I was invited to a meeting last night at which members of at least three political parties who considered themselves to be on the left, and quite a number of people who were in no political party at all, met to discuss how to secure fair political representation in an area where the Tories always win less than 50% of the vote and 90% of the seats on local councils.
The sense of common interest was very strong: it was suggested more than 80% common interest existed based on manifestos and other statements.
It was agreed to see if joint policy initiatives were possible.
And there was a lot of ittitation that 'on high' and rule books may frown upon any such exercise.
No one guaranteed that electoral pacts would follow: no one was sure how such things could happen.
But I sensed three things.
First, frustration.
Second, a deep desire to be represented.
Third, a community of interest willing to look at a common politics.
I was impressed and wish those involved well.
And out of curiosity is anyone else undertaking such an exercise? Locations need not be stated if party rules are being breached.
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Absolutely yes. I grew up with a PR system which naturally leads to coalition unless you get over approximately 50% of the vote. In 1968 the dominant party tried to get rid of the PR system and replace it by a first past the post system. A referendum was held and it was soundly rejected by the electorate. Tactical voting and coalitions are in my blood.
I’m not sure how to get PR in the UK. The Lib Dems tried (another referendum in which I was on the loosing side). The arguments for retaining the first past the post system are very weak “PR doesn’t work – look at Italy”; they don’t mention that the vast majority of European countries have PR including the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Ireland, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Switzerland.
Hi Richard
A few more thoughts. I’m not sure what you mean by a two party system.
Full PR would of course have given UKIP a substantial number of seats in the 2015 election. Once the cold light of day has been shone on them my hope is that people will see them for what they are and the electoral success will not be repeated.
In the UK there are largely two monolithic parties which really should split at least into two each. Under PR this would not be an electoral disaster but might raise the possibility of the Blairite wing of Labour and the One Nation Torys forming a coalition (or not Fianna Fail and Fine Gael still can’t countenance doing so).
Fianna Fail which was doing well in the late 60s and regularly got over 50% of the vote tried to move the PR system to 1st past the post. I was too young to vote but my socialist mother was totally incensed by this and I have never forgiven them! Never trusted Fianna Fail after that.
On a totally different matter the Irish CSO has released the final GDP growth figures for 2015 today; the growth rate was revised upwards from 7.8% (very respectable and back into Tiger territory) to a staggering 26.3%! Clearly something very strange is going on. Of course GDP is not a very good measure of Ireland’s real economy.
I may get to the GDP figure
And agree re PR
Is this not advocating a 2 party political system. Surely if this happens the tories and ukip would be forced into similar pacts?
Let’s deal with the reality – without getting elected the electoral system can’t be changed
True, just seems there is something sinister about manipulating the elecoral system to reform the electoral system. Would we require a referendum to change the elecoral system to PR? Would be interesting seeing the greens and UKIP campaigning for the same thing.
Yes.
Informal discussions to explore fielding a ‘broad coalition of opposition’ candidate rather than a host of ‘never-will-be-electeds’ in upcoming devolved mayoral election has reached agreement in principle. Now discussing possible candidates and platform.
Interesting
It’s taken a year so far; begun after the General Election and targetted at elections in May 2017.
Richard something wrong with the blog today; I at least am seeing three replies of yours to contributions which are not showing?
No idea
Which blog?
What replies?
OK appearing now; possibly just a problem with my browser. They all seem to be replies to a post of mine which was flagged “awaiting moderation” but has now appeared.
Time to break the establishment (and Tory) stranglehold on this country once and for all. New Labour had their chance to introduce PR and bottled it because they (in my view) weren’t willing to let loose democracy as they knew they couldn’t control and dominate it, which is ultimately the fear of all establishment controlled parties.
If the impending break-up of Labour into New and Old factions is the trigger for real constitutional and electoral reform, then perhaps something good will come out of this debacle.
Was reading a bit of the history of the Tories today and this made me chuckle:
“The word “Tory” derives from the Middle Irish word tóraidhe; modern Irish tóraÃ: outlaw, robber or brigand, from the Irish word tóir, meaning “pursuit”, since outlaws were “pursued men”.
I look forward to seeing the current bunch of brigands pursued out of this country for good!
Thanks Keith , always wondered about the origin of that word. Love the Irish orthography where so many letters aren’t pronounced but have a grammatical function: ‘toraidhe’.
How do you get the diacritical signs on your computer?
It’s my great grandfather’s Irish keyboard Simon, everyone should have one!
(or just copy and paste from Wikipedia) 😉
Simon and Keith,
Interestingly, it would appear we owe the name of the Tory rivals, the Whigs, also to the Gaels, though this time to the Scots.
“The term Whig was originally short for “whiggamor”, a term meaning “cattle driver” used to describe western Scots who came to Leith for corn. In the reign of Charles I the term was used during Wars of the Three Kingdoms to refer derisively to a radical faction of the Scottish Covenanters who called themselves the “Kirk Party”
(See – if I’m allowed to cite Wikipedia, having been ticked off before for “lazy research” for citing Wikipedia -https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whigs_(British_political_party)
Of course, BOTH terms were originally insults, originating, I had thought, in the embryonic Party system that arose under Charles ll, in the conflict between the “Court” Party, made up of urban aristocracy, nicknamed “Whigs”, by the ” Country” Party, made up of rural aristocracy and landed gentry, nicknamed the “Tories”.
Interestingly, there was also a religious dimension to this, with the Tories supporting Jacobitism, and so implicitly Catholicism, where the Whigs were strongly Protestant, being supportive of even Nonconformism, an origin that can certainly be said to have fed into the origins of the Labour Party, despite the strong Irish Catholic component to its development.
Given the state of UK finances etc. and politics, one asks if we might have a group of like minded Colonels around who could do the job better.
Local members of my own Party (which shall remain nameless) are in discussion with another party of the left (which has a street presence but little electoral success so far) and certain like-minded members of one of the national parties (probably not the Tories) as events slowly develop to our advantage. The Revolution may start here!!!
So that’s at least three areas where this is happening…
My own family is multifactorial, Labour and Green etc. The local Labour MP had a rude awakening this week when most 100 members of the CLP were furious at his attitude to Corbyn, even from members of 60 years standing and not associated as left. I did not witness his [temporary] humiliation as I am not a member of Labour, however de-selection was [threatened] discussed. Labour MPs are seeing an empowered membership exerting their democratic powers, they are seeing members anger at the ‘silent’ sitting MPs, who will not speak out against austerity economics and all the other Eton boys’ fagging scams heaped on the population. I live in hope of an anti-neoliberal movement finding a method to electorally exert power, especially for the young and disabled who have been set adrift.
The Labour party appears incapable of co-operating with itself, never mind other parties of the left.
The UK electorate rejected far-left socialism in 1979 and have been rejecting it ever since. The Trade Union & Socialist Coalition stood on a platform in 2015 not dissimilar to many of the plans discussed here and would have struggled to win a single seat at the election even if everyone in the UK who voted for them moved to the same town. The idea that the UK population is crying out for far left policies is absurd.
Honestly, I’ve rarely read such deluded aspirations.
The people involved were very, very far from far left
Unless you define Nick Clegg et al as far left
But I suspect you do
And for the record, we’ve never had a far left government
You ought to learn a little – you might not be so deluded
The country have rejected far left politics but I would argue that the current Conservative government is far closer to left wing aspirations than right wing ones; hence the triple lock on pensions, interference in the energy and housing markets, the increase in the NMW, the U-turn on cuts to WTC etc, the lowering of the tax threshold etc. It wouldn’t take a huge leap for a truly Socialist government to be elected. If the Left could articulate its positive historic impact on the social and economic conditions of the country it could gain some traction.
A far-left party could never be elected but a Socialist party could.
A genuinely social democratic one has real chance
But we’ve forgotten what that is
I heard Nick Robinson this morning questioning Len McCluskey about supporting Corbyn. Robinson – the ex-Tory now masquerading as an objective reporter.
Every time he asked the union leader a question, he got the word ‘respect’ in implying that Len did not respect the electorate who may find Corbyn unelectable and that the union was trying to rail-road the result (McCluskey was arguing that it was undemocratic for Corbyn not to be on the ballot paper – hard not to find fault with his point).
It is hard not to be surprised that we live in a country that seems to have a real antipathy to unions, which if they were recognised more, may have actually stopped employers abusing the immigration system.
Anyhow, I would love to see a new coalition of sorts but do you think that low grade reporters and correspondents like Robinson would help us to know if a coalition of the sort we’d like to see was any good? Would the idea get a chance?
I doubt it.
It’s positive to hear of these developments from below. The obstacles are higher up, especially in the Labour party.
Which is foolish if Labour is really going to split. If they stand against one another under FPTP, they will get far fewer MPs between them than Labour has now. And perhaps both will end up supporting PR, when it’s too late.
Could Labour agree to stick together to implement PR, and only split after that?
There is some support for PR, e.g. from John McDonnell.
If the Labour right leave form a new party, they will, like the SDP, surely come around to PR. But I fear that they are currently wedded to the Blairite electoral strategy, of ignoring unhappy left-leaning voters because they have nowhere else to go under FPTP, and going for the so-called “centre ground”.
Local initiatives can still continue, even if Labour completely messes this up, but they will be a lot further from power for the next decade or so.
Not sure if you read Paul Mason – but this is really, really interesting
https://medium.com/mosquito-ridge/corbyn-the-summer-of-hierarchical-things-ab1368959b80#.cl21xf29d
But what is the counter-power for?
I do not think Paul knows
My assumption is that it is to gain power in Westminster in order to bring forward a radical agenda including the chancellor’s statement you outlined at the end of The Joy of Tax…
you think not?
Eventually that is, of course, the aim
There are two related ‘constitutional reform’ propositions on the current political agenda:
1. All of the political Parties except the Conservative Party and Labour Party are promoting the concept of proportional representation. With the current ‘covert’ splits over the EU Referendum and Corbin, even the Conservative Party and Labour Party must now consider ‘overt’ splits, and must therefore consider their position on this issue. Opinions vary:
a. Honourable proponents highlight the perceived benefits of ‘true/fair democracy’.
b. Honourable opponents highlight the perceived dangers of ‘coalition chaos’.
2. The Conservative Government is promoting the concept of City Regions; each with a directly-elected Political Chief Executive (i.e. a Mayor). Opinions vary:
a. Honourable proponents highlight the perceived benefits of ‘focussed leadership’.
b. Honourable opponents highlight the perceived dangers of ‘too much power in one pair of hands’.
However, there has been very little discussion of the potential for synergy between these two propositions.
Most honourable opponents of proportional representation are not anti-democratic per-se. Indeed, most honourable opponents of proportional representation would agree with the concept of proportional representation in principle. Their opposition to proportional representation is based on their belief that the effectiveness of the Political Executive is more important than the last ounce of proportional democracy in the associated Representative Assembly, and they presume to have concerns about the presumed weakness of the ‘coalition chaos’ Political Executive which they presume would have to ‘emerge’ from a Representative Assembly without a dominant supportive party.
However, if the Political Chief Executive was independently-elected (e.g. as for the President of the US, the Mayor of London, the Mayor of each of the mooted UK City Regions, and the Mayor of each of the 15 or so UK Mayoral local authorities), that Political Chief Executive would have an independent and decisive democratic mandate to (try to) lead the Political Executive. An independently-elected Political Chief Executive could and should be free to appoint and manage the rest of the Political Executive on the basis of ‘best persons for the jobs’ (i.e. rather than being pressured to find executive jobs for the ‘big beasts’ of the dominant Parties in the associated Representative Assembly). This ‘separation of powers’ is similar to the provisions of the US Constitution; whereby Barack Obama had to resign as Senator for Illinois when he was inaugurated as President of the US in 2009, and whereby Hilary Clinton had to resign as Senator for New York when she was offered and accepted the position of Secretary of State in the Political Executive of the US government in 2009.
With a directly-elected Political Chief Executive (i.e. as above), there would be no need for a ‘standing’ coalition in the associated Representative Assembly, and reservations about proportional representation in the associated Representative Assembly would be moderated.
Thus, the COMBINATION of a directly-elected Political Chief Executive and a fully-proportional Representative Assembly would constitute a ‘net win’ for both the honourable proponents and the honourable opponents in both of the propositions defined above.