Keir Starmer said in his speech on his vision for Labour yesterday:
We're going to have priorities coming into government, clear priorities. They are going to be the missions, and I'm afraid voting reform is not one of the priorities.
This is absurd. Even Andrew Neil in the Mail yesterday could see the advantages to him of signing up for electoral reform:
So why isn't Starmer following Neil's advice by adopting electoral reform and staying in power forever, as well he and his successors as Labour leader might?
The first reason is that Starmer still wants to hang on to the idea that he can rule, as Blair did, with an absolute majority. Current polls suggest he might, just, do that once. The likelihood of him doing so twice is very low indeed. In that case the strategy makes no sense.
The second is that, like most Labour leaders, he wants to make clear to the public his contempt for his members and the unions that support him. PR has been overwhelmingly endorsed as Labour Party policy by its conference, so Starmer has rejected the idea to prove to voters, who apparently require evidence that he can be this contemptuous, that he will ignore their wishes.
Third, there is the possibility that Starmer and his coterie, so long removed from reality by the experience of living in the Westminster bubble, don't actually believe in democracy. They might acknowledge, deep down, that the public want something other than two party politics, but they have become wedded to the game it represents. Like so many professionals, their greatest fear is that change might expose that they know little about anything but the rules of the current but outdated game, meaning that they would have to make way for others with new skills and expertise if PR was to come about. Hence, they remain dedicated to first past the post.
I think none of these represent remotely good reasons for Starmer's expressed opinion. But each, and even all of them, might be true. As a result Starmer is trying to show intransigence on this issue when on almost every other known issue he has the apparent ability to change his mind.
This won't work well for him. The people of this country want their opinions heard, and respected. They know that options other than Labour are available to them. He is totally foolish not to accede to their wishes when even Andrew Neil can see that this would keep the Tories out of office, maybe for ever, which is an overwhelming desire of a majority right across the UK.
For once, I hope Starmer does change his mind.
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Waste of time and energy waiting for the fools running Labour to change anything for the better: Starmer – and the majority of the PLP are establishment custodians. No PR, no repeal on public order, no reversal of failed privatisation, no representation of working class interests, no end to the shameful treatment of refugees and on and on ad nauseum. With the Labour Party offering nothing but more autocratic attitudes and endless neoliberalism they truly are a wasted vote. There comes a point when admitting that something broken beyond repair becomes the rational and necessary step to take and that pouring more time and energy into it is simply a waste of valuable resources. Currently the best hope (in England anyway) for achieving any measure of progressive politics is to vote for the Greens.
Labour’s published policies for the 2024 General Election are an absurd list of glowing promises that we already know will not survive victory; or perhaps even next week. Anyone could write that list; it requires neither knowledge of government, nor insight. We know this because we all know from long experience, it is how politics parties conduct the game (and it is a game, wrapped in an absurd ritual dance); presenting easily disposable promises they will never either achieve, or for the most part even implement. Why do we know this? Because there is not a single statement about HOW they are going to execute any of them (or what skills they actually possess for executive delivery, rather than being cloned ciphers; typically over-promoted script-readers chauffered around endless PR photo opportunities). Of course there isn’t an explanation ‘how’ they will do it. There isn’t one. They simply don’t know; and don’t intend to be caught, out-of-their-depth: trying. Tht would never do. Settle for what you do best. In Labour’s case: nothing.
Given this festival of high comedy, I search for the machinery of delivery. Ande here it is (well, as close as you will find any), under “Ensure Economic Stability”:
“Have iron-clad fiscal rules”
“Reaffirm the role of independent institutions like the OBR and Bank of England and establish an Office for Value for Money”.
That’s it. In other words – Nothing Has Changed. We had all this from May, Johnson, Truss and Sunak. I do not even know what “iron-clad fiscal rules means”; save that it implies that no matter how detached real world evidence becomes from what we are told is the theory of the bankers and ill-educated economists representing a secular religion run by a priesthood rather than a science, which Government insist on employing; they will sticking with the theory, no-matter-what.
We know how that will work out; because we are there already. So it is more of the same. Déjà vu, all over again.
In short this whole pointless exercise, is indeed a pointless exercise.
I agree
But there are other priorities today
The Conservative and Labour Parties are never going to implement PR because they know it will destroy their hold on power between them, and their aspirations to power. They devised the Holyrood PR system (de Hont); which of course was the distinctive PR form, guaranteed to retain the power of Party over Elector (de Hont provides a ‘list’ system to ensure that the Party retains the power over whom the Elector can exercise their vote: it is a Party first system). What happened?
Even a weak, Party-first PR system in Scotland could not stop the elector, given even a little freedom, destroying both the Conservative and Labour Parties electoral pretensions. Both Parties have collapsed in Scotland as credible Governments. They survive, just because the Party can ensure that third-rate, obediant hacks and gophers continue closely to support Westminster, no matter what disasters Westminster dumps on Scotland. The Conservatives have now relied repeatedly on unelectable (save though the Party-rigged List system) leaders to serve the internets of the Westminster Parties. The Party-rigged List system also encourages the vanity of Party power that has led the SNP into the delusions of self-important adequacy that has unravelled so spectacularly in recent months.
Westminster has therefore seen how even a rigged Party PR system does not work in their narrow self-interest. This is threal lesson of Devolution; and explains why the Conservative Party is trying slowly, but relentlessly to reel Devolution back-in; by challenging Holyrood legislation whether they have a case or not (by using the weak gaps in Devolution that Westminster ensured always gave it an opening); and go over Holyrood, and apply policies wherever they can before they are found out. They will use direct financing, selecting specific, politically viable regions of Scotland to them to buy support. It is as simple as that. This is why Freeports are attractive; they offer Westminster Party the Trojan horse of substantial investment money to trump constitutional objections (divide and rule is an old trick, endlessly renewable).
The public in Scotland has learned that Party is a dubious mechanism that Electors are advised to use in their interests; but never to trust “Party”, save on the short leash that PR offers. Westminster is struggling in Scotland to recover; hence the new hostile, aggressive efforts to undermine Devolution, by any means. Without Party rigging the system de Hont would not survive, and then we would have a real, usable political system that served electors first. Hume knew that “Party” was essentially, narrow, factional, irresponsible and corrupt. The Parties know that with real PR “the game is up”; so it is never, ever going to happen in WEstminster; as long as they have the power to prevent it.
I can’t believe the scare-mongering going on here about PR.
I thought that PR works as a dissolution of absolute power – which what FPTP give us (yes – it should also alleviate the boundary commission system and votes versus seats problem too where popular voting is stymied) . So it is not a case that the Tories will be ‘locked out’ essentially – rather they will still have a voice but ideally the PR system would mean that we got real compromises instead of Thatcherite absolute power. They will be locked out of ‘absolute power’ they have relied on to change the country over the years – not out of politics per se.
Honestly – after this Tory shower of merde we have had to endure, I’d be all too happy to see them out of power forever. But talking to Europeans about PR, it does not actually work like that. It means that ALL politicians – even avowedly fascist ones and some others not warmly received on this blog – would have to talk things through does it not? It would mean politicians having to ‘do’ real politics (compromises or coalitions) because the varied voices of the electorate would all be valid in some way.
That’s democracy is it not?
Neil is a liar and reveals his hand. The Tories would still be in there in a PR system, still with a voice. All he is showing is the way in which the Tories like to work – being king of castle just like their monied backers like. Neil needs to be called out for his lies. If a country is more naturally left, then tough, it’s about time the country had a voice, otherwise how can we ever call time on Thatcherism? It has not delivered and time has reified that.
Can we rely on Stymied to change that? I don’t think so. Opposition politics these days is too timid and a victim of rigid party systems as politics is more a career for far too many and no longer a crusade. There is too much emphasis on the party being popular – not its outcomes of policy.
But fingers crossed eh?
I wouldn’t disagree with what you have just written Richard but we shouldn’t underestimate the opposition of the local party members of both Labour and the Lib Dems to forming the coalition that would be the necessary precursor to switching to a PR voting system.
In 1997 there were Local members in both parties that thought a coalition was the best way forward but they were outweighed by Local members that did not trust the other party and opposed the idea.
In the event, the triumphalist single party rule of Labour after the 1997 election and the 2010 Con-Dem coalition confirmed the views of the cynics in both parties.
My FULL anti-SKS rant (feel fee to delete, if you regard it as too OTT, Richard
SKS is unutterably vile. He and his RW fanatics – the close circle Starmerites, and the swivel-eyed cult-followers, the Starmerrhoids (a moniker I invented – though others probably came up with it independently – as describing “a pain in the arse & potentially dangerous to health”) – are a “clear and present danger” to democracy, decency and the rule of law.
I used to nickname him 3VASKS (see below), but after the anti-Sunak poster campaign he clearly lacks values. So he’s 4VASKS = “Vile, VALUE-FREE. Visionless, Vindictive, Authoritarian & Stupid Keef Stalin”
SKS/4VASKS’s Faux-Labour Party should be wound up & banned – forced into a radical restructuring on the founding principles of the REAL Labour Party that it has comprehensively betrayed – before being allowed to participate in the political struggle for decency, fairness and the common good, things Faux-Labour will NEVER bring about.
As to SKS/4VASKS’s Faux-Labour Party, I call it the Hostage Party, because it’s bound hand & foot & gagged by the BoD, JLM & LFI, 3 illiberal, racist (for their contempt for Palestinians) and antisemitic (for their “right kind of Jew/wrong kind of Jew” trope) bodies (on which see Jonathan Cook on Starmer’s Labour as institutionally antisemitic
https://twitter.com/Jonathan_K_Cook/status/1334636482041176065?s=19)
Also, it’s led by 4VASKS, whom I used to call (still do, as the left hook to the 4VASKS right hook, or vice-versa) Sir Useless Woodentop, blundering his way to his Non-Socialist Nirvana in the Land of BoD, where “Zionism without qualification” rules, and EVERYTHING apart from defence and protection of Israel is deemed peripheral, unless it’s judged inimical to Israel, when it is opposed, EVEN when supported by a majority of the electorate.
And why does Sir Useless/4VASKS do this? Because the political dumbo thinks such policies will stop him from becoming PM, ffs, when the exact OPPOSITE is true, with such policies offering the best chance at the Key to No.10.
And 4VASKS wants to be PM, mainly (only?) to be able to offer racist, apartheid Israel – oppressor of the native Palestinians and its colonialist “settlers” (interlopers from comfortable homelands, to which they should return) the unshakeable protection of the “free (if you believe that, you’ll believe anything!!) world”!
And finally, he’s an illicit Leader, having won by Deceit (pretending to be “Continuity Corbyn”), Deception (keeping his dodgy – some vile – funders under wraps till after the close of the poll), massive over-funding, that would have been illegal in a statutory election, quite apart from their questionable bona fides), & possible vote-rigging via lax eligibility criteria.
It is incumbents on all progressive forces and voters to do ALL they can to prevent him from becoming PM, as he would surely be an authoritarian, incipient, dictatorial Leader, governing with prejudice and frequent changes of direction, based on prejudice and irrationality.
Don’t hold back, Andrew. And I thought I deplored the false SKS!
Apropos local parties. Here in Lichfield the long reign of the Tories came to a NOC end. Everyone expected a LabLib coalition….. But no. Ruled out by Labour. Apparently ‘grown up politics’, or possibly interpersonal antipathy. Cue hordes of people asking what was the point of voting in an alternative!
Starmer’s trying to ride on an attitude problem in the UK which consists of wanting to be Hard of Hearing, Thinking and Caring. This is particularly true in regard to voters failing to understand how the UK’s monetary system really works (One of Sunak’s five pledges, for example, is to reduce government debt). Human beings hold their dominant position on the planet because of their extensive collective action. Money needs to be seen as the tool that has really given a tremendous boost to collective action for both public and private purposes.
Schofield makes an important point about voters not understanding the monetary system.
People like the Buchananites – advocating public choice theory (yeah, right) always get mealy-mouthed about how democracy is corrupt because it apparently consist of politicians ‘bribing’ voters with promises – failing of course to note how James Buchanan’s own work and the Mont Pelerin Society benefited from private largesse loaded with bias (not to mention the largesse of the political system).
There is a need for some sort of populism allied to the known capabilities of the state in terms of what it can do with its sovereign money (and tax) and how it can manage rich and poor alike fairly. The Neo-libs might carp about it, but they are right to worry about it even if citizens in Western democracies are encouraged to think the other way.
Knowing about sovereign currency issues creates a demand and an expectation on politicians that is sadly lacking and even unmet, given what we know about 2008 et al.
In fact it has been supressed, and I’m still livid with Laboured for not acknowledging that and still behaving like a whipped cur, as if they were responsible alone for 2008 (thanks to the number one duffer called Liam Byrne).
FWIW I’ve been telling people about the huge CBRA account – or shall we call it the ‘comfort blanket’ given to private bankers by the government. It creates an interesting reaction. Most people are are stunned and have never heard of it!
Of course, there is still work to do.
There’s another worrying possibility – that Starmer is being unduly influenced by the likes of Murdoch, Rothermere &/or the Saudis.
That would lead him down the rabbit hole that swallowed Blair, and would fit with his other broken commitments (eg at the moment he’s saying we need to go on with the piecemeal privatisation of the NHS).
Extremely concerning.
I would find it extremely hard to see him as any kind of improvement on or even change from the Tories if that were true.
Did you notice the part where EU nationals who reside long-term in the UK and are taxpayers will be extended voting rights in future General Elections. That’s a pro working class policy and I like it.
I’m biased of course as much of the eastern EU has more recent experience of socialism so adding them to the UK voting pool gives us a better chance of fighting for a mixed economy, especially on health care.
Starmer will only change his mind on PR if he fears a hung parliament. The Lib Dems position in that event is crucial. They must not do as they did in 2010 accept the perks of office in return for severe limits on their influence. In other words they should not go into a coalition with either main party but rather offer a confidence and supply deal in return for real action on PR. And it must be STV for reasons I will set out elsewhere.
And so have I changed my mind – PR, bring it on. I have written to my CLP informing them that my vote will go elsewhere should they not change position on this – I suggest others do likewise. ‘Winner takes all’ in all its forms has come to the end of its useful life span – it’s time for collaboration. And boy do we have a lot to learn.
Lord Cruddas clears up any doubt as to the Tories gerrymandering, vote rigging with voter ID and FPTP to retain power:
“Boris Johnson ally Peter Cruddas warned Tory members at the Conservative Democratic Organisation (CDO) they could be locked out of majority power forever.
“If Labour wins a big majority at the next election they will reduce the voting age to 16, they will abolish voter ID, and they will introduce proportional representation making it almost impossible for the Conservative Party to win an outright majority in the future,” Lord Cruddas said.”
!!!
He gets it
…and fourth reason: Labour are the Conservatives now.
https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/labour-real-conservatives-keir-starmer-protect-way-life-2337576
David Byrne says:
I acknowledge that the contributions from this thread have been interesting and diverse, but the main point is being missed.
The only priority for Sir Keir Starmer is to win the forthcoming general election. And this can only be achieved with an emphasis upon one or two vote-winning strategies one of which could be PR. Once in power real change can flow, but this will take time.
David Byrne says:
I acknowledge that the contributions from this thread have been interesting and diverse, but the main point is being missed.
The only priority for Sir Keir Starmer is to win the forthcoming general election. And this can only be achieved with an emphasis upon one or two vote-winning strategies one of which could be PR. Once in power real change can flow, but this will take time.
But do you really that is what is happening David? I don’t. I think he means what he is saying.
Mr Byrne,
What evidence can you summon for your belief? The public is not naive; if it was Labour would already be ‘home and hosed’ in the opinion polls. Evidence. Facts, please. Why should anyone, anywhere believe you?
Of course we can all hope beyond hope that Starmer will return to the ‘continuity Corbyn’ set of policies on which he was elected leader of the LP once in power – but I think that is a most unlikely scenario. Much more likely is a strategy to stay in power once he is there – a strategy that may or may not include radical policies depending on how those play out in the focus groups and wth the billionaire owned press…
Starmer & his clique are hegemaniacs – their singular goal is to obtain power for themselves. Power is not a means to an end – it is itself the end. PR threatens all that. For them, democracy is a merely a superficial process to deploy, to achieve their goal: it is not something to live & breathe in.
Right now – all we can hope for is a hung parliament with sufficiently adroite minor parties able to haggle successfully for PR in exchange for keeping a minority Labour govt afloat.
“Like so many professionals, their greatest fear is that change might expose that they know little about anything but the rules of the current but outdated game”
Excellent insight, sometimes motives can be trivially petty.
Dissenting Voice
I’m not convinced that PR is all that its cracked up to be……………without citizen oversight. I look at the elected chimps in Belgium and Germany (Scholz – literally the “Manchurian Candidate – this guy loves China and the morons have sold a lump of Hamburg port………..to the Chinese gov), the Belgians? little ever changes, PR in Italy & they have fascists running the show (strange but true).
The bit missing is citizen oversight. Citizens need to be in a position to have some say on what their employees ……….the bloody politicos ……..say and do – elections once in a while does not cut it. I would not trust politicos as far as I could throw them – they need watching, all the time. In theory the press could do that – the press is shit – so we need citizens holding the politicos to account.
Great posts by the way – laughed out loud at some of them. Do feel free to use “Liebore” – it is so much more descriptive of what Labour has morphed into post-Corbyn.
Disagreement is allowed