Redefining our political culture: the introduction of PR is the place to start

Guest blog for Unlock Democracy by Ted Cantle

Respect for our system of government culture has never been so low, nor politicians so distrusted, according to the latest report from the National Centre for Social Research. Yet the major parties have no plans for political reform, nor seem to understand the threat to cohesion - and to democracy itself.

The campaign for proportional representation (PR) can easily be justified on the very basic grounds of making our democratic system fairer, giving everyone a voice and creating a wider representation. But, it is much more fundamental than that, the first-past-the-post (FPTP) system creates an ‘us and them’ culture, which sours the political discourse, undermines any possibility of collaboration over unifying or longer term policies.

Minority parties do offer a theoretical choice for electors, but they can receive millions of votes in national elections, without electing a single representative. This effective disenfranchisement creates a real sense of frustration and anger, which increasingly boils over in the popular discourse - especially in social media - and fuels the abusive culture, including that targeting MPs. But politicians do not seem able to ask themselves ‘why are so many people angry and frustrated?’ They do not have to look very far - according to the above NCSR report, a staggering 79% of people believe that the system of governing Britain needs ‘ a lot of improvement’.

The political narrative has been dominated by two parties who represent not just a minority of voters, but a much smaller minority of political opinion. It is especially alarming to note that nearly 60% of electors say none of the main political parties represent them and describe themselves as politically ‘homeless’. No wonder that support has grown for ‘a strong leader who was willing to break the rules’, an unanswered cry for help, from an unrepresented majority of voters.

Once elected by FPTP - often based on the votes of only around 40% of electors - the Government can then completely dominate the day to day political agenda.

As Labour’s Chris Bryant MP then noted ‘once your party has won a general election….you can do pretty much what you want in parliament’. As former Conservative MP Rory Stewart revealed, the Whips' instruction was that MPs ‘should not regard debates as opportunities for open discussion… we were expected to be loyal to the party: and votes would rarely entail a free exercise of judgment’ and both Stewart and Bryant backed this with many examples of bullying behaviour amongst MPs themselves, confirming that it is not just about individuals, but a systemic problem.

Rather than change the political system, recent governments have sought to shore up their minority dominance by changing the way in which government is constructed and operates. Crucially, this helps them to prevent proper scrutiny and accountability. Each new political disaster - of which the contaminated blood scandal is just the latest of a long line - is responded to in its own terms, rather than seen as symptomatic of a much broader failure of governance.

They have failed to take any of the many chances to reform the civil service and instead surrounded themselves with political advisors, whose role is to come up with a favourable headline, or try to exploit a weakness in their opposition. Their entire focus is on short term party political advantage which squeezes out serious longer term planning based upon consensus and the national interest. Meanwhile, politicians appoint their political cronies to become departmental non-executives or positions in the many other governmental bodies - not forgetting the constant bestowing of peerages and political honours to try to cement their party advantages.

It has become even more evident in the way that politicians now seek to ignore objective indicators and criteria in order to bend the public funding that they control towards areas where they hope to retain or gain a seat in parliament. The development of ‘pork barrel’ politics makes a nonsense of the commitment that MPs often give on their election night to serve all constituents and not just those that voted for them.

The political class has also sought to replicate the FPTP dream of ‘strong government’ in the institutional framework itself. The introduction of elected mayors, the cabinet system in local government and creation of the new police and crime commissioners (PCCs), have all been based upon the replacement of more open and collaborative processes with less accountable and more dominant individuals.

Election appeals are now built entirely around a sophisticated demographic analysis targeted at ‘core’ supporters and ignoring - or even denigrating - other sections of the population. This is inherently divisive, but their tactics have degenerated still further. Politicians have learnt that, in terms of garnering just enough votes, it is necessary to try to build ‘us and them’ divides. So, we are now either ‘Brexiteers’ or ‘Remoaners’, culture war ‘woke’ warriors or ‘anti-woke’ combatants, or deliberately divided by what politicians proudly call ‘wedge issues’. There is nothing in between, no nuance nor middle ground in respect of any of these divides. Collaboration, cross party alliances or consensus seeking, is of no value in a ‘winner takes all’ race.

A sense of political cohesion or unity can only be established if our political systems and culture are completely overhauled, but the most fundamental and emblematic reform would be the introduction of proportional representation (PR). PR has the potential to begin to shape a new way of doing politics.

Guest blog for Unlock Democracy by Ted Cantle

Ted Cantle has had a long career in local and central government, and in the voluntary, academic and private sectors. His work has covered local government, housing, health, and environmental issues, but since 2001 he became better known for his pioneering work on community cohesion. He is now focused on political reform.

Ted was appointed CBE and DL in 2004 and has been awarded honorary degrees by four universities.

He is now advisor to Belong – The Cohesion and Integration Network, having been a founding trustee and its’ first chair. Belong is a national charity based in Manchester that brings, public, private and voluntary sectors together to develop and share good practice and to build capacity on all aspects of cohesion and integration. It is a membership organisation, but with an open bank of resources

@TedCantle

https://tedcantle.co.uk/