principles, along the lines you have identified. A simple solution might be for the Green Party to change its name but that would separate it from the global Green movement. It’s a real challenge to which there is no easy solution. It’s a tragedy that ‘New Labour’ became a toxic brand.
As an aside, I’ve just watched the CNN series ‘Race for the White House’ (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5194802) which gives a fascinating insight into American politics and how the 2 main parties emerged. I was surprised as to how little I knew. And the election of Trump was by no means exceptional in that other rank outsiders have won the presidency against all the offical odds – including Lincoln, Truman and Kennedy. Possibly some lessons to be learned in terms of winning the popular vote.
Thanks
Seems to me the Greens already fill your requirements. If the current MSM and most especially the BBC would give them just a small % of the coverage they give UKIP people might become more aware of the full range of policies. They were the first party to start discussing a citizens wage for example. They are the pro europe anti neo liberal party.
Bit the name is enough to stop many voting for them: as is apparent in Germany at present appearing to be a single issue party does not work
I am not sure it is the name as such but the misconception that the Greens are about telling people they cannot do what they want because what we do now is bad for the environment. The way to turn this around is like in the Tony Seba video that was recommended on this site a few weeks ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kxryv2XrnqM
then if you pursue Green policy you end up with a better car, cheaper energy and clean air. What’s not to like about that?
In principle nothing
But it’s a mountain to climb
And I think we are good at mountain climbing but unfortunately as fading power we are loosing some of our pioneering spirit. It is still there in individuals but not cultivated collectively, and the world is now too complex for individuals to make a big difference on their own. A party that manages to capture a mood of improving all lives not just some has to have a chance, but there needs to be real substance behind it, not just empty promises. And the leader of this progressive alliance needs to know enough science and economics to be able to assemble the right team and deliver. On top of charisma and all the rest, it is a big ask, I know.
Richard, there already IS a Party that meets ALL your requirements, and especially the mutuality requirement as a practical expression of “Love thy neighbour”(which, incidentally, I do not think Dawkins would eschew – he has referred to himself as a “cultural Christian”, recognising its role in forming our society, while rejecting all its beliefs).
Well, the Party which meets your requirements, including Dawkins’s Europhile dimension, is the Co-Operative Party, of which I am a member, as well as of the Labour Party – the only other Parry to which a Labour member may belong, because of their historic agreement to seek common ground, and pursue differing, but related, objectives.
For quite some time now I’ve thought that the Co-Operative Party should sever that link, and campaign on its own, even though being allied to Labour has allowed them to see elected a fair number of MP’s – the figure 26, or maybe 30, springs to mind, but I may be wrong, but far more than the Lib-Dems, and an effective grouping that have achieved many good things, such as increased support for Credit Unions, new legislation on mutuality, and the establishment of cooperative schools, so that there are some cooperative academies.
Of course, if this were to happen, those Labour and Co-Operative MP’s would have to choose which way to go. I wonder which way Gordon Brown would have gone, as the first Co-Op Party Leader of the Labour Party?
Well,the Co-Op Party has been ahead of the game, and I originally joined as a bolt hole, in case Labour didn’t meet the challenge, when Clause IV debate was going on, because the Co-Op Party had accepted the need to change what I regarded to be a formulation that confused means and ends, exalting detailed means,nationalisation, over the really needful end, that of a mutual economy in service to people rather than systems.
Anyway, there’s my two penn’orth. I believe a standalones Co-Operative Party could attract all the elements Dawkins refers to, as well as implicit support from the Greens, and even the Lib-Dems, and COULD succeed, even under our palsied FPTP abomination, the reform of which, as noted by another commenter above, is the sine qua non of sensible modern politics.
But could it stand alone?
Serious question
We are desperately in need of a new vision that encompasses all issues, especially environmental, economic, social and global policies. Labour and the Green Party are falling short on this, unfortunately.
I have a fantasy of locking you, Richard, in a room with a group of others who I hold in great esteem such as George Monbiot, John Christensen, Paul Mason, Owen Jones, Naomi Klein, and Noam Chomsky, until you have a set of viable and inspiring policies which could form a new narrative. Would you be up for it Richard? Who would you choose?
I’d be up for it
That list is good
Rather male though…
I’d need to think about who I would add
Anne Pettifor and Marina Mazzucato, for sire, and probably Mary Wrenn, the Joan Robinson Research Fellow for Heterodox Economics at Gorton College, Cambridge.
Sure….
What about Stephanie Kelton and Elizabeth Warren?
Both definitely work for me
Way back, a couple of hundred years ago Margaret Thatcher had weavers, shoe makers and ag labs in her ancestry. I wonder if they were among the Luddites of the time?
Whilst I like the idea of the clean slate of a new party and agree with much of the above, the dire need at present is to establish an opposition movement that could challenge the right at a forthcoming UK general election run under FPTP. Given the extensive choice on the left of centre spectrum (even just those mentioned above) it requires some form of political alliance / agreement which enables voters to focus on the candidate in any given constituency most likely to win. All credit to Caroline Lucas and others for their efforts in trying to achieve this.
The key it appears is to win over Labour to this approach and to ensure others are prepared to eschew tribalism until constitutional reform and a new electoral system can be introduced. Included in such reform would have to be a move to a more federal UK to keep the SNP on board.
The frustration for me at present is that whilst there is a great deal of interesting talk about options and alternatives, no-one seems to be doing that much about this in a practical sense.
I would live to
I am finite
Abolishing party politics would be better.
No – we end up like Jersey – a near one party state
We wouldn’t have any political parties, we’d have representatives elected by PR.
There would have to be some oversight, but it would be far less corrupt than what we have now.
That’s what they say in Jersey
And I really do not believe them
And how do we elect governments?
By having elections under proportional representation. You would still have a pool of candidates, also a “none of the above” option.
Unlike Jersey there would be no political parties whatsoever.
Also, every candidate would have to declare external interests publicly before the election.
There would also be no House of Lords.
As a researcher you must know how corrupt party politics is
I am a pragmatist as well as a democrat
There is no workable democratic government without parties
Why not work to transform and make electable the one party who can genuinely challenge the Tories and win a GE?
The Labour Party is currently at a very low ebb, but it still has the capacity to turn that around, and is the only realistic vehicle for electoral success for a progressive centre left alternative.
Talk of a new party isn’t helpful to anyone – bar the Tories who would love to have another vote splitting opposition party entering the fray.
I agree you need more than one ‘Centrist’ party. We need checks and balances, the left and right legs of democracy as it were to move forward. I think the ‘European party’ would not be a useful name for attracting regional brexit communities which it would be attempting to support. Something like the ‘Regions’ Centre left’ party might be better.
When things are going badly it is very tempting just to say “let’s start again”. The only point of a political party is to achieve influence, and that influence has to be great enough to ensure it succeeds in gaining a majority at the next election. Many of the sympathies of Richard Murphy’s piece and in the comments are clearly left of centre. The Labour Party has on paper an extraordinary level of support. A new party has to be sure of generating a comparable degree of support in the time available. Giving any new party a label that turns of as many of the general public as it turns on is simply not going to work. There are lots of sensible left of centre people in the UK who really have problems with Europe.
To succeed it must have an appeal that is broad enough to bring in a wide range of support. Even the word “Labour” has enough negative connotations to make that name a disadvantage. Words like “Momentum” and “Tribune” are relatively free from this. Their reputations will be generated as a consequence of what they do or do not do.
I am convinced the only way forward is to find a political centre of gravity for the Labour MPs, the broadest Labour membership and the constituency Labour parties. In the UK political parties do indeed have sub-groupings that push more particular agendas. We urgently need a refocusing of what Labour is. It is widely agreed that a new leader will be needed but that must not be the focus of the party now. After 18 months of Corbyn’s leadership we still don’t have anything that might be called “Labour Party policy”. They have just sent around a policy consultation sheet in a simple multiple choice format. Surely there is enough evidence from public opinion polls what actually matters to the general public. Labour desperately need a list of things they will actually do rather than just cataloguing the aspirations of the left.
Momentum sounded promising when it was set up but, like so many political sub- groupings, it is subject to infighting and manoeuvring to the detriment of the principles of that movement and certainly to the traditional principles of the Labour Party. Perhaps Tribune can do better. The Guardian reports today that the new Labour Tribune MPs group has just been launched though the website suggests this actually happened five months ago.
Already that delay is worrying. I thought I was fairly in touch with what was going on with current centre-left thinking. A grouping like Labour Tribune and won’t work without some serious PR. In needs money and a website that is less slick but has more content. Above all it needs full-time people to push it properly. It might be able to make some genuine progress in establishing a foothold in the centre of the Labour Party but it looks at present as if it has some considerable way to go. Without it or something like it I cannot see any prospect of regenerating a centre-left political party in the finite future.
But I’m very clear that there aren’t any other parties around the have a chance, and setting up a new party with the name that starts by polarising the electorate is simply not going to get anywhere.
All I’ve managed to do is put together a blog called outsidethebubble.net, but it is so hard to find any way of moving these things forward otherwise.
But Tribune is Labour
And has baggage
[…] in his Tax Research UK blog developed the ideas although not in a particularly supportive way (http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2017/04/03/time-for-a-new-political-party/comment-page-1/#comment… […]
“Fifth, and last (for now) there’s another key issue, which is that the party should be based on what I might call the mutuality principle. At it’s core this picks up a theme whose origin Dawkins may not approve of”
Contrary to majority perceived opinion and unbeknown to Dawkins himself he did subconsciously understand the need for mutuality and thereby undermined the theme of his “Selfish Gene” book right at the beginning on page 4 when he wrote:-
” If we were told that a man had lived a long and prosperous life in the world of Chicago gangsters, we would be entitled to make some guesses as to the sort of man he was. We might expect that he would have qualities such as toughness, a quick trigger finger, and the ability to attract loyal friends.”
The loyalty of friends indeed! “Our thing” (Cosa Nostra) is the strong bonds or mutuality we have between us so that “united we stand, divided we fall.”
We had a northern territory here in Canada that didn’t have political parties. Or at least that’s what the law said. But factions formed as always and eventually they had to give up the pretense and allow official parties, which had actually been there all along.
Similarly municipal politics in most medium sized and small towns have no official parties, but everyone knows which actual party everyone is part of and they vote accordingly. The real estate industry has their slate running in every municipality pushing for “development”, AKA the rape of the forests and fields.
In the big cities parties (big for Canada, you Brits would call them medium sized at best) have formed parties under different names, but again everyone knows which party is made up of what national and provincial party members and supporters.
In Vancouver one of the main parties is the “Non Partisan Association” (!) which everyone knows is the Conservative party in disguise (mainly made up of real estate salesmen). The Conservatives are adept at disguises, for instance the governing party in British Columbia call themselves “Liberals” but are actually the Conservative party in disguise.
As for abolishing “politics”, well you may as well vote to abolish gravity. Where there are people there is politics, period.
Precisely
A new party is needed but my plea would be for it not to be centrist as I do want it to merely keep us politically and policy wise where we are now. We need to move Left back to a true centre – a better balance between market and State. The half way line has been moved by the Right. We must realise this and push it back.
However, having used classical political terms to describe what I think a new party could do, the language (Left /Right/Centrist) seems inadequate in my view. We need a new language.
The first question that should be asked by the supporters or creators of this party is ‘Where do we think we ought to be as a country?’.
For me I’d like to see the sort of state that existed twenty or so years after WWII. A State keen to share wealth and enabled to take care of its citizens and make life better. It also has to be a State prepared to control capitalism for its own good.
I and many others here feel (know!) that neo-liberalism has failed. A keen examination of those failures could very well produce a set of policies that could then be sold as a variety of ideas to the public – getting away from the single issue problem. The new party should see itself as inter-dependent with other like minded ones on a permanent basis. Enough of monolithic political parties I say.
There so many good alternative ideas out there – the leadership of such a party needs to be prepared to co-opt those ideas (and the political movements that accompany them perhaps?) into the new set up. For example a party that was guided by the market ethics as espoused by Michael Sandel would be very positive for humanity.
I only wish that I were capable enough at being at the heart of such a venture.
I agree left / right / centre is wrong
And we need to do better to replace it
Let’s keep trying
I very much agree that the language of Left-Right does not capture the many dimensions of today’s politics, let alone tomorrow’s. Brexit provides a good example with supporters coming from both the Left and the Right
PSR – I think you put your finger on the core of the debate, which is the balance between Market and State, and as you say Michael Sandel has some of the best insights and needs to be more widely read. He seems to be the only person getting away from the standard political arguments, and teasing out underlying values.
For the traditional Left, the boot is firmly on the State side of the scales in all situations and it’s on the Market side for the traditional Right. Balance for me would be dynamic recognising that in different contexts and at different times, the balance might need to shift one way or another. Sandels arguments help in understanding what a desirable balance might be.
The problem is that so few people are like you Richard, striving to love others as much as you love yourself.
Until that time, we are stuck with the sort of people that vote for Tories and Donald Trump (!) – people who try to avoid paying their fair share.
We need to find a way to build systems that are not reliant on the benevolence of these individuals but that somehow leverages their own selfish interest, or I fear we will be waiitng a very long time for the kind of progressive growth we need in our societies.
I don’t agree
All around me I see people who care
People who Louis Armstrong observed saying ‘How do you do’ when they really meant ‘I love you’
We just need to tap that
Is it consistent to oppose the green’s policy of open borders and to claim that the best of all the commandments is to love your neighbour as you love yourself? When it comes to a duel between what God said and what is pragmatic, does God lose out to people who have to ‘deal with the real world’?
If a society becomes unstable it can love no one
I am not anti-migration at all
I think the pace of migration has to allow for human ability to accept change
Don’t you?
I agree, but first the Labour Party needs to rewrite Clause IV so that it is clearly defined as a socialist party. Then those who just want a more cuddly capitalism (where where the rich own the means of production, land and capital, and the rest just sell their labour) could move off to a pro-capitalism party. The original Clause IV will not do – has been interpreted as nationalisation of land and capital. I’m part of a group who will be working on this. It’s a long long road but better to get the basics right and then move forward.
You could call the new party the Christian Democrats 🙂
Left/Right dates from the French Revolution. Perhaps if we cannot overcome these ideas we should just note that the rentiers were one of the revolution’s major contributory factors. I think we have to ask why the Conservatives are supporting the rentiers. It is unfortunate that this is a French word and there is no obvious English altrnative. You just have to use Mill’s earning income in your sleep.
Why is this so good when it is such a long way from the work ethic?
“the end of neoliberalism being nigh”
This can’t come soon enough. I am fed up with friends laughing and saying people have been predicting the end of capitalism ever since Marx and it still hasn’t ended and now many friends just look blankly when I talk about Neoliberalism or say it’s a ridiculous ‘catch-all’ expression for anything and everything that the far-left don’t like.
What time-span are you anticipating? 6 months? A year?
What signs would signify that Neoliberalism had ended?
I’m looking forward to having the last laugh.
It needs a good shove as yet
The final demise is not yet
My view Hester is that I do not want capitalism to actually end: I just want a better version of it that is more in tune with nature (less pollution) and the core, much more broader set of human values (certainly not the so called ‘selfish gene’).
Capitalism is an inherently unstable system – but all political/economic systems have an inherent weakness that can be exploited if left ungoverned or ignored.
That weakness is called human beings. Within capitalism there is a subset called ‘greed’ – those who wish to over-accumulate capital for capital’s sake – the objective which can only ever be political.
Varoufakis thinks that the power struggle between labour and capital – if managed properly – is a source of innovation. It is well known that tension between actors can act as a creative force – when everyone is involved and everyone benefits. I think he is right. This is why we need unions in the work place working with managers. This is why we need to think about how innovation destroys jobs and wealth and make more informed decisions about how to cope with this fact.
These modern capitalists favour capital accumulation over capital generation – they just move money around – often upwards to them – rather than generating new money. This is why innovation (service and product) becomes stymied in such conditions but stuff like acquisitions and mergers becomes more prevalent (the lazy way to make money – often debt fuelled as well – another problem with modern capitalism ).
There are two things that need to be done straight away to save capitalism from itself:
1) Corporations must loose their legally defined right to be seen as a ‘person’ in law. This ‘right’ is an affront to the facts but also enables Corps’ to get away with treating the planet and its people badly. Accountability to all stakeholders must be asserted.
2) The primacy of investor rights over anything else needs to be rescinded with a better more balanced set of legal rights and obligations for the real world for all stakeholders.
Both these stupid legal interventions (American ‘innovations’ I believe) just start to help the funnelling process of money and benefit to the top that is effectively killing capitalism and making our lives ever harder.
A courageous state would deal with these faults head on in my view.
A lot to agree with there PSR
Do you remember, PSR – certainly I do, as I was very active in the Labour Party at that time – that an underlying theme of Tony Blair’s first campaign that led him to stunning victory was the idea of “a stakeholder economy?
This espoused your first point by implication (though to be fair, I don’t think corporations in English law are considered “persons” in the ludicrous American “Citizens United” way, but rather entities, with a legal personality), and explicitly proclaimed your second – that a business should be run for its stakeholders and the broader common good, not the narrow shareholder economic model that has served eh common good so poorly
Alas, when TB got to Number 10 the siren call of big money and big business (do you remember the Bernie Ecclestone donation scandal?) and the so-called “real world” (remember Mandelson’s “It’s OK to become filthy rich”, scarcely moderated by the follow-up ” so long as you pay your taxes.”), exerted its baleful influence, and within days, certainly weeks, the stakeholder economy entered, at best, the category of the unicorn, or rocking-horse droppings – fabled, legendary or incapable of existing – or at worst became a candidate for Room 101 of Orwell’s Ministry of Truth, whose very existence was scrubbed from the record, along with the fact that it had existed.
A tragedy, as, with a 176 seat majority, Blair really COULD have totally transformed the UK’s economy and constitutional arrangements, to give us a real social economy, in which the needs of people prevailed over the demands of capital, built on a constitution and politics encompassing PR, real Lords reform into a Senate (of the Regions?), and true devolution of power, not just to Scotland and Wales, but to the English regions, and to local government in general as an expression of true subsidiarity.
Blair did a lot of good, but he wasted his first administration, as outlined above, poisoned his second with Iraq, and hung on too long into a third administration, winning a 60 seat majority on just 22% of the total electorate – a scandal, frankly, in a purported democracy.
I agree that Blair did indeed waste his first administration, cowering in the headlights of Thatcher
Well i’d agree that more government spending on things that benefit the country as a whole (we can debate where that should be delpoyed) matched by collecting the tax due from multinationals would be a great start in improving the country’s overall wellbeing!
No we don’t agree actually
The two are not connected
Read The Joy of Tax for the explanation
Of course I’m not presuming that they are connected in a “vera causa” sense. I understand that you can have either one without the other. What I am saying is where we would overlap is in seeing it as a positive for the country for them both to occur (right now).
I’d add just as you get inefficiences, deficiencies and surplus investment in specific areas of the private sector (dot com
boom, credit crunch), you can also get these flaws in government spending. Unintended consequences abound, the ebb and flow continues to occur, but if we look at human progress over the centuries things are generally getting better. I’m an optimist.
The Green Party has v positive principles and well-developed ideas for putting these into practice. It already has a raft of social justice matters in its DNA. More members and an improved electoral system would make a huge difference to the well-being of all.
More political parties will not help.
The current democratic processes are undoubtedly dysfunctional, but a new ‘Alliance’ Party is not the answer. It would simply partially-replace the dysfunctional Conservative-Labour duopoly with a Conservative-Alliance duopoly, and extend the Conservative hegemony by further splitting the ‘progressive’ vote. There are a number of potential answers, but fully-proportional representation is a pre-requisite for them all.
The case for fully-proportional representation in the UK House of Commons (and indeed, in every Representative Assembly intended to hold a de-facto Executive to account) is now surely undeniable.
However, the vast majority of the population are not political activists. They are not interested in ‘unfocused protest’, particularly if they are disenchanted with the existing (unfair and dysfunctional) democratic processes. If there is no firm commitment by the (de-facto or likely-future) Executive to meaningful reform, there is no choice but to use (and/or even abuse) the existing (unfair and dysfunctional) democratic processes to secure reform of those existing (unfair and dysfunctional) democratic processes. Under the existing (unfair and dysfunctional) democratic processes, that means they must be presented with the option to vote positively for the Candidate of a Party with a realistic chance of holding sufficient power (with others) to force reform of the existing (unfair and dysfunctional) democratic processes.
However, the constitution of any such arrangement must be carefully engineered. Any arrangement with a ‘mongrel’ or ‘coalition’ ‘manifesto for 5 years of Executive power’ would not be seen as credible. Indeed, the whole idea behind democracy is to give citizens a more meaningful choice for more nuanced representation, so such a ‘mongrel’ or ‘coalition’ arrangement (i.e. reducing citizen-choice) would anyway be a classic case of means confounding ends.
Thus, a Democracy-Party must characterise itself as a mere ‘placeholder’ for a Democracy-Campaign. A Democracy-Campaign and Democracy-Party should have the following characteristics:
1. They should both promote solely their single-issue manifesto (i.e. fully-proportional representation). On all other issues, they should offer temporary ‘passive’ support for a moderate and pragmatic coalition Executive (pending a prompt re-election based on fully-proportional representation).
2. They should be ‘sponsored’ by an ‘honest broker’ organisation (e.g. ‘Make Votes Matter’ and/or ‘More United’), rather than one or more ‘real’ political Parties with axes to grind (‘real’ political Parties with axes to grind should continue to grind those axes – see later).
3. They should be ‘chaired’ by a senior ‘honest broker’ person beyond personal political ambition (e.g. Paddy Ashdown), rather than by an active ‘big beast’ with political axes to grind (active ‘big beasts’ with political axes to grind should continue to grind those axes – see later).
However, the real focus for such a Democracy-Campaign should be a Democracy-Pact for each election (for a Representative Assembly) not based on fully-proportional representation. Each such Democracy-Pact would be an open electoral arrangement between each and every Party (i.e. including the Democracy-Party itself, and ‘real’ Parties considered by some to be ‘extreme’) willing to forego some Party-specific electoral opportunities in that election.
In each election based on fully-proportional representation, there would be no (need for) a Democracy-Pact, and the Democracy-Campaign and Democracy-Party would not play a part (other than endorsing the legitimacy of that election). The electorate would be offered a full choice from all ‘real’ Parties campaigning for election under their true and independent colours.
A proposed blueprint for the working arrangements for a Democracy-Campaign and Democracy-Party, and for a Democracy-Pact for the UK 2020 election, is outlined below.
At the national level:
1. The Democracy-Campaign, Democracy-Party and Democracy-Pact should all promote solely their single-issue manifesto (i.e. fully-proportional representation). On all other issues, they should offer temporary ‘passive’ support for a moderate and pragmatic coalition Executive (pending a prompt re-election based on fully-proportional representation).
2. The Democracy-Campaign Parties should emphasise their differences rather than fudging them. In all public pronouncements and debates (including Party Manifestos and Party Political Broadcasts), Democracy-Campaign Parties should pursue their own agendas; other than:
a. They should include unequivocal public support for the Democracy-Campaign and the Democracy-Pact process.
b. After expressing their opinions on any other topic, they should highlight the ‘wouldn’t it be nice if it mattered what we (and you, the electors) think’ message of the Democracy-Campaign as a ‘throwaway line’.
3. The current Labour ‘covert coalition’ Party (for that’s what it is!) and the current Conservative ‘covert coalition’ Party (for that’s what it is!) would almost certainly not ‘formally’ join the Democracy-Campaign, and a Democracy-Pact for UK 2020) initially, but they could be constantly challenged as to why not. Indeed, the Democracy-Campaign should highlight and emphasise mercilessly the internal schisms within the Conservative ‘covert coalition’ Party and the Labour ‘covert coalition’ Party. The Democracy-Campaign should float the idea that, with fully-proportional representation, we would expect to see the current Labour ‘covert coalition’ Party break up into an ‘Old Labour’ Party and a ‘New Labour’ Party, and to see the current Conservative ‘covert coalition’ Party break up into a ‘Europhile Conservative’ Party and a ‘Europhobe Conservative’ Party. Thus, current Labour supporters and current Conservative supporters should be encouraged to support the Democracy-Campaign to ‘get their part of their Party back’ from the current ‘covert coalitions’. We would expect to see perhaps 10 or so clearly-differentiated substantial but non-dominant ‘natural’ Parties on offer, and those who wanted to vote for those underlying ‘natural’ Parties would have that option (with a much clearer idea as to what they were voting for, and with much greater confidence that they would actually get what they voted for).
4. Following the election in UK 2020, the Representatives of the Democracy-Campaign Parties would press for a prompt re-election based on fully-proportional representation.
This sounds like the Progressive Alliance Compass are promoting
No.
PR (Fully-Proportional Representation without a Progressive Alliance) is almost precisely the opposite of PA (a Progressive Alliance without Fully-Proportional Representation)!
A Compass PA (as I understand it) would effectively seek to establish a ‘mongrel’ or ‘coalition’ ‘manifesto for 5 years of Executive power’. However:
1. It would be impossible to establish such a PA manifesto, and even if a pretence was made, no-one would trust it. The reason why there are so many Parties opposed to the current Conservative hegemony is that there are many radically-different views as to priorities. Indeed, this is graphically illustrated by the current schisms between the ‘Old’ and ‘New’ ‘real’ Parties within the current Labour ‘covert coalition’ Party. If they weren’t joined by history and momentum, no-one would ever dream of joining them together into a PA. The same goes for the ‘Europhobe’ and ‘Europhile’ ‘real Parties within the current Conservative ‘covert coalition’ Party.
2. Even if it succeeded, a PA would be counter-democratic. It would reduce elector-choice, and contain policy-development within intra-PA ‘gaming’ by ‘activists’ and ‘party machines’.
3. Even if it succeeded, a PA would simply replace the current Conservative-Labour two-Party system with a Conservative-Alliance two-Party system. Indeed, many in the current Labour Party would support the objectives of a PA, but would insist that the best way forward was for all those within the current Labour ‘covert coalition’ Party, and all those within other ‘progressive’ Parties, to ‘back-off’ and support the current leadership of the current Labour ‘covert coalition’ Party to give that current Labour ‘Progressive-Alliance’ Party a ‘clear run’ at the Conservative ‘covert coalition’ Party. Most not in the current Labour ‘covert coalition’ Party would see that as not ‘fit for purpose’.
4. With PR, all of the inter-Party debates and negotiations which would be required to sustain any kind of PA would be displaced into transparent ‘business-as usual’ on an ‘issue-by-issue’ basis in the UK Commons. Electors would be entitled to expect their elected Representatives to argue and vote according to manifesto commitments in Select Committees and right up to and including each final decisive vote in the UK Commons (i.e. without any ‘gaming’ of the negotiation process). Electors would be in charge, because they would have the (proportional) initial choice of representatives, and thereby control of the final choice on each issue.
5. I am a great supporter of the idea of a much wider choice of Parties regardless of my own personal preferences (I believe it’s called Democracy!). With PR, I believe that the current Labour ‘covert coalition’ Party could and would be able to split into (at least) an ‘Old Labour’ Party and a ‘New Labour’ Party, and that the current Conservative ‘covert coalition’ Party could and would be able to split into (at least) a ‘Europhile Conservative’ Party and a ‘Europhobe Conservative’ Party. We could expect to see perhaps 10 or so clearly-differentiated substantial but non-dominant ‘natural’ Parties on offer, and those who wanted to vote for those underlying ‘natural’ Parties would have that option (with a much clearer idea as to what they were voting for, and with much greater confidence that they would actually get what they voted for).
A progressive alliance should be created between Greens, Lib-Dems, SNP (and Labour where they accept the alliance) to push for real Proportional Representation to be the country’s new electoral system – with an underlying agreement that it would bring about a country focused more on the welfare state, mutual solidarity, and co-operative capitalism that seems to be more likely under a PR system. There could be a separate PR debate among UKIP supporters, but I don’t think the progressive alliance and UKIP could share a campaign platform.
There are significant differences in PR systems to consider for a debate, e.g. in Sweden you vote either a party list or a person in the modified form of the Sainte-Laguë method, in Finland you vote a person (and if your candidate doesn’t get through the vote is transferred to the electoral list the candidate is on – usually a single political party according to the d’Hondt formula. In Germany you get two votes, one vote is for a direct candidate and the second one is about a party list in each province as drawn up by the party caucus. If the UK goes down a more federal route, the German system might work well – but I think realistically a Finnish system might work as it’s a bit simpler to understand as you vote a person rather than a party.
I wish this might happen
It is the best outcome
Im catching up with this excellent discussion after watching the play Limehouse, at the Donmar, about the formation of the SDP. Anyone on this blog would enjoy it as it is eerily prescient of just about all the points being made here and in previous similar discussions. I hope it gets put on elsewhere round the country. Worth reflecting on what we might learn
Arguably it had the medium term effect of pulling Labour back towards the centre, from which it was then able to gain power for the longest period ever. When it subsequently ‘lost the plot’, it was another more centrist party who benefited in the shape of the LibDems, possibly the heirs to the SDP. Like it or not, when in coalition they reined in the worst excesses of the Tories as we have seen with the lurch to the far right since the collapse of the coalition. Recall that but for Brown, that could have been a coalition with Labour.
Then as now, both Labour and Tories were deeply conflicted and each contained at least 2 separate parties. Anti-capitalist/anti-Europe vs ‘managed’ capitalism/pro-Europe in Labour, and Europhobe/extreme deregulators vs ‘One Nation’/pro Europe in the Tories. In each case the only thing that held them together was that unless they did, they would never gain power under FPTP voting. Which of course leads straight to the debate about PR which we are again rehearsing today.
Whichever form of PR is adopted, and I defer to others more expert than I, without it I see know prospect of major change in the parties. As it is, the extreme faction that dominates the Tories now has the power attributed to it by the seats gained by the whole party, even though they are not a majority even in the Tories. But they still cling together, apart from a few brave lone voices. Labour is not so different, with different but equally disastrous consequences.
If the route to PR was a temporary alliance of groups, I’d support it 100%. After all, in a PR world, coalitions are the norm and they don’t seem to work too badly in most other countries
I would also support such an alliance
Very strongly