Proportional representation : the paradox for the left
Posted on Friday 30 April, 2010
Filed Under Politics
OF COURSE the left should favour proportional representation if Nick Clegg makes its introduction the price of a deal next week. And it should do so even if the real beneficiary will almost certainly be the hard right.
The proposition that a party’s representation in a legislative assembly should be broadly in line with the support its platform commands among the population strikes me as logically unassailable. For any serious democratic left, the argument from democracy itself is both sufficient and decisive.
Precisely because the point is unanswerable, supporters of first past the post have always had to dismiss principle by appeal to pragmatism, even if the thinly disguised self-interest is palpable. FPTP, Labour and the Tories have told us for decades, delivers strong and stable government. Translation: FPTP delivers either Labour or Tory governments.
The Labour left twist on this has been to point to continental systems, in which centre parties play the role of kingmakers. In the British context, the suggestion has been that such a set-up could act as a permanent brake on the possibility of a radical Labour administration delivering socialist reforms.
Frankly, neither argument stacks up any more. The outlook for next Thursday leaves an indecisive result the most likely outcome, while the Lib Dems are if anything to the left of Labour on many issues.
So let’s assume that neither of the big two parties gets an outright majority and Clegg insists on PR as a prerequisite for coalition. There are many available variants, of course, and some of them are not much of an advance on FPTP.
But let’s further assume we get something like the system used in the Scottish and London assemblies, with seats available to any party able to cross a 5% threshold. Even then, I would not put money on the socialist left being able to meet the challenge.
Optimists will presumably point to the Scottish experience. The Scottish Socialist Party was able to win half a dozen seats in 2003, while neither UKIP nor the British National Party have yet secured even a single place in Holyrood.
By way of a reality check, it has to be pointed out that Scotland instantiates a broadly social democratic political culture in a way that England does not, and moreover, sectarianism scuppered the SSP project soon enough.
A Scottish-style electoral mechanism south of the border would hand the BNP a couple of dozen seats on a plate, while UKIP could conceivably do even better. The hard right would become a meaningful force in national politics in a way that would be beyond its current dreams.
Sure, the Greens would also secure a bunch of MPs, and would become the repository for support from leftists looking for a viable vote. That has to be better than nothing.
But what are the chances of a socialist movement now more fractious, fissiparous and divided than at any point since the formation of the Communist Party in 1920 forming the credible single ticket necessary in the circumstances? Answers in the comments box, please.
<<Go back
Comments
36 Responses to “Proportional representation : the paradox for the left”
Leave a Reply
-
- Yemen: an unfinished revolution
- Comment Is Free: An honours system for those who fight to make Britain a better place
- Democracy crushed; elected President arrested; World wrings its hands
- Fabians change policy on unpaid internships
- Kamal al-Fayoumi arrested as Egyptian regime retaliates to strikes
-
-
Meta
-
Fuck the bourgeois “left.”
An egalitarian, redistributionist party of the working class would arise quickly enough given the opportunities available under PR. It’s not there isn’t a monumental “gap in the market.”
All fair-minded people think that the U.S. and British electoral systems are jolly unfair to very large numbers of voters but the examples of Israel and Ireland are sufficient to make advocates of Proportional Representation think long and hard.
In Israel the major parties have to scrabble around among the teeny-weeny parties and stick together coalitions of people who hate one another, hence the ghastly reality of government ministries being handed to extremists who detest concealing their extremism and who take an adolescent delight in blurting out inappropriate things at well-chosen inappropriate moments.
In Ireland Charlie Haughey won the auction for Tony Gregory’s up-for-auction support. Himself motivated by nothing but the most praiseworthy altruism, Tony Gregory demanded, and got, immense sums spent on the heroin dealers and car thieves of the area he represented:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Gregory
A classic example of the tail wagging the doggie.
The IRA paper’s obituary is a good short summary:
http://www.anphoblacht.com/news/detail/36905
Now imagine the U.K. House of Commons with ten or twenty independents of various persuasions holding the balance of power.
Just saying.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvVirT4xX88
“…the possibility of a radical Labour administration delivering socialist reforms.”
ER, so with odds very like one like one of Lembit Opik’s “cheeky” asteroids hitting Hackney smack dead centre, Dave? Although, that’s far more likely as Opik now talks directly to God. But very funny that yesterday’s “Clegg is a diversionary tosser” brigade are now racing to touch the hem of his garment as the UK’s “political earth moves” (sic). George Monbiot, we mean you. It’s 1997 and the left-liberati are at it all over again… with EXTRA added farce. Go, Polly, GO!
Paul Mason (BBC Economics blog) ~ this morning suggests that the Guardian will now come out for Clegg as a result of their “crowd sourced” exercise. The Rev Marty Kettle speaks…we dance.
Richard
Read the next bleedin’ sentence.
the Dutch parliament survives despite a threshold of 0.67% and a sometimes a dozen (out of 150) of orthodox-calvinist (SGP, a hardcore version of Paisleyism), mad pensioners party, animal rights, semi-fascist and other weird MPs
The proposition that a party’s representation in a legislative assembly should be broadly in line with the support its platform commands among the population strikes me as logically unassailable
Whereas to me it seems like a complete non-sequitor. Take one number, pick a second number, and just, out of nowhere, make the claim they should follow a linear relation.
That’s the kind of argument you usually only see made for flat taxes.
Sorry to go off-topic
Dave, you’re a star in breaking Mirror story
Super sleuth even
At the last national election in Italy, fought under an electoral system best described by its own designer as a screw-up, the radical Left formed a flag-of-convenience coalition with the sole purpose of getting over the 4% threshold. They didn’t, mainly because it was a tight election and the Left’s supporters feared handing the election to Berlusconi (who won anyway). The flag-of-convenience coalition broke up in acrimony shortly after the election, but the parties of the Left regrouped in time for the 2009 regional elections – as two coalitions, both of which failed to get over the 4% threshold. Nice work, compagni.
All of which is by way of saying, never underestimate the capacity of the Left to fight among itself, and never underestimate the damage that the in-fighting can do.
Totally agree with your point about PR: anyone serious about democracy, the people’s voice being adequately represented (every vote counts, voting power is equalised, no more safe seats nor marginals, and less reason for tactical voting or not bothering at all), should support it. Although there are obvious critiques of democratic systems as systems that ensure bourgeois representatives. At the last LRC conference, I was surprised that when PR was mentioned in the vice-chair hustings that only one candidate voiced support, and that only after a recent change of heart. There is some old Labour instinct that sees PR as some kind of Liberal geekery that would lose the party its treasured position in the two-party system.
How can a socialist support a system that might give a vaguely leftist (if not for New Labour) government in alternation with the Tories for ever and a day? PR might actually give our socialist MPs more freedom as its likely that larger parties could fragment because a group that could secure 5-10% of the national vote could be a viable small party. This could possibly lead to a parliamentary group of parties of left in a loose coalition of social democrats, greens and socialists. In this way, PR promotes factionalism, but it also promotes coalitions and blocks. It would certainly make the overall leadership more responsive to members than it is at present. So, rather than seeing any of the left-of-Labour entities making headway under PR, it might be better to see the freedom it could bring to the viable Labour left.
Just maybe PR will allow the Labour Party to break away from the middle-of-the-road neo liberal nonsense and go back to basics on what a social democrat (in its original meaning) party stands for. If the Marxist-Leninists can break through whatever threshold is set, good luck to them, but it won’t make much difference to the governing of the country.
The problem, Les Abbey, is that PR would probably reduce Labour to a rump party with fifty or a hundred seats.
The really sad fact is that Britain and Ireland are both in such a bad way economically spealing that they simply cannot afford PR.
Consider our blessings: nobody’s yet suggested a decade or two of military government to straighten things out.
Considering what a bags the senior people in uniform have been doing of the job which is supposedly their core competance in recent years that’s probably just as well.
The contingent incompetence of ones friends is not a principled reason to avoid doing the right thing. If circumstances demand that the rank and file ‘left’ should kick their aging sectarian ‘leaders’ of all stripes unceremoniously into the dustbin of history, then that’s what they should be trying to do, however difficult it appears.
The biggest problem once PR is introduced will be breaking the British addiction to tactical voting. I suspect old habits will die especially hard in this regard. I know plenty of socialists who still traipse through and vote Labour or SNP at euro elections for example.
To me there is no paradox.
Democratic socialism, or social democracy, CANNOT be delivered by FPTP. Look at countries which much stronger traditions of social democracy, stronger unions, and less disparity of wealth than the UK: Germany, the Nordics. Look at Germany, recently, and the rise of the Left Party in a more democratic and responsive culture. The case is unanswerable too on a basic fairness issue (disgracefully, socialists have ignored this point so often). That is, every vote should carry EQUAL weight.
So, to conclude, the case is unanswerable on all levels.
Interestingly, Malta has STV (same as Ireland) and has a very stable two party system – possibly because the parties stand more candidates than tehre are seats, letting trends within them pick the MP (unlike Ireland where in an attempt for the party machine to dictate the candidate, they stand fewer names than seats available).
Remember that the ideologically driven vandalism and excesses of Thathcherism was delivered via FPTP. It is possible to argue too that Labour from 1997 would have been dragged left by a mature PR system. In Sweden it is not possible for ideologically driven right wing parties to win power (under the guise of the mainstream conservative party). Conservative parties there have to tack left to have a chance. No system is perfect, but a PR system would mean the UK moving closer to European social democracy: whatever the faults there, that is much more fertile ground for left politics.
`Translation: FPTP delivers either Labour or Tory governments.’
What kind of government do you want then Dave?
FTP ensures that the major political parties – to win – have to become vast internal coalitions which focus obsessively on the tiny disputed sliver of electoral ground in the centre. FTP ensures that Labour need only look over their right should: there is never any real need to look over their left shoulder. Sometimes this kind of sprawling coalition results in huge Parliamentary majorities (such as Labour in 1997). But instead of such massive Parliamentary majorities becoming liberating and encouraging radical policies, they become a vast prison which increasingly marginalises left wing dissent, erodes internal democracy to the point of its virtual disappearance, empowers a new caste of professional researcher/ assistant/candidate/MP to run everything. Then something beyond control erodes the coalition and the party is seen to be an empty shell devoid of life, of principle of any sense of where it is going or what are its objectives. It is ultimate a recipe for paralysis. Real PR would enfranchise all those political forces outside the cloying centre (including I admit the far right). However this would provide the left with the chance to unite to at least the extent that it could agree a coherent minimum programme of demands on (say) Labour in return for its limited Parliamentary support (or toleration). Such a development would,. however, require the left to jettison the delusional world of sectarian far left politics. It would also require them to campaign outwards to generate the social forces necessary to provide real political clout behind their programmes.
Sorry: bloody literals! – I meant FPTP and “… ultimately a recipe for paralysis.”
John Palmer – I think most of what you say is disputable.The first point, perhaps, though that’s couteracted by PR meaning that any sizeable centrist party will have a lock on government, even if it is noticeably smaller than the parties of left or right.
FPTP doesn’t necessarily mean that Labour doesn’t have to look over it’s left shoulder, one way of reading the decline of Labour would be that Blair bought the centre at the expense of apathising it’s left vote, now with declining turnout the chickens are coming homing to roost.
I don’t see that the problems you point to with huge majorities would be any better with PR.
If Labour + the left didn’t make it over 50% then the left demands would be less important than those of the centre.
Presumably by the “delusional world of sectarian far left politics” you mean the belief that the real struggles are against the government, and the degree of mobilisation rather than the agreement of the ruling party is the determining factor in success. From this perspective, “campaigning outwards” is another way of saying “let’s focus our energies on the struggle in parliament rather than activity outside” and is a recipe for less success rather than more.
Skidmarx _ You have a bizrre reading of what I actually said above. I do not believe the Blairite New Labour electoral majorities would or could have facilitated any opening to the left. To the contrary the size of the majority was constantly invoked by those who said NOTHING must be done to put at risk the links with “Middle England” (whoever the hell they were). The Labour left fell for this more or less completely (with a few honourable exceptions). Only when left forces can achieve the kind of base which includes electoral representation will New Labour take seriously any opening to the left. If you want to see this in action look at the shift in the German SPD (in an attempt to limit the appeal of Die Linke) or the French PS leadership in response to the electoral impact of the Greens under Cohen-Bendit.
The discussion of PR seems to rest heavily on the choice of examples. Those who agree with it find some stable countries with left leaning governments. The other side look for chaotic countries throwing up right wing governments. The problem is that an electoral system exists in a political culture. Highly fragmented countries tend to throw up multi-party systems and complex coalition building. Countries with fewer social divisions end up with more manageable systems.
It is not easy to know is how it would work here. Clearly some of the minority parties like the BNP, UKIP, and the Greens would gain seats. Britain does not look like the kind of country that would develop a seriously fragmented system. One serious point is that the left would have a better chance to reunite. The few lefts looking for tactical advantage through the Labour Party could join serious socialists outside the LP and create a movement with some prospects.
Geoff Barr. We in Scotland did get some lefties in our parliament. They did remind the other parties about social issues for the poorer in our society. They did well. They then went to self destruction mode by name calling and Marxist interpretation. They are not represented in power now. The story of the Left! They destroyed each other in the Courts. They played the capitalist game.
So what if labour dies I do not think you will have many tears from around me or my area. The so called working class people of the coal mines steel workers have gone now, the hardest work men/women do now in my area is fill the shelves at Tesco and thats bloody soul destroying, yet these people would rather do that for £5.86 a hour then get it’s hands dirty working in a factory for £6 a hour.
The world has changed Labour has changed it has almost taken over the whigs roll of rich middle class peoples.
If labour has to be a minor party joining bigger parties like the liberals and Tories then so be it.
Labour played the game and lost with luck
From another quarter of the field …
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2010/05/edl-on-the-frontlines-of-freedom-rooftop-vigil-against-monster-mosque.html
Hmmm … this is up-to-date British news from a crank American website called ATLAS STRUGS
What do we think of the chances of getting PR now that the Tories have ruled out a coalition with the Lib Dems? It’s not going to happen is it?
Robert. The old industrial Britain of the past is long gone. Mass employment in grubby filthy unsafe workplaces should be welcomed. Personally I would prefer stacking shelves in Tesco than crawling along a mine tunnel. The next time you select an item from a shelf in a shop remember someone had to put it there.
“The proposition that a party’s representation in a legislative assembly should be broadly in line with the support its platform commands among the population strikes me as logically unassailable.”
But this is just the problem isn’t it? Parliament is not a legislative assembly, it’s a parliament (the clue being in the name), the composition of which determines the Government.
Further, unlike some independent legislative bodies, such as the unwhipped US Congress, Westminster Parliament is relatively weak and tends to rubber-stamp the legislation of the Government.
While in theory our system makes the Government responsible to Parliament, in practice, at least over recent decades, this has resulted in a Government with a huge degree of power over the legislature.
If we end up with a proportional Parliament then we will be faced with the paradox that it makes the GOVERNMENT less representative, as the outcome of popular elections is unlikely to be able to effect the composition of that Government. If the middle (kingmaker) party will be able to determine which party it forms a government with. To break this pattern would require a swing the likes of which have never been seen before.
So, if we wish to accept the proposition that proportional representation in a legislative assembly is a priori desirable, then we still have to address the problem that a power executive being selected by intrigue among party apparatchiki, and being further distanced from direct popular mandate.
Solutions to this problem (short of throwing out PR) come in two broad flavours. The first is to seperate the selection of the Government from the legislative functions of the Commons, presumably by means of a directly elected executive. This solution carries with it an implicit seperate of powers which you may find to be desirable (personally I’ve never been a fan).
The other broad category of solutions involve finding a way to restore the balance of power to Parliament from the Government. This is the kind of solution I would favour, however I’ve never found one which I believe is workable. (Suggestions greatly welcomed).
Robert. The old industrial Britain of the past is long gone. Mass employment in grubby filthy unsafe workplaces should be welcomed. Personally I would prefer stacking shelves in Tesco than crawling along a mine tunnel. The next time you select an item from a shelf in a shop remember someone had to put it there.
I’ve done the shelf stacking as a cripple, thnk I’d rather take a rope throw it over a tree and let it end, then return to working in Tesco Asda or the rest.
Vote New labour think I’d rather die.
Will THIS hit the fan or disappear and be forgottten?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/election/article-1271457/General-Election-2010-Postal-vote-fraud-amid-fears-bogus-voters-swing-election.html
Every Bengali in Tower Hamlets who doesn’t vote at least twice ought to be jolly well ashamed of himself!
Robert. People were stacking shelves long before new labour and will continue to do so. But will there be a minimum wage!