A campaign to revolutionise British politics in time for the next
general election has been launched by The Independent's founding
editor, Andreas Whittam Smith.
The ambitious project, called Democracy2015, is the first in Britain
to explicitly encourage people successful in other walks of life to
enter the political stage. To mark its beginning, Mr Whittam Smith today publishes a critique of the day-to-day operation of British democracy, highlighting nationwide disillusionment with the institutions and practices of Westminster.
The
incompetence of government and betrayal of voter trust by career
politicians has chipped away at the public's faith in politics, Mr
Whittam Smith writes, undermining the authority of Parliament and
alienating the people who really matter.
"A political class has
gradually emerged in the last 25 years whose only interest is in winning
elections and gaining power," he said. "They are dominated by party
politics and are fundamentally incompetent.
"Even the politicians
who form the Cabinet have absolutely no notion of how to manage the
country; Cameron comes from public relations, the Chancellor from Tory
research, the Foreign Secretary's background is full-time politics, and
the Home Secretary was a full-time politician."
Operating under
the banner "People Politics, Not Party Politics", the campaign will seek
to reverse public apathy by offering the chance for members of the
public to engage with current affairs beyond general elections.
Andreas Whittam Smith: Our democracy is desperately sick. This is your chance to help save it
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Andreas Whittam Smith: Our democracy is desperately sick. This is your chance to help save it
Creative use of digital media could exceed the power of political parties to raise funds
British democracy is in crisis. We cannot wish this away. The cause
is a precipitous decline in respect for Members of Parliament and for
the governments they form. Trust in our rulers has never been lower;
faith in their competence is approaching nil. Democratic states cannot
function properly in such circumstances. To see what is happening, look
at what the polling organisations report.
One of these, YouGov, surveyed more than 5,000 adults throughout
Great Britain in January this year. It asked how well or badly people
thought Parliament was doing its job. The YouGov pollsters asked which
were the features of Britain's political system that were liked the most
and which were liked the least. Just over a third of the respondents
couldn't think of anything worthy of praise. The rest of the findings
were dire. Over half the sample (53 per cent) was critical of the
quality of our politicians. And there was (and is) a widespread belief
that politicians tell lies. Some 62 per cent of respondents agreed that
"politicians tell lies all the time – you can't believe a word they
say".
When Peter Kellner, president of YouGov, saw the results, he
gave this warning: "What emerges is a picture of massive discontent
that goes far beyond a dislike of particular politicians, parties and
policies." A majority believes Britain's political system to be
fundamentally flawed. "The combined effect of these complaints is more
profound than is widely realised. Unless action is taken to restore the
reputation of our political system, its very legitimacy may be at risk."
More
recently, the Hansard Society published the results of its annual audit
of political engagement and declared that "indifference has hardened
into something more significant, and disturbing". Trends in interest and
knowledge are downward, sharply so in some cases. What is suggested is
"a public that is increasingly disengaged from national politics".
Then
examine what British Social Attitudes has found. After each general
election since 1987, the organisation has asked people how much they
"trust British governments of any party to place the needs of the nation
above the interests of their political party". The proportion trusting
governments "just about always" or "most of the time" has collapsed from
47 per cent in 1987 to 20 per cent in 2010. When we compare this level
of trust with our Continental neighbours, we find that in 2009 20 out of
the 27 members of the European Union displayed higher levels of trust
in their governments than we did. Notice also how much higher the
turnout was at the recent French presidential election (80 per cent)
compared with our last general election (65 per cent).
These
warnings, however, rub against that part of our national character that
holds it important not to get too fussed about things. While this is an
admirable quality when the alternative would be panic in the face of a
sudden threat, not getting too fussed can become dangerous complacency.
It would be so now.
Return to the warning above: "Unless action is
taken to restore the reputation of our political system, its very
legitimacy may be at risk." For "legitimacy" substitute a more familiar
word that carries the same meaning in this context, authority. Authority
is the most important quality that governments can possess.
Until
recently, successive British governments had authority in large
measure. That is why we are mostly law-abiding, why we tend to pay our
taxes and why we are relatively uncorrupt – at least, we thought we were
until the scandals of News International and the bad behaviour of the
banks erupted into our midst. But if the government of the day loses
authority, then the country risks falling into the same situation as
Greece or Italy, where inconvenient laws like building regulations are
habitually ignored, where tax-dodging is a national sport and where
government officials must be bribed before they will do anything. That
both these countries are now governed by technocrats rather than by
democratically elected leaders shows the sort of fate that can follow a
loss of trust in a country's political institutions.
The
explanation for the growing disillusion with our political system is
twofold: incompetence and trust betrayed. There is a haze of
incompetence that envelops ministers. So bad has it become that we have
even had to invent a word for it: omnishambles. Exam- ples are the
botched reorganisation of the NHS, the Budget that penalised pensioners
and charities, the petrol crisis that wasn't. How can you feel confident
in people who frequently bring forward half-baked policies that have to
be substantially changed within a few weeks of their announcement? But
worse than all this is an economic policy that allows no hope for the
future. On some forecasts, unemployment will go on rising for the next
five years.
So far as trust is concerned, how can we forget that
four MPs plus two members of the House of Lords have been imprisoned for
dishonesty? In other words, out of the 1,500 members of the 2005- 2010
Parliament, Commons and Lords combined, six turned out to be criminals.
At the same time, some journalists working for the national press, whose
activities intertwine with politics, face a series of criminal charges.
Also
widely noted is the way the political parties say one thing when they
are seeking votes and then do the opposite when in power. To some
extent, the Tories and Labour have always behaved like this, but it
seems to have been more blatant since the 2010 general election. The
Liberal Democrats joined in. They made a manifesto pledge to abolish
university tuition fees within six years and then, once in government,
Liberal Democrat ministers voted to maintain them at a higher level. We
can either accept a continuation of this – not get too fussed – or we
can do something about it. Not to act is likely to have a number of
adverse consequences. Younger people would increasingly wonder what was
the point in voting in general elections. Instead they would turn to
street protests to express their views. As trust continued to drain away
from our institutions it would be harder to get things done.
Governments would become more authoritarian to make good the missing
respect. That is what awaits us.
But think of the advantages that
are available to those who would try to turn this situation round.
Britain has a strong democratic tradition, perhaps the most deeply
rooted of any country. Creative use of digital media could equal if not
exceed the power of the political parties to raise funds and organise
elections. And there are plenty of people who care. Indeed there are
plenty of people outside Westminster who have the Olympic spirit. In an
article tomorrow, I will describe how these strengths might be combined
to rescue our democracy and ask for your participation in exploring this
route out of the crisis.
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How you can bring our ailing democracy back to life
Yesterday, Andreas Whittam Smith, founder of The Independent,
announced a bold plan for a new political movement to restore British
democracy. Here he unveils an initial manifesto for Democracy 2015 – and
explains how you can get involved
Fact One: respect for our democratic arrangements is in sharp
decline. We no longer vote at general elections in the numbers that we
used to do. We trust members of Parliament and the governments they form
less and less. Despair with the system was vividly expressed by the
protesters camped outside St Paul's Cathedral in London.
Fact Two: the politicians we criticise weren't parachuted into
Westminster from another planet. We voted for them. Once they were
like us. Now they have morphed into a political class. But they do
not rule by divine right. We could change them. The next election
is due to take place on 7 May 2015.
The answer to our predicament is not to turn away from
Parliament but to strengthen it. Parliament is as old as the
nation. It grew out of the great national assemblies that emerged
in early 10th-century Britain. It is part of our genetic
inheritance. It is one of the things that make us the country we
are. And because we do not have a written constitution, the British
Parliament is unusually powerful compared with legislatures
elsewhere in the world. It could, for instance, repeal the Acts
that ceded certain responsibilities to European institutions.
Moreover all the power that we citizens actually have at our
disposal is in the Palace of Westminster. So that is where people
who want to change things have to direct their attention. Or, more
precisely, those who want to change things have to secure the
election of candidates to the House of Commons who represent their
views. And they have to do so on a scale that counts. The election
of a few stray independent members would achieve little.
What is being described here is an exceedingly challenging task
that takes us into the realm of the near impossible. But in
politics, the near impossible can happen. Perhaps the near
impossible is more frequent now. Barack Obama became President. The
Rev Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness became colleagues in Northern
Ireland. We acquired a coalition government. Unelected technocrats
are now the Prime Ministers of Greece and Italy.
The problem is that the entrance to the House of Commons is
narrow and access difficult. The established political parties
largely control elections. This is how parliamentary democracies
work. It is their default mode. And in a first-past-the-post
electoral system, the old parties operate with deadly efficiency.
Their system is effective.
It might, however, be worked around. Let us consider how this
could be done and then what would be the essential preparatory
work. Suppose a large group of like-minded citizens could be
persuaded to stand for Parliament for one term only. They would
have been pursuing demanding careers, such as being the head of a
large school or running a charity or getting a new business under
way or directing a trade union. They would have done something with
their lives, and have established themselves in their
communities.
Their qualifications would be different from those of the
current membership of the House of Commons. When politicians reach
the top, their "skill set" is limited to marketing themselves and
their parties to the electorate. Many of them are brilliant people,
but there is not much else they have experience of doing. Some 90
members of the present parliament, for instance, have spent their
entire working lives in politics, often starting off in their party
research departments. And if you then add in occupations that,
while filled with brilliant practitioners, do not generally involve
significant management responsibilities such as the law, medicine,
teaching and journalism, you have accounted for half the House of
Commons. Yet these people have a government to run, or hope to do
so in the future.
However, when non-politicians who have run things whether for
profit or not reach the top, they will have become competent in a
range of solid activities, things you have to be able to do whether
you are running a business or a charity – creating new services and
products, financial planning, harnessing of technology and managing
substantial numbers of employees. As a result, they are much better
equipped for the tasks of government than the average
politician.
There would be another difference. Professional politicians have
but one object in mind, winning the next general election. They are
engaged in non-stop electioneering from the morning following
victory or defeat at the polls until the next general election.
They feel that they must do whatever it takes to stay in office or
regain it. The new members, the one-term-only cohort, would be
mercifully free of these distorting pressures.
Their task, assuming they were returned in sufficiently large
numbers, would be single-mindedly to put right as many things as
possible that governments formed by the traditional parties had
failed to resolve. Then these temporary MPs would stand down when
their single term was finished. As a consequence, they would have
had to so frame their mission that it could be completed in five
years. That would have been one of their promises to the electorate
and part of their attraction. They would not be politicians but
they would have been elected in the classic manner. Their
democratic legitimacy would be at least equal to that of the
present members of the House of Commons.
However, without making the enormous and unprecedented effort to
create a new, national vote-winning organisation, not a single
new-style candidate is going to be elected, let alone a sufficient
number to participate in the government of the country. And that is
precisely why the moment to start is now, with still nearly three
years available for preparation. But where to begin?
What is first required is participative policy making, lasting a
year, and using the digital media to ensure openness and
legitimacy. The purpose would be to discuss and decide what the
next government should do – in detail, with expert advice, not
neglecting constitutional reform, working in groups, capable of
being boiled down into a series of measures that the electorate
would find attractive.
This would not be so difficult as it sounds. Ideological
differences are small these days, even between the established
parties, which often magnify what are in effect small distinctions
to make themselves stand out. The exercise would be unusual only in
the sense that no difficult subjects would be avoided, everything
would be upfront and open, no surprises, no hidden agenda.
Then, as this work progressed, and more and more individuals
with contributions to make were drawn into it, and news of what was
being undertaken began to spread, it is likely that people would
emerge who were so committed to what was being proposed that they
would stand for Parliament to try to carry through the programme.
They would see it as a worthwhile public duty, not a career. But
unless a start is made now, we shall never get to that point.
If ordinary people are to reclaim politics from the party
elites, ordinary people need to take action. This is how they – and
you – can do so...
If you would like to be involoved in our project and participate
in developing these ideas, please email the team at democracy2015@independent.co.uk
From your message, we would be grateful to learn:
a. The town or village where you live and the name of your
parliamentary constituency. That will help us to plan events and
meetings.
b. What you consider to be the government policies that most
need redoing. That would help set the agenda for the writing of a
manifesto.
c. How you would like to help. That could be either in thinking
through issues or in helping to organise the process. The two tasks
are equally daunting, and there is much to be done for each – for
instance, in chairing meetings, setting up groups, taking notes,
contacting and recruiting experts.
d. Whether you would support the principle of making a small
contribution from time to time to keep the work going, a maximum of
£50.
Our objective is to obtain a majority in the next House of
Commons. The members so elected would declare that they intended to
serve only one term. While I have described this target in The
Independent as "near impossible", as indeed it is, I cannot see the
point of aiming at anything less if the intention is to make a
difference. The ideas below are correspondingly bold.
What next? It is easy to point to the failures of the existing
system, but what would success look like? Our aspiration is that by
the next general election, we will have achieved the following:
1. A group of candidates would have announced easy-to-understand
policies for the problems people worry most about, such as
unemployment, crime, immigration, care of old people, NHS, welfare
reform, Europe.
2. It would have connected with the young and made them an
integral part of the campaign.
3. It would have adopted a consultative style in policy making
that it would carry through into government.
4. It would have staged primary elections in every constituency,
650 of them, to choose its candidates a year before the general
election due to be held on 7 May 2015. This would have enabled its
candidates to have spent at least a year working in their
constituencies and become well known locally. Constituency
primaries would have been big events.
5. It would have found a credible leader and candidates capable
of running the departments of state if elected. In other words, it
would have become a "Government-in-Waiting".
6. It would have achieved regular coverage in the national
media.
7. It would have convincingly attacked the incompetence of the
traditional political parties when in government.
If we are to be successful, candidates will have had to come
forward by early 2014. How might this happen? It is to be hoped
that they would make themselves known spontaneously as a result of
participating in the first section of work that starts now and
lasts until 2014. This is the drawing up of a full manifesto for
government, constructed to the highest standards with the best
possible advice. It would need to be a better document than that
routinely produced by the political parties. It should be capable
of being accepted by civil servants as high-quality work that could
be swiftly turned into government policy. At the same time, the
same body of work would have to be suitable for forming into a
simple document that the electorate would find convincing and
reassuring. These are very ambitious requirements, but again it
doesn't seems as anything less would do.
This body of work would provide reassurance not only for the
electorate but also, in the meantime, for people considering
running for election.
It would help to answer the question posed by John Kampfner in
an article on the crisis in public life that he recently wrote for
the Financial Times. He said: "The current crop of MPs is drawn
from a narrow social and professional background: think-tanks,
political advisers and journalism. If more elected representatives
had spent years as, say, brain surgeons, entrepreneurs or teachers,
a calmer atmosphere might have prevailed. But why would a brain
surgeon wish to enter such a tarnished fray?"
The plans described here are an attempt to answer that
question.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Yours, Andreas Whittam Smith
The Democracy 2015 movement has been started by a team
comprising the following volunteers:
Madeleine Avery
Jonathan Dibb
Melissa Bartlett
Laura Mainwaring
Nagham Al-Turaihi
James Sibley
Julia Fairbank
Oliver Duggan
Nick Reading
Luke Nightingale
Sophie Beardshall
Babs Williams
Gracie Laurence
Lisa Soennichsen
Hetty Saunders
Bryony Clarke
Matt Flatman
Luke Jones
Luke Wells
Will Wyeth
Josh Gartland
Gabriel Spiers
Francesca Cane
Emily McFadden
Glenn Jeffries
Flora McCarthy
James Corcut
Millie Riley
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