People fought for the right to democratic equal representation in this country from the 17th century onwards, and I still think it is the basis of a sound, well-governed society. But we have to eliminate the flaws to make sure that's what we get.
This is the audio version:
This is the transcript:
Why democracy? I ask the question because I have been challenged on my blog of late as to why I will not consider alternatives to democracy when it is very clear that politics is at present failing us. If that's the case, someone has argued, why am I still trying to look for a solution within the framework determined by the ballot box and everything that follows from it?
I happen to be a democrat. I'm with Winston Churchill on this one. He once said democracy is the worst system of government we've got, except for all the others that we've tried. And I believe he's right.
Democracy is not a perfect answer to the way in which we should select a government. But presuming that we do want government, and I think it is necessary to ensure that we have public services, law and order, the provision of the common good for the benefit of everybody, redistribution of income and wealth, and so much else on which our well-being is dependent, then we must have a mechanism to ensure that we have the best possible means of control of that government.
And Winston Churchill was right in saying we've tried other systems. Let's be honest. We've been through barbarism. It was a long time ago.
We've been through feudalism. That wasn't so long ago.
We've been through democracy with a decidedly limited franchise. That existed until 1928 because it was only then that all women got the vote.
So, we have tried other systems. And I'm not pretending that democracy is perfect. It is very obvious that it is far from that in some places, like the USA, and it's far from that in the UK because we have a ridiculous first-past-the-post system when we should have proportional representation. But it's better than anything else. And I do believe that people have a right to have a say in government.
Now, those who are suggesting I should think about other systems are putting forward things like citizens' assemblies as an alternative. Or systems like rotation, where people are required to serve in government as an MP, or as a councillor, or whatever else, rather as a jury system is selected. You are pulled at random from society to fulfil your social duty to govern for a period of time.
I'm sorry, but I don't think that will work. Jury duty for a week or two, and occasionally for longer periods, is something that is just about possible to manage, with the state providing support where necessary to those who have to do it.
But to demand that people make themselves available to serve in government for short or long periods, or to sit in citizens assemblies and so on, is not reasonable. Some people would not wish to go near such things. It would be an intolerable burden on them to have to work in such an environment. They would suffer enormous stress as a result. That is an unreasonable demand. They are just not suited to the requirement that they must make weighty decisions, even alongside others.
And why should we expect them to? Why is it that we should, in fact, demand that they give up their careers for a period of time? Whatever they might be, or their caring responsibilities, or whatever else it might be.
No, I think we have to have a system where people are able to put themselves forward. And I'm also worried, by the way, about the fact that if we did have systems where people had to put themselves forward, but there wasn't a genuine selection process through the ballot box, that we would end up with something which was quasi-feudal again, where those with wealth would become the people who would take the positions of power.
So we need a democracy and an electoral system, and a structure that ensures that everyone has access to being in politics if that is what they wish, and they can persuade people to select them, but we need one where there are appropriate checks and balances.
Now, I don't think we have got those checks and balances at present.
We have got a concept of the royal prerogative. The Prime Minister can do whatever they like as a consequence. That is wholly inappropriate inside a democracy.
We have this system of whipping inside the House of Commons that means that those people who we elect to represent us don't represent us. They represent their party instead. And that, I think, is wrong.
The States, by the way, has got that right. In the USA, both in the Congress and Senate, the whipping system is much weaker. It is quite common for party members to vote against their colleagues. And there is no penalty in most cases as a consequence.
And we also have this problem with first-past-the-post, which clearly rewards the two-party system quite unfairly, as we have seen with regard to the under-representation of many parties in Parliament at present, including, and I've got to admit it, Reform, although I would rather pick the example of the Greens. Both should be represented more because there are people in our society who want them to be their voice.
So, we have a very inadequate democracy. But do I think there is anything better? No, I don't think there is.
I am a democrat. I'll stand by that. I want to reform democracy. I am not interested in replacing it with anything else. And those who want to claim that that is what I should be doing, I'm sorry, you're going to be deeply disappointed. I'm not tolerating that viewpoint.
People fought for the right for equal representation in this country. It's been a demand from the 17th century onwards, and I still think it is the basis of a sound, well-governed society. But we have to eliminate the flaws to make sure that's what we get.
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Basically agree. We need to make our system better in many ways – removing any vestiges of royal influence as well. Personally I prefer a republican form of government with an elected head of state such as the Irish system. We also need to ensure we have an informed electorate, one which takes account of evidence rather that draws on conspiracy theories.
One of the problems is that we always start at the top and work down. I think we need to try and organise things so that decisions can be made at the lowest level appropriate to the decision being made. Neighbourhood, county, region, national. And, let’s not forget, some of the promises that people voted for in our recent version of democracy have already been ditched.
Playing the devil’s advocate, one could suggest there is nothing wrong with a benevolent dictatorship.
The problem with any system of government is what happens when it goes wrong.
I feel that our system of democracy today, is broken, so it is easy to understand why people look elsewhere.
But people are rash… or they are influenced to make rash decisions.
Democracy does sound more fair than a dictatorship, especially as I can’t think of a dictatorship that worked.
I basically agree with RichardM on this, but, I think we need to be asking different questions. Richard has highlighted issues like Royal Prerogative (the excessive power of the PM), our FPTP system that massively disadvantages any group with less than about 25% approval, whipping (a further concentration of power preventing MPs properly representing their constituents). These are good points.
The questions I want to ask, include:
How do we stop democracy going wrong (like it is doing in so many places, including UK, EU et al not just USA)?
How do you get people WITH power & influence to yield it to those WITHOUT it (without bloodshed)?
What happens when money/media/lobbies (those with power & privilege) or a decline in quality & breadth of education/morality/opportunity or sheer desperation (those without power & privilege) mean that the “demos” (“demoi?” make “irrational” self-harming decisions? (What looks irrational to one person with privilege, may be quite rational to someone without it). Or is it their inalienable democratic right to self-harm (if they constitute at least X% – insert your preferred figure – of the adult population)?
How do we introduce checks & balances that prevent powerful vested interests putting puppets, clowns, or criminals into government (I can easily think of recent “democratic” examples of all 3), but without telling the electorate that we know better than them what (we think) they might want or benefit from? That last question is important for low income neighbourhoods like mine, with legitimate unheard grievances, used to being ignored, dismissed as ignorant, uneducated, bigoted, or just plain thick, and who either get exploited by the right, or scorned by the left (Hillary Clinton’s references to the “deplorables”), or totally ignored by the centre.
Brexit of course was a special case, being a yes/no referendum where every vote had equal value. It wasn’t affected by FPTP, every vote counted (although many voters, conditioned by FPTP didn’t realise that, and thought they could make a protest leave vote but still get a remain result). Instead, the questions for the Brexit referendum needed to be: who decides on the wording, the majority needed for victory on a major constitutional issue, is there a turnout threshold, do we tolerate blatant factual campaign lies and what sort of lies can we punish, the role of big & foreign money, the influence of hostile foreign states, the influence of foreign so-called allies, the accountability of media to properly challenge both sides on their claims and promises.
This morning I read Oliver Hall, a Democrat phone bank campaigner sharing his perspective on the Trump victory, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/09/us-voters-kamala-harris-donald-trump-republican but his article irritated me because it seemed to miss out so many valid questions, such as how Democrats failed to hold onto to their 2020 votes, why so many Democrat voters stayed at home? Who was he talking to, how were his lists compiled, what was the demographic breakdown of his call list? – to name but a few.
Richard points out that we have historically seen plenty of versions of democracy with seriously restricted franchise, excluding women, non-property owners, younger adults etc. If we seriously believe in universal adult suffrage, we must be sure that it is truly inclusive and respectful of those with less power, privilege and dare I say, education and eloquence.
Some initial thoughts…..
Democracy is not a single system with individuals periodic voting periodically for a centralised government that then represents their interests.
The notion that personal autonomy is then sacrificed in some vague social contract that individual interests will be properly protected and cared for by representatives in government is not the only option, and is hopelessly flawed anyway. There are bad actors.
(I am assuming that the “best” government requires that we are all equal under the law, and entitled to equal representation and protection within society, and as individuals.)
Majoritarianism within a representative adversarial system is not democracy, whether it be by PR or FPTP.
Consensus would be infinitely superior to adversarial politics, but we don’t tend to have government based on consensus.
Anything but, as divide and rule works so well for power brokers and social control by the political elite..
The organisational structure of the institutions determines behaviour both within and without government as both Gramsci and Foucault have demonstrated.
There is participatory democracy, where people are actually directly involved in decision making, and representative democracy where they appoint someone else to do the job for them, usually for a limited period of time, (unless you are Putinesque and can just change the timescales for self serving ends).
Citizen’s assemblies are a perfectly valid expression of participatory democracy, if people are actually to be permitted a direct role in their own government. But they are only one of many ways people can be involved in their own collective. Not all are parliamentary, thankfully.
The big problem is the actual exercise of power, by those appointed as representatives.
They are not delegates, having to refer back to their constituents for continuous approval and validation in how they make decisions.
The result of representative systems tends to be a political class mostly separated, even isolated, from the people they are supposed to represent.
If we then judge successful government by those periods when our own clique are in control, then that is profoiundly undemocratic.
Power corrupts.
So we need checks and balances, as the formal political class seem to respond to a hierarchy of interests, in order ..
Personal interest,
Factional interest,
Party interest,
Government interests,
Public interest.
Unless the public interest can rise up through the rankings, by clear control of evolving corruption driven by the self interest of individual politicians, then government will always fail.
The problem is that the revision of the rules of oversight and control comes within the power remit of those most likely to want to enable personal abuses of power.
The best check to abuse of power is by having a system where power is not concentrated in either a single person, or a power clique, or has been captured by a special interest group, so is diffused.
Representative democracy is actually a poor substitute for participatory decision making, the ideal democracy, but has been seen as inevitable in complex societies.
Anarchy is actually the most participatory devolved system and absolutely relies on consensus – tedious though consensus may seem.
However, scaling up to larger than local scales is a logistic issue, with federalisation but one option.
So, if you are to have a representative system, it needs to be highly devolved, so decision making is diffused as far as possible, to prevent power being corrupted through concentration.
The UK is highly centralised for a nation with almost 70m people and dominated by a unitary government, with a questionable unwritten constitution.
Devolved power carries risks too, such as ‘big fish / small pond’ syndrome, but is much less prone to abuse or a slide into authoritarianism and totalitarianism.
The Lisbon Treaty allegedly required decision making to be taken at the lowest possible level possible – the principle of subsidiarity, both within and between member states,
Unsurprisingly, the EU went in precisely the opposite hegemonic direction, clearly reflecting the self interest of the political elites, and not the people.
Regrettably. current systems work exactly as they were designed, and inadequate democracy is pretty much inevitable. QED.
I fear participatory democracy – I think it very unlikely those participating will be representative.
I know that it is not trendy to say this, but I will anyway.
The whole point with particpatory democracy is that it is inclusive, by definition.
Everyone has the chance to take part and engage.
There is a very wide range of options for people to choose to take part, in whatever context, and at whatever level.
It is participation in so called “representative” democracy which is selective – as the turnout in recent elections has demonstrated – viz the 140m Americans out of a total population of 360m., arguably alienated by the demagogues tea party on offer, and the lack of acceptable choice.
But Tony, you know that the vast majority will not partake for all sorts of good reason, including lack of funding, and that worries me as to outcomes. Participatory democracy is a recipe for mayhem from the far left and right.
I am currently involved in developing a Local Place Plan for our Community Council where we will consult with every household on what they see are the important issues in land use planning for our community for the next decade. Our last consultation had an 85% response and engagement rate.
There is no reason why there ought not be a hybrid system mixing the two forms of democracy, for different scales and levels of action.
However, if you take the somewhat pessimistic view that most people are either too disaffected or not really concerned, or even interested in everyday politics to want to be involved in the decisions that affect their daily lives, then that reflects mostly on the failure of the current representative system in creating and sustaining remote political elites.
Where we are at, is that there is currently considerable disempowerment and alienation of the public in being, or becoming, engaged in the political process – hence pathetically low election turnouts, as what is on offer by hopeful representative candidates is evidently unappealing.
(There is also a failure in civics education).
In that situation I can see how a preference for a self selected political elite class claiming to be ‘representative’ arises, as that is the status quo, but the interpretation of “participation” as an exclusive option, so a process of self selection by small power oriented cliques, of left and right, (as in a Bolshevik dictatorship) rather than a wide and general “joining in” is the absolute opposite of a participatory approach.
I’ll leave the formal Wiki definition here:-.
“Participatory democracy, participant democracy, participative democracy, or semi-direct democracy is a form of government in which citizens participate individually and directly in political decisions and policies that affect their lives, rather than through elected representatives.”
To participate you must have time, energy and resources available at the end of your day – after meeting all the other obligations you have.
I have no such time or energy to engage locally, at all. None, whatsoever. Ask me what is going on in my parish, rural district and county council and I can at least tell you what each should do (maybe one of the 1% who could) but most of the time I have no time to even find out what they actually do, let alone participate.
So, how does your system work, since I will not be represented in it, as will 99% of people not be so?
What you are actually proposing is feudalism, where those who extracted reward from others had the time available to govern. No one else could, because no one else had the time to participate.
Why do you want to promote modern feudalism? How can you justify it? How can it be representative? How will it ever be protected from takeover by those with the means that let them alone partake?
Participation by sortition is perhaps the answer.
I believe quite emphatically that they are not. This would be a massively onerous imposition on many. How could that be justified?
I wonder how the following groups can participate or be protected in a variety of systems, but perhaps particularly the more participatory systems of democracy?
The terminally ill
The mentally incompetent
Full time carers
The disabled
The housebound
The frail elderly
The street homeless
Prisoners
Those who find social contact or self-expression difficult
The digitally excluded
The exhausted, for whom simply surviving, fills their day, doing several jobs, travelling long distances, living in poor accommodation.
If our preferred political system doesn’t involve and serve their interests, as defined by them, is it working?
Such highly vulnerable groups form a significant part of my neighbourhood and it is rare for them to be sought out and listened to. That takes skill, creativity, humility and a lot of resources. A minority of community organisations excel at it, but mostly it is those who already have a voice and the time, the money and the energy who come to the fore, and of course they project opinions that magically promote their own advantage.
Watch Nye.
Was that what he was doing?
Isn’t your problem with a culture that promotes those who are self-interested rather than concerned for others?
Those who are vulnerable have always needed champions. Aren’t you really asking where the champions have gone?
@ Richard,
Re your comment at 3.04:
Is it fair to assume that your idea of citizen participation, by sortition, is something that would be full-time for extended periods; like a full parliamentary term? If so, I can see where you’re coming from and would wholeheartedly agree.
Does it have to be that way though?
I’m just throwing this out there, but couldn’t a citizens within a group (it doesn’t have to assemble) be co-opted for much shorter period; then be asked to consider and report back on a single piece of proposed legislation? Much like jury service, one would be considering a single case.
Unlike jury service (I’ve been there twice), it could be done on a more flexible time frame.
Ok, so this is a form of consultation. That’s ok. I buy that. I see the use of citizens’ assemblies in that rile.
Now, who decides? The citizens’ assembly advises. But who do they advise? You seem to have avoided answering that question. Isn’t that the part I am discussing?
I cannot see by what logic you convert the principles of devolved participatory democracy, which is, in principle, the direct opposite, to feudalism. This conclusion really is a profound misreading of the basic democratic principle of people holding both personal autonomy and citizenship, then being actively engaged in political processes.
I have previously cited Finland’s 300+ municipalities with a population of 5.5m people as an example of a high level of devolution of democratic processes, which requires considerable levels of participation in everyday politics, given that over 50% of all government expenditure is undertaken by these municipalities. It, with the other Scandi nations, also happens to have high levels of satisfaction in politics.
A feudal structure has a very small ownership elite, a relatively small praetorian group of managerialists and technocrats in support, who secure personal grace and favour from the elite class, and then some 85% or so of serfs – the disenfranchised, unentitled mass or untermensch.
Representative government in industrial economies, including the UK and USA have already adopted the shape of a political class that is predominantly elitist and often remote from the people it claims to serve, and has demonstrably been captured by financial, corporatist and oligarchical interests – Trump’s success being the most recent example. with Reeves budget close behind.
Kotkin, in his recent book on ‘Neofeudalism” argues very convincingly that 21st century ‘neofeudalism’ is emerging as the power base of supposedly representative parliamentary democracies are anything but democratic in practice.
Though the bulk of the population may have a basic right to vote, elections are often dominated by the interests of party funders, especially oligarchic interests, rather than the public interest, but people then hold precious few other democratic rights, and these are progressively being eroded – for example, the right to protest against fossil fuel interests.
Kotkin (and Mattei) both argued that the entire political economy is then controlled and directed by a political elite with a technocratic support cadre which is often non-democratic itself, through institutions like the Fed and BoE but who act in the interests of capital accumulation through GDP growth and corporate expansion. This is very much the “Late Soviet GB”.
I would argue that currently, purportedly democratic representative government is actually tending more towards neo-feudalism, and the way to avoid that is by devolving power as far as is possible, limiting centralised power through increasing federalism and municipalism as has been successfully achieved by the Scandis and Switzerland. It ain’t perfect but it is an improvement in meeting democratic principles.
If you are too busy to participate, when offered occasion so to do, then that is a personal choice, reflecting your own autonomy, but in no way does that choice negate the principles of democracy and other people’s right to choose a higher level of engagement.
I am really struggling with this comment.
If you read what I wrote you ignored it all.
I don’t give a damn about your ability to quote what Kotkn and Mattei said, if I am honest. What worries me is the sheer arrogance of this comment:
“ If you are too busy to participate, when offered occasion so to do, then that is a personal choice, reflecting your own autonomy, but in no way does that choice negate the principles of democracy and other people’s right to choose a higher level of engagement.”
As I made clear, for the vast majority there is no choice. Life leaves them no time to participate and your answer is that they should be disenfranchised as a result. I am struggling to think of a reason why I should continue to publish comments from someone who is so very obviously contemptuous of the lives of real people, because that is what your comment makes me think you are. You are proposing the antithesis of all I believe in. Making it you suggest, to me, all the reasons why so many loathe the supposed left that so clearly despises them.
Sometimes plain speaking is required.
@ Richard,
Sorry, I was addressing the specific point you made (at 3.04, which I referenced) about disruption to the lives of those selected, from a purely logistical point of view.
As to why lives should be disrupted, for this purpose, in the first place? I think, hypothetically, it might be desirable to get input from sources that career politicians might overlook. But, my limited experience, of very local politics, doesn’t tell me that it would do much good; much of the input would likely come from a self selecting group of busybodies, whilst nontrivial numbers would go out of their way to avoid it, or submit something from ChatGTP. I’m not convinced it would be worth the effort.
Something far more practical, like making lying in, or seeking, public office an offence, would be far more beneficial. I don’t see how that could fail to make the electorate, and crucially, the politicians themselves, better informed.
I think I am with David Allen Green in saying that what matters most is not the precise details of the constitution – the rules about who does what and when and how – but rather an attitude of constitutionality – respecting and following the agreed rules and conventions, which includes some flexibility and discretion where necessary to grease the wheels, and accepted mechanisms for changing the rule of course. The rule of law.
https://binghamcentre.biicl.org/our-vision
You can’t play association football if someone picks up the ball. That is a different game.
Agreed.. but…
What sanctions and immediate enforceablity are there if someone does pick up or ‘handle’ the ball ?
Protections constitutionally have to be effective against bad actors and the downright corrupt who even dive in the penalty area…..
Yet Johnson pro-rogued parliament unlawfully, and Trump already stacked the Supreme Court and extended the range of executive powers.
The assumption that power politicians will follow the rules has been blown out of the water in recent years, and the weakness of constitutions seems to me that they permit abuse.
Any form of democracy in the UK that completely ignores the constitutional basis of the Union is inherently unfit for purpose.
Despite constant assertions by Westminster’s English establishment that the UK is a unitary state, it is anything but, and the way the Union’s shared Parliament conducts its governance negotiations in setting legislation and other matters is highly abusive to the Scottish half of the Union.
It starts at the top in Westminster itself, with all matters of governance decided by a flat majority vote between all of the Union’s MPs. Because ‘unitary’, when they all vote no distinction is made between England’s MPs and Scotland’s MPs, even though those two bodies formally represent entirely different kingdoms, countries, nations, territories and peoples and their separate and very distinct sovereignties and constitutions, none of which were abolished by the Treaty or Acts of Union.
As a direct result of that democratically-ludicrous flat vote, Scotland’s MPs are constantly overruled by England’s vastly more numerous MPs, as if the Scots MPs were only from a small district of Greater England. Scotland did NOT give up its sovereignty any more than England did!
Thus, Scotland’s so-called ‘democratic deficit’, whereby England’s MPs essentially make all of the decisions of the Union Parliament, and Scotland’s MPs, who are the sole formal voice of the entire Scottish sovereign half of the Union, are systemically deprived of any meaningful agency in the Union, unable to carry out their jobs as formal representatives of a sovereign kingdom in a parliament of two such kingdoms, completely unable to defend and promote the interests of their parent kingdom and people against such highly asymmetric numbers.
There is no good reason why Scotland’s MPs must defer to the MPs of a foreign kingdom, and nothing in the Treaty or Acts of Union oblige them to.
And there are other deficits. Every party of government is an English-based party, because Scotland’s MPs can never form a party of government since they cannot get remotely close to an absolute seat majority. Another deficit resulting from that is that the Scots MPs find it far more difficult to introduce, let alone pass any new legislation, something that is rightly mainly the preserve of the party of government.
Democracy doesn’t get to trump sovereignty, because by definition sovereignty is untrumpable, and it doesn’t get to legitimise a theft by having the thieves outvote the owner. That’s how Scotland’s oil became England’s oil!
We need a dual-majority voting system in Westminster.
MPs numbers don’t even need to change. On any matter debated, England’s MPs vote yes or no, and Scotland’s MPs vote yes or no in separate counts. If both vote yes, the matter can pass as a legitimates Union decision, otherwise the matter must fall. Neither body is entitled to pass legislation on their own.
I argue for Scottish independence, often. But you cannot base the claim for it on a treaty more than 300 years old. You have to base it in current fact, including the current abuse of Scotland. Your argument is that Scotland has never consented to rule from England. It clearly did for a long time. You can’t base your claims on fiction. Base them on what Scotland gains.
I’m not accepting your analysis, here, Richard.
Scotland never accepted rule BY England, and nothing in the Treaty says it did. Both it and England accepted joint rule by both Scotland’s MPs and England’s MPs jointly negotiating governance as sovereign equals because that is what the two kingdoms were when they signed the Treaty, and nothing in the Treaty or Acts obliges Scotland’s submission to England.
So, on what exactly are you basing Westminster’s authority to govern the entire Union if it doesn’t come from Scotland itself via that 300 year old Treaty? Westminster had no such authority in 1706. If Westminster isn’t bound by a 300 year old Treaty then what exactly is it that continues to bind Scotland to Westminster today?
If you are a respecter of the rule of law, then you must accept that treaty law is also to be respected. The fundamental premise of treaties is ‘pacta sunt servanda’; agreements must be kept. Scotland only agreed to joint governance, it did NOT agree to be governed by England, and nothing in the Treaty or Acts says it did.
You are also mistaking the inability to correct a wrong as equivalent to accepting the wrong, and that accepting the wrong then justifies its continuance. Really? I’m not putting up with those either.
You wrote this article on the necessity for proper forms of democracy, yet here you are, arguing that the entire sovereign kingdom of Scotland must continue to be governed by the MPs of a foreign country, whose always-English governments have made it abundantly clear for years that they will never countenance a second Scottish referendum under any circumstances. Why on earth would you think that the sovereign owners of Scotland should ever put up with that?
Scotland must remain an abused and impoverished prisoner of England’s Union just because it can’t outvote a ten times larger country that isn’t remotely entitled to rule it in the first place? No! Not a chance; we are not going to wait indefinitely for a change of heart by England’s corrupt and abusive establishment. Democracy has failed Scotland because England refuses to respect the sovereignty of its only partner in the Union, so democracy is clearly not the answer.
We’ll take Westminster and its establishment to court for a wheen of Treaty breaches instead, and we’ll be demanding and expecting reparations for all the malicious damage English rule has inflicted on us for those 300+ years.
Another commentator who has lost complete touch with reality.
What is the basis of my argument? If I have to point out the bleedin’ obvious, there were decades after the universal franchise when the people of Scotland always voted for Unionist parties. If you want to ignore reality go and play with fantasies elsewhere. I find people who theorise political argument and ignore the actions of real people – who seem to have appeared in abundance today – exceedingly tedious.
I want Scotland to be independent and have dedicated a lot of time to arguing why it should be, but this is crass because there is no way you will take more than 1% of Scotland with you. The independence movement needs better arguments but this will only alienate most people.
Please don’t call again. This is not a place for student politics. I got over those by the time I was 21.
The problem with democracy in the UK is that it isn’t a democracy: Democracy has been bought by Wealth via the loose regulations on lobbying and the donations to parties and individual politicians. The result is STP – the Single Transferable Party – in Westminster and the inevitable convergence of economic policies by the two largest parties. In addition to the factors identified by Richard as needing revision and correction (FPTP, citizen engagement, the whipping system etc) there has to be a written Constitution to define the limits of politicians’ powers and make any abuses more obvious. There also needs to be some regulation of media ownership and output to ensure less distortion of facts; Leveson 2 anyone?
There’s another problem with UK governance – devolution – which has been has been grudgingly and intermittently addressed by Westminster without a clear structure acceptable to the devolved nations ever having been produced. Instead Westminster arrogates to itself powers to overrule legitimate legislation by devolved parliaments. Westminster is effectively an English Parliament which permits a small number of devolved nation MPs to sit. The funding of the devolved nations is done through the Barnett Formula, so economic decisions made by Westminster for England alone determine the funding for devolved nations. Inevitably this results in devolved policy choices being truncated or dropped. To crown it all, while N Ireland has a right to secede from the UK if a Border Poll shows majority support by the electorate, neither Scotland nor Wales has any clearly defined route to secession and successive Westminster governments have refused to discuss the matter.
There’s more to this than meets the eye. Under the Acts of Union 1707, Scots Law is guaranteed to prevail in Scotland, but has been over-turned by Westminster decisions for centuries. Likewise, the Claim of Rights 1689 (set in Statute and reaffirmed in recent times by both Holyrood and Westminster) states that the people of Scotland are sovereign in Scotland, while the Westminster Parliament is deemed to be sovereign, but not set in Statute. Instead, the notion of its sovereignty results from precedence and the opinions of various English politicians of the 19th century, although it is nowhere stated in Statute. Westminster has imposed its decisions across the UK for centuries without adequately considering the impact on the devolved nations. In Scotland’s case it’s not simply a matter of breaches of a 300 year-old treaty: it’s a clash of fundamental concepts of sovereignty and a perception that Scottish viewpoints and opinion can simply be ignored.
Thanks
Richard you say:
I think we have to have a system where people are able to put themselves forward
I have to disagree.
From my many active years in Toastmasters (https://toastmasterclub.org/portal.php?marknow=0 – a community of people wanting to develop their speaking skills) my experience was that the people who eventually became our best, most committed, and most able leaders initially did not put themselves forward.
Someone invited them to take on their first role.
And I can see the same thing with Assemble. I’m sure there will be lots of ways for people to decline.
But I think to start by assuming that everyone is invited to take part is, inherently, better than having people self-select and put themselves forward.
And who will offer the invitations?
By sortion, a lottery in which everyone has an equal opportunity of being selected.
There’s been a lot of work done on this by various people and groups and they have tackled many of the issues which sceptics have questioned. There’s have also been numerous examples of citizens assemblies in action dealing with serious issues.
If you want some real democracy, rule by the people, then this has a place. I haven’t seen anything you have proposed in this piece that will make a real difference to the intractable problem we have with our system of “elective dictatorship”.
PR is necessary but nowhere sufficient because there are so many other blocks on democracy – professional politicians, centralisation, lack of devolution right down to the most local units of towns and villages, lack of funding controlled by the centre, lobbying, political donations, HoL, monarchy and how it’s toxic tentacles spread throughout society, public schools, inequality and poverty, arcane parliamentary procedures, the Parliament building and its location, being unable to hold politicians legally accountable for their decisions, and, of course the Party system, which is exclusive by design, eliminating dissenting voices and which works on the basis of political dogma and despises evidence.
Citizens Assemblies have evidence and expert advice at their core. I don’t think anyone has suggested that CA’s would be the actual government, there would still be an executive to take account of CA’s proposals and make the decisions. (Although I would prefer a more instrumental role to prevent the executive just doing what they please.)
https://www.sortitionfoundation.org/
And Martin Wolf in the FT: https://www.ft.com/content/40bab0b3-5f19-4ccc-8faa-c33468fc3ac3
The democracy we have is in need of massive improvement
But sortition is tyranny because it is a massive imposition on a population
Whilst citizen’s assemblies are a left wing fantasy form of feudalism where those with time in their hands get to decide
Sorry – but I am nit going towards either.
My apologies for the slow reply – I was away in a hotel with rubbish wifi, not ignoring your question. (and this reply has now been overtaken by lots of other comments).
Who selects people to join the Toastmasters leadership team?
1 – some people are invited by team members (who know what to look for in new members of the team)
2 – and of course some people do put themselves forward
And then the whole club votes on who is elected to the committee to run the club.
And – we recognise that these people are volunteers, and have limited time, so we have a team of 6 people to share the duties of running a club with, typically, 24 members.
Thanks
I came across this some years ago
I am struggling to recall though who took part that I knew. I recall they were pleased to have done so.
This is a crucial point. Our current version of democracy does not do a good job of representing everyone’s interests, largely because there is a strong male bias in who gets elected, both locally and nationally, so women’s voices are muted. Ethnic minorities are also under represented, as are working class people. Even if those people put themselves forward, it appears they fail to get elected.
I reckon lots of people get involved in community groups, charities and so on who might be good in politics but never think about it because it is such an unattractive option.
I don’t think PR will change that, though it would be an improvement for sure. We need to find a different way of doing politics that is much more inclusive. I am open to bottom up approaches, perhaps through assemblies. Democracy as currently constituted is not working.
Comments like yours make me feel like giving up this blog.
The idea that it is populated by those who do not believe in democracy is quite shocking.
How did I inadvertently create a community opposed to fair democratic government, when that is what I believe in? I might even go so far as having to shut it down for a while whilst I consider that.
It may be flawed, but
Just to be clear Richard, I was responding to Shelagh’s reply to you, not Geejay’s. I am not anti democracy, just dismayed by where our current version of democratic politics has got us! I remain politically active in the hope that change will come eventually, but we don’t have much time given the climate and nature emergency and exploring alternative ways of doing democratic politics might help. I really appreciate your blog and that you take time to reply to comments. Please don’t feel disheartened.
Winston Churchill is quoted as saying ( no one apparently has tracked it down)
“We can trust the Americans to do the right thing in the end-after they have exhausted all alternatives.”
They seem to be doing just that.
This quote (and variants) has been attributed to Churchill since about 1980. No one has found any evidence that he ever said or wrote it.
But there is very good evidence that variants were being used by an Israeli politician Abba Eban from March 1967. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/11/11/exhaust-alternatives/
Two ways to beef up democracy; 1. PR and 2. ban lobbyists with money, so no donations above a certain amount and no freebies for MPs. These are basically the rules for civil servants, the same should apply for MPs. Oh and 3. newspapers to publish retractions for proven false stories on their front page rather than buried on P19.
A good example of points 2 & 3 is emerging as I write this. The reports of antisemitic violence on the streets of Amsterdam is proving to be yet another orchestrated attempt by Israel to control the narrative. The truth seems to be that the violence was pre- planned by Macabbi tel aviv thugs, many of whom are/were IDF soldiers who were, according to the Jerusalem Post, accompanied by Mossad agents. Why the latter we can only speculate. It certainly didn’t seem to be to maintain order. Yet the MSM, broadcast media and ex President Biden (again – remember beheaded babies) all jumped on the Israeli band wagon. Meanwhile, footage of Maccabi ‘fans’ arming themselves, coordinating their attack and still singing their vile anti Palestinian song on their return to Israel at Ben Gurion airport goes unreported. This is an example of why many people are becoming increasingly cynical of democracy and our ‘leaders of the free world’ and it’s lobbyists money that underpins it I would suggest.
I agree.
Democracy basically is that everyone should have a say in how their society works. They should not be told by others what to do without a say. Any non-democratic system involves one person, or group of people, imposing their will on others, without the others having a voice. That is illogical because there is no logical way to select one group of governors rather than another (without a democratic choice). Any form of government other than democracy is rule by those who can impose it.
Of course democracy is far from perfect. There are many forms of democracy, some better than others, none perfect. In the UK we have a poor form of democracy in first past the post, but it is still democracy. Even after Trump’s election, it may be argued that the US system is better than ours. At least it received a lot of thought and was consciously designed and codified in a written constitution. We don’t even have that.
But, if you don’t have democracy, eventually the peasants revolt, which leads to autocracy and barbarism. Democracy, and the necessary redistribution of resources, prevents societal breakdown, which is beneficial to all even those who would be at the top of a non-democratic system.
I think Bernie Sanders, in his recent statement on the election, was right. The Democrats have ignored a large part of their population, who have been left behind. The federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour! Why did the Democrats not at least try to increase this? It’s not surprising that the peasants revolted. It’s only sad that Trump was the beneficiary. But this IS democracy in action.
And perhaps this feeling of a large chunk of society being ignored by the political establishment explains recent referenda and elections in Europe (including Brexit, Marine Le Pen in France, and AFD in Germany). I only hope that our democratic systems can be reformed before we reach breakdown.
Thanks
George Monbiot is very keen on local assembies etc, but as Richard suggest there is so much more which could be cleaned up.
The first thing must surely be to get dark money out of politics, and out of individaul politicans and parties – corporate donations should be outlawed and also large individual donations.
As it is we know Labour is funded by off shore private equity, private healthcare etc etc, so we know what they are not going to defend the NHS, or tackle climate change – (see grotesque CCS ‘investment’).
This could be part of a constitutional reform – (getting rid of the mafia whipping system etc)
If citizens’ assemblies are part of a consultation process I have no problem with them, but only if it can really be shown they are not biased in their makeup. But they cannot have decision making powers. We need democracy to make decisions.
This is a very strategic post. But it is a huge subject.
Democracy will mean nothing until money itself is democratized – for a start – money, the money system has to work for everyone and that should be a guiding principle.
‘When it goes wrong’ is open to interpretation – most Tories think our democracy has gone wrong since 1946.
Participatory democracy in my experience merely invites the same behaviors seen in our current democracy – only more so.
Feudalism – disagree – feudalism is alive and well and has just modernised that’s all.
I think you have got everything about sewn up in terms of what you suggest though and I agree with it all.
However, my view is that modern democracy is also corruptible – back to the money question again – and I also think that our democracy is rife with fascist political science and I would like to see that defined and effectively outlawed, made a criminal offence.
The reason why is because politics is too much about, well……politics? Our politics seems to be based on agonism – that there has to be some sort of pluralist fight over ideas – a gladiatorial battle by hegemonic forces – that has to be witnessed by the demos (the people) and for one side to emerge the winner. And the weapons should be just ideas but have become more about dominating through money and the media through which anything can be sold.
But even this is not what politics is now is it? What we have now, is what we call here the STP, and what Chantal Mouffe identifies as effectively no politics at all as the Left has failed to come up with anything new and has therefore effectively moved to the right and accommodates Right thinking.
To be honest with you, it’s all old hat to me. It’s bit pathetic to be honest in this day and age. I mean, what a way to choose to be governed. By nothing more than an opinion. An opinion that just happens to have outspent you and shouted you down in the ‘owned by bias’ media.
Such an opinion is about the source of poverty – personal failure or a failure of system of society? It amazes me that we have a polity that will consider THAT question, rather than act appropriately to end poverty on sight, indicating the poverty within politics and democracy itself.
I think that you are right about changes, PR -might make politicians work together but the work to do on this is immense and is not always about politics itself. It’s about morality, principles, humanity.
To begin with a new politics has to look at the world as it is now and reject it. Back to basics:
Reject poverty.
Reject genocide.
Reject making people ill.
Reject war.
Reject making your neighbour poorer.
Reject exploitation.
Reject the destruction of our planet.
Etc.
Then maybe politics can set about those objectives instead of being used as it is now to argue for the perpetuation and denial of these ills and much more.
Currently I class myself as ‘post-democratic’ or a ‘rejectionist’ who wants nothing to do with ‘democracy’ – pah! There are a lot of us about. Waiting.
Democracy has become a coping mechanism not a solving mechanism – it has no balls.
(Sorry – but as I’ve said before and will no doubt say again, you run a bloody interesting blog).
You get it.
I am relieved someone does because comments this afternoon have been pretty dispiriting.
I like your list.
I agree with that man!
Regarding PR – Belgium has PR – still has shit parties, corruption? (aka pot du vin) don’t get me started. Political families… yup. The only thing PR has done is dilute the impact of nutters.
Ref UK: Re-call of MPs – & their transformation into delegates (not Burkian “representatives) would be a step in the right direction – with a quick and easy process to get rid of them if they don’t toe the electorate line.
If I were to make a few suggestions
1. Ireland has had a positive experience of Citizens Juries
2. Funding, Funding and Funding, from public funds not private!
3. The ownership of the Media needs to be addressed
4. I suggest that we need to look at rebuilding mass political parties so
5. There is a recognised method of selecting candidates with them being required to have grassroots support eg Primaries
6. A proper constitution and Local Authorities with fund raising powers
While its more of an aside I remember reading in the history of the Bristol Tramways that there were ‘City Meetings’ called into the 1930’s to discuss and vote on various issues so perhaps we need to consider these in some form
To oppose the power of the Catholic Church citizens’ assemblies were useful – simply to prove it was no longer representative. I am note sure that the example can be extrapolated.
The elephant in the room here is ecocide because to minimise that we will have to make lifestyle choices that will not be popular. How does a democracy do that when it is so easily subverted by corrupt politicians who will promise anything to get the power they want?
So you’d rather do away with democracy?
If the answer is yes, please don’t call again. This is not the place for those who want something else.
No, I absolutely believe in democracy, and I do agree that our system needs improving.
Yes, that elephant is growing very fast, as we’ve just exceeded 1.5ºC. this week.
Another target missed through state inaction.
Valencia is just the most recent manifestation of the pretty mild impacts seen thus far, but it isn’t going to get any better.
That event has caused huge political disaffection in Spain.
The fact that FEMA got blamed for the recent TRS over Florida is another worrying matter, because it signifies a more general lack of trust with government.
There is already emerging alienation with state responses to the climate crisis, and we all know nowhere near enough actions are being undertaken, both towards net zero and then adaptation and mitigation, mostly because of the interests of corporatism and growth economics. The COP out continues.
There is no way the current elective dictatorships of pyramidal, allegedly representative, but basically plutocratic, governments can survive the climate transition as it is currently in progress.
The whole setup is currently predicated on GDP growth, and degrowth is inevitable, given present overshoots.
Some catastrophic event like AMOC overturning*, now reckoned to be a 50/50 chance by 2100, would cause the entire socio-political systems of Europe to fall, as the entire climate would be devastated, especially food production.
That is well within the lifetimes of current generations.
(* The North Atlantic Drift is already slowing measureably)
What political structures and institutions might survive a major global collapse is very much open to question.
I cannot see a calm planned transition now taking place, though this is still just about possible, should the UN’s leadership be respected, and see some kind of ruinous collapse as becoming almost inevitable.
Should that happen then society will be organised on different scales entirely, possibly city states and federations, but mostly at a local smaller municipal level, both rural and urban, and in survival mode.
The existing framework of nation states, itself barely a century old, will have to adapt or be supplanted. It really is anybody’s guess whether democracy will be involved.
The idea we can just reform current UK democratic shortfalls by tinkering with PR and adding a wee bit more devolution will be ‘oot the windae’ , as all this change is accelerating and events in the next 15-20 years will probably be cataclysmic for us too.
Can I ask that acronyms when used be explained? That makes posts more accessible. Thanks
AMOC Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_meridional_overturning_circulation
North Atlantic Current (NAC), also known as North Atlantic Drift and North Atlantic Sea Movement
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Atlantic_Current
FEMA Federal Emergency Management Agency (USA)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Emergency_Management_Agency
Tropical Storm Risk (TSR)
https://www.tropicalstormrisk.com/
The problems are knowledge and access. Most people in UK lack knowledge of realpolitik, only having crude and generally uninformed ideas. This is a product of deliberate miseducation. Access to ladders of power or effective forums does not exist in the main any more. They did exist in Labour and Liberal parties until the late 80s but thereafter the dominance of a cabal of neoliberals doomed both. There is a glass ceiling now: you join the club or get nowhere. So then lightened sit outside the real structures, marginalised and largely unheard. In our electronic age, as in feudalism, money and ownership of resources wins out.
I do not agree.
Most people are utterly uninterested in politics. There is no requirement that they should be. I know vast numbers of people like that. Good, decent, intelligent, honest people, able to more than function in society but who are not interested in politics at all, except when asked to vote every now and again, which most but not all do. That is why they require champions amongst those who are interested who will stand up for them.
Pretending that the world is something is other than it is can only be the basis for very bad politics that rightly alienates people who want nothing to do with it. Have we not realised that yet?
The question is how do the champions of others and not the champions of self interest get power?
I agree, the alternatives to democracy have all been tried have have failed demonstrably. No system of governance is perfect it’s just that most of the ones tried have had far worse outcomes and consequences. We can look at National Socialism – well we know how that ended up as it was in reality a dictatorship. Communism went the same way with Stalinism, there were other forms I understand. Amazingly we still have similar systems of government in places like North Korea, China and increasingly in Russia that seems to be slipping backwards but I guess that’s what happens when the dictator in question has free reign to prosecute an agenda based on his own world view using military force and veiled nuclear threats. And these less democratic spheres of the world will always want to challenge democracy.
So when we turn to our own imperfect systems of democracy where our elected leaders generally manufacture consent (yes I’m borrowing the term from Chomsky) in order to prosecute their more nefarious policies. Bush and Blair’s ‘Weapons of mass destruction’ obviously springs to mind but there are countless other examples.
So, to my mind, the major flaw of our democracies lies within the ability of elected leaders to manufacture consent with misinformation. And moreso the gullibility of populations that allow them to get away with it. We need a much more politically savvy electorate, more independent fact based journalism, together with the suggestions you make with respect to more proportional representation and the abolishment of the whip system, not to mention making lobbying if not illegal, then at least much more transparent.
Our recent general election, perhaps, does offer a slight glimmer of hope. At least insofar as there was enough impetus within the voting population to oust the abysmal Tory governance we’ve been made to endure for the past 14 years or so, but I guess it has to get that bad for people to start seeing through it. Starmer however wasn’t or isn’t really offering any radical change of direction and is still sticking blindly to established neoliberal orthodoxy. So, to savvy voters at least, we’re perhaps currently voting not for who we think will serve us best, but for who we think will do the least damage – and that situation will remain until we’ve purged our democratic structures of the aforementioned faults.
Democracy is not the issue, it is the controls and limitations forced upon it, that prevent it from working adequately.
I agree, FPTP should have gone years ago, along with whipping. I also think that party lists should be a thing of the past ( I would also remove parties and allow people to coalesce around ideas rather than an identity, but this may be a bit too much for some). I think no-one should be electable as an MP, who has not served on a council, parish or county, and the direction should be parish, to county, to constituency. I would also suggest that only those who have been registered electors in a constituency, and reside there, for a minimum of 5 years would be eligible to stand there.
There should also be a requirement for representation from all sectors, carers, shop workers, engineers, health workers etc. House of Lords should go replaced by elected reps, and there should be an elected head of state.
All MPs should have to disclose any donations, and accommodation for working in london provided by purpose built apartment blocks.
I could go on but I think the idea of a bottom up system rather than a top down (a point made by another here) is the way forward
You are not describing democracy.
You are definitely describing something that is guaranteed to prevent it happening.
And what is this obsession with ordaining where and how MPs might live in London? Do we really want them locked away from society, and the chance to have their families live with them?
I can’t imagine who you think might want to be an MP in the system you describe – but it would certainly succeed in alienating all but the obsessive.
I entirely accept we should require that MPs have training and skills, but you propose something far too rigid.
Of course I am not describing democracy, that is simply people voting. I am describing rules about how it would operate, the practicalities.
PR and removing Whips will solve nothing. The system has to be built from the bottom up, it has to have rules, they must be rigid and enforced.
Equitable and a just democracy is not acheived with a little bit of tinkering. This means processes and systems that may be alien to some. It means hard work. Anything else is a waste of time
Politely, your comment is what feels to me like a waste of it time.
I live in the real world, seeking what I think to be possible. Hosting the comments of those who want to play fantasy politics is a waste of my time.
Re: citizens’ assemblies – I’ve never been sure what the idea is. Isn’t the House of Commons a citizens’ assembly? (It’s not working at all well, but it could do if its members so wished & rules such as the whipping system were changed.)
https://citizensassembly.co.uk/
The problem with ‘Democracy’ as with every other thing touched by it is money. As such, it’s time to get tough with money. Restrict absolute spending by party’s on elections to a point where even the smallest party’s have a level playing field. No ‘but what ifs’, keep the field even, and the Trumps find it 100% harder to fool the electorate.
Then we have the fees to become a candidate. Once these were low enough that, as people here suggest, anyone could have a go. Let’s return to that, and let anyone have a go.
Then we have the press, the bastions of the right and the crutch on which the most rotten of prospective candidates can rely on. For election periods only, the media should be obliged to be non partisan. By law.
Then we have that other salty issue – the endless lies. Fact checkers should be allowed to see, in advance, what politicians are going to say in broadcasts. During the programme a clear link to the fact checkers should be given.
Finally, in the UK, we need a Constitution. No, despite what our right wing friends argue, the 1689 ‘agreement’ is not a true Constitution. It merely settled the religious question, and ended fears of a monarch ruling by divine right. Too much of our Parliamentary powers are not set out, they are the result of legal precedent and most dangerous of all, custom.
Boris Johnson showed just how flimsy the constitution is, by constantly ignoring custom, and setting himself against legal precedents. Luckily for the nation he lost on the latter grounds when it mattered most, but too often he rode roughshod over govt when faced with the former.
Other than that, we need a return to true local democracy. The powers stripped by ‘that woman’ as she’s called on Merseyside, need to be transferred back, otherwise councils and regional assembly’s are nothing more than expensive talking shops.
Of course it goes without saying, that along with that goes the re nationalisation of compulsory and further Education, and public transport under LA, not private, control.
Richard asks me if I am merely asking where the champions have all gone?
Yes, I am! (Anyone got an answer?) Richard, you are one!
As PSR suggests, this is partly a moral question. And, in wannabe, and actual theocracies this can get tangled up with religion – Aargh! (USA, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkiye, India, Afghanistan etc).
I watched Labour (from the inside) dismantle it’s own party democracy as the party apparatchiks first purged Corbyn then the rest of the left, with control of candidate selection, membership selection, and the whip – an active prevention of involvement. (I served on overruled candidate selection committees, and am still angry about it).
In Bristol, consultation on local development plans is improving, because at community meetings developers and council planners with sloppy consultation methods were given a rough ride by local residents. Will that change any decision-makers minds? We’ll see, as we watch how a £14m levelling up grant gets spent in our local shopping hub in S Bristol.
When I was active in community matters in E Dorset, I saw how Local Neighbourhood Partnerships (LNP) pretended to listen to local opinions, but that when it came to who got their hands on funds, after the wine, cheese & canapes had been scoffed, exactly the same people benefited, with councillors managing to grab earmarked LNP funds for their own council projects that were supposed to be already funded from their own budgets, thus “saving” themselves money and bypassing local people while pretending at participatory democracy. So that was sham participation.
I also saw how the council kept ignoring locals on an estate who said they needed & would support a community centre. Even when we commissioned a survey it was ignored because it wasn’t official enough. We refused to go away. We questioned every Section 106 grant (now called SILS money) to ask why we never got any for our community, we made nuisances of ourselves. Eventually the council paid for a consultant to do a “proper” survey, we did the legwork, got a v high response rate, snd surprise surprise, people wanted a community centre & said they would support it. Then in dying days of Brown gov’t Surestart came along with £300k to spend in our community, council coughed up more cash and we got a shared facility, and a v good thing to because austerity was on its way. I was able to move our foodbank from our church hall into the new centre, team up with Surestart & a housing charity & make a difference. But “ordinary” local expressions of democracy didn’t deliver, I tried them.
And since then local devolution has gone into reverse, that level of district council has been dismantled under the (fabricated) pressure of austerity and efficiency savings, and decision making is further than ever from local people whom it affects.
What did work (then), was mobilising local people to shout for something THEY needed & wanted, facilitating them, championing them, for their benefit, not ours, and handing as much power as possible to them, as quickly as possible, trying to disempower the “great & the good” who thought they knew best.
How this translates to national democracy is another matter.
I would like to see MPs and councillors forced to be more accountable, so they can genuinely encounter some local rage and hear what local people think. The best MPs already do this but gov’t should finance more of the sort of meeting you attended recently. What rights do the voters of Clacton have to FORCE Farage to turn up to regular “Town Hall” meetings and explain his trips to America? At present, none at all. That’s not right.
Keep banging on about “money”. Until people understand that, and now how to shout about it, neoliberalism will thrive.
I’ll stop there.
That was genuinely useful comment
There is much to think about for me as a result of this post, but this is from experience and that matters to me.
So what happens is that one party fails in government. Most recently the Democrats in the US, before that the Conservatives here. As Richard says most people aren’t interested in politics, so realising that the group in power have failed often takes a while. People have to feel it in their own personal circumstances. Then people get angry. Then they vote for the other party. It doesn’t seem to much matter what the other party is like, MAGA Republicans, Reform, Labour. What people know is that the current lot have been failed, and they vote against it.
It’s not a great system. It often doesn’t work well. But it’s better than the alternatives.
Sometimes the whole system fails, not just a single party. That’s when there may appear to be the trappings of democracy, an election, but nothing happens. Sadly that seems to be near where we are.
Then people realise that nothing is changing and that get really angry. That’s when the peasants take to the streets with pitchforks. We need to avoid getting to this state.
Richard, I was surprised at your oppositon to CAs, but understand your objections. Doesn’t the expereience of CAs in Switzerland and Ireland (there may be other countries) offer other insights?
Switzerland has a form of democracy that would require a century of cultural change to approach
And Ireland successfully used citizens’ assemblies to demonstrate the loss of power of the Catholic Church, and it was great for that. Culturally, again, that is a location specific purpose.
I agree with your recommended political process reforms.
However I would add as crucial from now on the necessity to remove massive political donations to political parties. These should be capped. I am not sure what the figure should be but the system of buying influence through donations has granted too much power to the wealthiest in society.
We also need some changes in the media too, such as reinstatement of Leveson 2.
We need curbs on lobbying and restrictions on the use of private sector employees in government. Their influence is corrupting.
Peter Brimson.
Much to agree with, Peter
I hope you will accept this in the spirit it’s intended.
Most of your regular commenters clearly value and cherish your blog and I believe feel a great affection for you personally. Some are at their computers early morning waiting for your latest thoughts, ready to toss in their twopence worth even before the sun is up. The blog is always thought provoking, often educational, never stereotypical or dull, always willing to challenge the received wisdom. It’s one of the best forums for a good discussion on economics and politics on the internet – as many have stated.
Many are serious, thoughtful, experienced people like yourself and will sometimes disagree with you and with their fellow commenters. You, and we, wouldn’t want it to be just another echo chamber.
I think you made a bit of a pig’s ear of things today when you got sidetracked in your piece about democracy and went on a bit of a rant about citizens assemblies, when you should have been consolidating the main thesis and suggesting possible solutions. This was a red rag to those of us who see a place for CA’s and was compounded by several other remarks in replies from commenters.
Sometimes it’s best to stop digging and move on.
Best wishes and lang may yer lum reek.
Politely, I do not accept the grovel. You don’t believe in democracy or accept that being the representative is not the role everyone wants or could do and as such you refuse to recognise the reality of the human condition. I did not make pig’s ear of things yesterday. I stated my honest opinion. Of course you can disagree. But I do not need to platform you doing so.
Some random points that seem pretty straight forward to me:
— best use of citizens assemblies is for examination, discussion and recommendation on major policy – end of life assistance; – funding and provision of social care etc. These are long term issues governments often balk at tackling (remember Theresa May’s death tax?) They should be commissioned from within Parliament by cross party committees with some clout. There should be a presumption that something will happen as a result of their recommendations.
—there are some simple admin reforms aimed at increasing voter participation;
1) automatic voter registration ( there are many proposals extant)
2) on line voting (I already report regularly to my Local Authority on who is eligible to vote in my household via a secure online system). Also many studies extant on this.
— then there are some further more far reaching admin possibilities:
1) citizens obligation to vote – this is already in use in several democracies – notably Australia. There should be a ‘none of the above’ option in every vote. The question of sanctions is difficult – mostly it’s a slap on the hand – a modest fine or official rebuke. Perhaps we could ask for a citizen’s assembly to make recommendations on this one.
2) state funding for political parties coupled with total ban on any other funding of politicians, parties or parliamentary interest groups by any means except party membership fees. Already in operation in several democracies. Perhaps another one for a citizens assembly…
Note that so far we have made no material change to constitutional issues. So what follows are more difficult reforms.
— increase proportionality of the voting system so voters get a chance making their votes matter. My vote doesn’t matter – my MP has second largest majority in the country. Lots of solid work on this by Electoral Reform Society. Lots of campaigning groups eg Make Votes Matter. Lots of different voting systems used in UK already. The much favoured Single Transferable Vote already quite widely used (including within Parliament for electing the speaker). We had an abortive crack at this with Tory/Lib coalition – doomed by choice of system, lack of real voter interest or understanding. There are more parties represented in the current Parliament than ever before. Shallowness of Labour mandate is glaring example of deficiency of first past the post system. Now is the hour for this reform to be pushed. Any one for a march on Parliament…
— and lastly second chamber reform. I run out of ideas at this point- it seems to me the main question is how it is composed, selection or election. It’s purpose to review proposed legislation and vote on it seems about right to me; one does want the government to think again but also to be able to govern.
The most resistant area for democratic reform is, I suspect, in the reform of parliamentary procedure. It’s obviously absurd as it stands.
None of this is political – it’s just procedural reform. Unfortunately it needs politicians to act on it.
The biggest problem we have is politicians lying and misleading voters, with our media spreading their lies because it suits their £billionair owners and the rest of the establishment. GE2010 That Labour caused the banking crash and can’t be trusted to run the economy EU Referendum £390m/wk to the NHS, etc, etc.
GE2017 That Corbyn was unelectable, etc
GE2019 Boris’ oven ready Brexit, etc
The most democratic system possible won’t work when the electorate is being misled by our media.
As well as PR, another improvement I think that could me made to most current democratic systems is to give the people the right to veto any bill passed by parliament via referendum, like they do in Switzerland.
Note, I say right to veto and not right to formulate. Parliament should still propose, debate and decide on the details of the bills.
I don’t think referenda in general are a good way of making law, as Brexit showed. A lot of nuance is lost when the people have to decided based on most a few sentences. However, if the people have the right to veto a law that parliament passes then that would discipline politicians into putting effort in to writing good laws that are likely to pass. A lot of laws passed by the previous Tory government would likely not have seen the light of day under this system
This has the advantages of both representative democracy and direct democracy while mitigating both of their disadvantages. People who have the interest in formulating policy will be writing the bills while the people will have the ultimate say in whether those bills become law.
I’ve heard from people who live in Switzerland that this system works very well and most people there believe their government is truly representative of the will of the people.
David Byrne says:
My apology if previously referenced in the 72 responses, but FDR (Franklin Delano Roosevelt) nailed it in his proposed ‘2nd Bill of (economic) Rights’ eighty years ago. He died. The Bill was not enacted. Such legislation could have prevented the spread of Neoliberalism.
Please, All to note: 3-letter acronym explained.
Thanks
PSR gives a “Reject” list.
Maybe a “Do No Harm” oath along with the Oath or Affirmation would cover that.
And as for voting? However one arrives at the candidates or “the question to be put”, if the mountain won’t come to…
* Move the physical polling day to the two days of a weekend.
* Make voting compulsory (with a None of the Above option) on pain of a fixed financial penalty.
* No result valid if carried by less than 50% + 1 of the electorate. (The electorate accept this principle for Trade Union ballots for industrial action. It was applied to the Brexit vote.)
The struggle for the universal franchise is the most valuable part of our flawed democracy. We mustn’t lose it.
Those are moves in the right direction
Of course, PR can eventially deliver the last
Since it seems to be open-house day on task-taking, might I be allowed to join in the bun-fight.
Re your dismissal of the Treaty and Acts of Union between the still-extant nations of Scotland and England as being (and I paraphrase) “too long ago.”
I had no idea treaties had a sell-by date. Sometime treaties just crumble (Versailles 1919-1938), or become obsolete (Westphalia 1648), or are still extremely important to both signatory nations (Guadalupe Hidalgo 1848).
I put the Treaty of Union (1707) into that last category. Our treaty has simply been re-confirmed from time to time by the (frequently non-democratic) processes of the day. It has not been rescinded.
Theresa May’s and others’ dismissal of a referendum with ‘now is not the time’ is tacit acknowledgement of that fact. They can only undemocratically delay indefinitely.
So how then is Scotland to demonstrate its (perhaps) majority for independence other than a referendum on a Treaty that still stands in law? Polling over the last few years has (somewhat suspiciously) hovered around the 50/50 mark. Well, look how well the pollster did with the Harris/Trump election, so that’s no guide.
A general election just will not do for something as important as a single constitutional issue such as cancelling the Treaty, when voters have so many issues to decide on at a ‘general (see?) election.
Yet how else can the people of either nation decide other than in a 50+1 wins referendum?
So you see Richard, though I’m taking you to task, I completely agree with you on undemocratic democracy – because Scotland has been subject to same, on and off, for 300 years.
p.s. I know you support Scottish Independence, I really only posted the above for those who might believe Scotland no longer exists due to that Treaty, and are unaware of the truly undemocratic nature of Westminster.
p.p.s Keep up the good work.
I know all that – but the realpolitik of this is that whatever you say about the legaluty, for decades Scotland was a massive proponent of the Union and Empire and Scots remain very dedicated to the pound and unless those narratives are rewritten – especially on money – then whatever you say legally, Scotland will remain where it is, and that is why I think these arguments are of little conseequnce: they are not where the issue is.