This was good, and entirely appropriate, from John Harris in The Guardian yesterday:
People's identities are complicated – something intensified by the means of communication we still clunkily call social media. There will, therefore, be no going back to a majoritarian politics in which most voters loyally choose one of two archaic teams. All that has gone.
What hasn't yet occurred to most politicians is that the same applies to people in suits spouting cliches about “hardworking families”, the daily (legacy) media round, “pitch-rolling” speeches and all of Westminster's other outmoded rituals.
I completely agree. Why Labour and the Tories do not realise that unless they reform our democracy now, they will likely play no further part in it beats me.
So, when is it going to happen?
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It will happen only when we deleverage the rich’s hold on politics through nationalised political funding.
A friend suggested a way to neutralize the effect of wealth on political spending and influence and I’d like to share their idea.
If we don’t have private political donations then the state will have to fund political parties. But how could it do that fairly?
One way would be for the government to allocate a share of the total funding to each individual voter that they could only “spend” by donating it to a politician(s) or political party(ies) of their choice. That way the funding might reflect the current feeling of the voters and provide immediate feedback to politicians and parties on what they get right and what they get wrong.
There may be nuances such as whether the money is allocated monthly or annually, and whether there are there limits to the total that can be donated to individual politicians or to parties. And, if there are limits, what should they be.
But the basic idea is to ban personal and corporate donations, which would reduce the influence of the wealthy, and instead empower individual voters to choose who gets funded.
I don’t think they will. They seem to lack any insight and the hardworking families one really annoys me. Why as a single person do I not matter? Why do the sick and disabled not matter? And what about all those so called economically inactive people, many of whom are doing unpaid care for children and elderly parents? My view is that you judge the heart of a country by how it treats it’s vulnerable.
I can’t predict what is going to happen but my suspicion is that there will be more and more defections in this parliament to the Greens, Your Party and Reform,and if the majority isn’t lost at the next election there will be a 5 party split with negotiations as happen in many European countries and the resulting coalition will bring in PR.
Despite the fact that trust in the M.S.M, just observe the B.B.C today, is diminishing, the plain fact is that they still control the narrative. And whatever some of us think of them, in most cases their billionaire non-dom owners, if they don’t promote a change to the voting system, then, pessimistically, I think there very little chance of it happening. As we are only too well aware in Scotland, especially with B.B.C Scotland News, who, in association with most of the print media, if they don’t want a certain matter to happen, in our case Scottish Independence, then they will take any measures to prevent that happening. The question is, are what were once called the major political parties strong enough to defy people, who in some cases can make or break individuals, if not political parties, and effect a change? Maybe, if their very survival depends on that happening. But if that is to happen, it had better be quick, before they are consigned to oblivion.
The current Labour leadership would only be dragged to this kicking and screaming, but their remaining membership is keen, so they are halfway there. It is not impossible therefore to imagine Labour getting on board with PR, especially when Starmer is replaced, as seems more than likely. But what would be in it for the Tories? Historically the Tory party and membership have been fiercely opposed to any kind of progressive constitutional change. On a practical level would they now see an electoral advantage in PR? Whether under PR or FPTP the only potential coalition partner for the current version of the Tory Party is Reform – surely the Lib Dems could not countenance supporting the Tories back into power after last time, and with their current savage far-right outlook, certainly no other party would do so. The Tories are more likely to think (that is, delude themselves) that, if they could not win a majority they will nevertheless be the largest party in a Tory-Reform partnership of some sort. I think they are not so likely to make the rational calculation that introducing PR will be a means of sapping support for Reform, That is, a means to ensure Reform don’t sweep the board with a low vote thanks to the distortions of FPTP, like Labour did in 2024. Part of the reason being that, unlike Labour, the Tories don’t really see Reform as a mortal political enemy – after all, they’ve got a lot in common with them these days. So they will not yet be panicking and doing everything they can to avert a Reform majority, as Labour may be belatedly doing once their inevitable change of leadership occurs. It may take another term in the doldrums and a possible come back of more moderate Tory elements before the Tory Party start to embrace the possibility of a PR voting system more suited to the fractured reality of the political landscape.
I think a lot more Tories will defect to Reform before 2029.
I have a feeling that the 2029 election will see the biggest upheaval in British politics in my lifetime, hopefully it will go in a progressive direction.
Action will be taken on climate change. The powerful have succeeded in creating doubt about the issue. That is the norm. Just as the big tobacco companies hid the terrors of smoking for decades. Profit takes precedent over all else. The human race fails to plan. That’s the norm but it will change dramatically when a huge disaster occurs. One that cannot be ignored. Thousands will perish but attitudes will change and the public will realise they have been scammed. Unfortunately, that is the the usual way of things. The human race repeats the same mistakes over and over again.
It beats me why they can’t see it as well. Having said that, maybe they can but are so mentally inflexible, so routed in the past, so disconnected from reality and, coupled with this, so totally lacking in both imagination and competence they are like rabbits frozen on the spot by the oncoming headlights.
“Happy in their slavery”
Aldous Huxley (1958)
https://youtu.be/alasBxZsb40?si=vdtAjDYTGt_7DjuT
Labour appear to have the choice of a smaller loss of power in 2029 through sharing a left-leaning government, or a much larger loss of power by handing the keys to Reform.
There’s still time for Reform to make further mistakes like those they’ve made recently, for Trumpism to continue to highlight the dangers of right-leaning populism, and for some policies to be introduced which ease the cost of living challenges and other difficulties facing the majority, but Labour are running out of time of making enough of a difference to turn things around, and showing little awareness of the changes needed.