Tag Archives: political parties

Why did Labour lose the 2015 General Election?

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They were neck and neck until the very night of the elections. The polls had us all convinced that there would be no majority government, and yet here we are. The 56th Parliament of the United Kingdom has 1 UKIP MP, 1 Green MP, 1 independent MP, 2 UUP MPs, 3 SDLP MPs, 3 Plaid Cymru MPs, 4 Sinn Féin MPs, 8 Liberal Democrat MPs, 8 DUP MPs, 56 SNP MPs, 232 Labour MPs, and majority of 330 Conservative MPs (as well as the speaker, who officially has no ties to any party). Parties such as the Greens and UKIP were defeated by the electoral system, media biases, and the current party funding setup. But the real surprises were for the Liberal Democrats to go from 57 seats to 8, the SNP to go from 6 seats to 56, and Labour to go from 258 seats to 232. Based on the fact that in 1997 Labour held 419 seats, and in 2005 they still retained 356 seats, it has been a great shock to many political commentators to see their vote fall even further. Why did it happen?

The thinking that caused Labour to lose in 2015 is the same thinking that characterizes the current leadership contest: one size fits all. The dominant opinion post election has been that Labour needs to move right, and re-occupy the centre ground. The Telegraph says that Ed Miliband was the wrong leader, who didn’t place enough emphasis on deficit reduction, and sat too far to the left. The Independent argued that Labour moved too far to the left. The BBC’s focus is also on business policies and the economy. Peter Mandelson in the NY Times, argued that more practicalities were called for, and that people viewed Labour’s message as a kind of ideological vendetta, which not only sought to turn inequalities into class war, but also conflicted with the ‘one nation’ sound-bite. Even the Guardian pulls it down to the twin factors of leadership and economic management. Indeed, the idea that Labour’s loss stemmed from fiscal laxity is supported by the fact that Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls lost his seat in the election.

There are some disagreements to this analysis. Len McCluskey, General Secretary of the trade union Unite, and one of Labour’s biggest financial donors, says that Labour’s message was simply too incoherent and confusing. However, Labour’s biggest losses were a) from the SNP, further to the left, b) from UKIP, way to the right, and c) from the Greens, to the left. One thing ties these parties together, and it’s nothing to do with left or right wing politics! Indeed, many of those who pursued economic voting in 2015 (voting for the party most likely to guarantee economic stability) in fact voted Labour in 2010 for exactly the same reason.

It’s the feeling that politicians care about them first and foremost (or rather the lack of that feeling) which really lost Labour the election. Indeed, it is the very same reason that trust in politics is completely shot.

clip_image002As a long term trend, UK party membership has significantly fallen from 2000 to 2010 (despite the current post election surge in membership for Labour and the Liberal Democrat parties).

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Perceptions about standards of conduct in UK public institutions from 2004 to 2010 have fallen greatly.

 

 

Public trust in politicians is at such a low level, that more than three quarters of Britons don’t trust them to tell the truth.

 

 

 

 

According to research conducted by Democracy Index and Democratic Audit, voter-representative relationships are in a terrible state:

“Less than one fifth of west Europeans trust political parties and only about one third trust their governments and parliaments […] If there is a breakdown of trust, we should expect this to be at the national level.” (Democracy Index 2013, p17-19)

“Public faith in democratic institutions is decaying, and reforms aimed at restoring public confidence in democratic arrangements have tended to prove, at best, ineffectual and, in several cases, counter-productive” (Democratic Audit, p9)

Of course these points are all true for the Conservatives as well. So it would be easy to put everything down to the populist messages of the Conservatives on immigration, the EU, and on jobs, combined with the constant scaremongering that defined the election. But if Labour learns this message, it will not win a mandate for fundamental change, because Britons are not all the same, and one size does not fit all. The truth is that politics is first and foremost about relationships. It’s localized, and winning messages are based more on market research than ideological starting positions. Scottish Labour feels like a member of Labour. The perception was that when Scots voted for devolution, they simply wanted Scottish Labour to work more closely with Labour in Westminster. They didn’t. They wanted someone to put them first. The SNP feels like the party of Scotland, and so voters feel like politicians are coming to them, actively forging strong relationships, and then standing up for those relationships, and the concerns that are brought to their attention through those relationships, in Westminster.

Inclusive democracy was at the very heart of this election, and yet almost no-one seems to realize it. If Labour transitions from a majoritarian system of democracy, whereby it targets certain demographics, to an inclusive model of democracy based on the principle that relationships should be forged with all people, and all people should have the right, through such powerful messages as grassroots democracy, digital democracy  and economic democracy, then Labour will win. If they stick with majoritarian democracy, Labour is doomed.

The Party System

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Are political parties a good thing?

Do they formalise groups that will naturally emerge, and thus make politicians more accountable? Or do they entrench group identities, when individuals forming groups would be more pragmatic?

sexy_elections_by_jackbliss-d5nbwseDo they mitigate the populist effects of everyone being able to vote for individuals, and thus avoid the style of democracy which exists in Argentina today, or that which existed in Ancient Rome? Or do they entrench the status quo, resist change, and keep the elites in power?

Do they homogenize society into opposing groups, when in reality everyone has so many different identities and issues of importance that the divisions are grossly exaggerated? Or do they bring competition into the political realm, and ensure that there is always (assuming we’re not talking about a one party or dominant party system) a strong opposition group to hold the government to account?

Do they blur issues and encourage a lack of transparency? Or do they ensure that no matter how little voters know about their electoral candidates they can at least know their ideological positions based on the party they stand for?

Do they provide stability by avoiding the obvious difficulties of maintaining a government composed of independents coming from different positions? Or do they disenfranchise the minorities?

The idea of a party system is surprisingly rather modern. It comes largely from the work of nineteenth century Europeans such as Ostrogorsky and Bryce. In discussing whether such a system was a good thing or not, Ostrogorsky said that:

“As soon as a party, even if created for the noblest object perpetuates itself, it tends to degeneration”

I find this incredibly insightful, for it is how many people think today, and also one of the biggest weaknesses of the party system. Bernard Shaw, in ‘the Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism and Capitalism’, suggested that parties are always seeking primarily to get themselves into power. They do 2 party systemthis, he reasoned, because they believe that their party will help the people more than the opposition party would. So noble reasons. But, Shaw argues that it is precisely for this reason that many people end up voting contrary to what they actually believe. He gives an example of a Conservative Member of Parliament being presented with a bill proposed by his own party, which he finds distasteful. The MP ends up voting for it in order to avoid the perception that his/her government is no longer in a majority, which he rather exaggeratedly reasons might lead the opposition into government. Meanwhile, he gives another example of an opposition Labour MP, who supports the bill but votes against it, for precisely the opposite reasoning. And thus the belief that being in power will help them affect positive change leads politicians to take decisions which lead to negative changes.

In practice it is usually these ‘realpolitik’ methods which move the hand of governance. The UK Party System didn’t emerge for ideological reasons so much as it did because of the necessities of war. King William III was fighting a war against the French King Louis XIV, and the House of Commons were refusing him supplies, and limiting the fighting potential of his forces. Robert Spencer therefore advised that if the King chose ministers always from the strongest party in the House of Commons, then that party would have to back him through the war. And because it worked, it stayed.

For Bernard Shaw it is the changes that emerged as a result of this system which so weakens the practicable party system. He says that the party system in place at the local level is in fact effective, for it is committee led, and doesn’t require that anybody has to resign after a failed vote or notion.

“The rigidity of the party system, as we have seen, depends on the convention that whenever the Government is defeated on a division in the House, it must ‘appeal to the country’: that is, the Cabinet Ministers must resign  their offices, and the King dissolve the Parliament and have a new one elected.”

Of course today a single defeat does not result in the dissolution of government. But the resignations often do occur. And the trend is further towards, as opposed to away from, these practices. For instance the cross-party consensus at present is to enact a right of recall, so that members of the public can recall the MP that they elected should he/she fail to please them during their elected term. This trend enhances democracy. And yet as Shaw argued, it also encourages fear-led decision-making, and populism as opposed to difficult decision taking about which the public does not have as much information.

Despite the fact that reference to the party system was first found in published print as recently as 1888, I will leave you with the fact that after only a couple of decades this system was already seen as out-dated. In fact in 1920 two famous professors of political science, Sidney and Beatrice Webb, published a Socialist Constitution for the UK. In this constitution they discarded the notion of maintaining the party system within two Houses of Parliament as completely impracticable. They described its existence then, 96 years ago, as a condition of “creeping paralysis”. They proposed in this constitution that we should have one political Parliament, like the present Cabinet style system, and a second, industrial Parliament with a municipal system.

If you had the choice, what system would you propose? Is the party system fit for purpose?