Arguments about PR in the UK.

Arguments about PR in the UK.

I got involved in a debate, sort of. Labour has decided that FPTP weakens trust in politics, but that fixing it is not a first term priority; many careerists in the Party oppose changing the voting system but the argument against PR that it enables the far right and claiming that PR’s supporters do so because of this is dishonest.

We should have PR because everyone’s vote is equal, Parties will then need to address all their voters, not just those that live in swing seats! Good PR systems do not require to be gamed to get the result a voter wants i.e. voters vote for whom they want and do not need to guess what others will do. Finally, government coalitions are negotiated after the election, in a Parliament, and with a mandate, not in secret, in Party offices.

In making this argument, I stated that Parliaments must make governments. Some may argue and more frequently apply this to Executive Mayors, that restricting government making (or mayor/council leader making) to several hundred MPs and Mayors/leaders to even fewer councillors is undemocratic. I don’t agree.

I think governments should be elected/appointed by Parliaments, and so reject the need to balance a vote for government with a vote for an MP. 

The German system makes each vote worth the same as others; although you might want to argue that their minimum threshold required for representation makes this untrue but I don’t. Any AMS system where the number of additional members equals or exceeds the geographic members and the size is relatively large meets the test of equality of votes and also minimises any ‘wasted’ votes.

I was asked to name an election where a far-right candidate won on 1st past the post and named Trump in 2020. I was criticised for calling Trump a fascist as it is generally accepted in the circles that I mix that fascism is a particularly vicious form of antidemocratic, anti-working class politics. I agree that Trump 2020 was not a fascist, it was my critics initial carelessness with the word that led me to reply in that way.

Ben-Ghiat in her book, “Strongmen” shows fascism is less of a threat than it once was, it’s been replaced by military dictators and latterly by vicious kleptocracies and is more often described as authoritarianism or totalitarianism. We also need to look at the work of Juan Linz on Presidencies and Parliaments, he favours the latter because they can compromise and effectively recall governments. Ben-Ghiat highlights seventeen dictators and authoritarians, eight of whom came to power through elections. Too many did so by winning nationwide presidential elections with or without transfers and what is common is that these elections create a large constituency (and in the USA & UK, majorities) who will not consent to their opponents having that power, even with legal checks and balances. Parliamentary systems elected with fair votes are a better means of expressing the solidarity needed to defeat these people. 

The problem is elections with only one winner!

Democracy is about more than voting, it requires rights, checks & balances, and recall. Directly elected governments, led by Mayors or Presidents have shown repeatedly that they are vulnerable to corruption and often decline into authoritarian rules. As said, Ben-Ghiat lists seventeen, eight of whom came to power through election.

You can’t build a good society, based on taking control of the state, one committee at a time, each with a one vote majority based on an electoral system where votes in the legislature are won on a simple plurality.

So, sure, I think that Parliaments electing/appointing/firing governments is democratic.

  1. My notes on Linz and his work, https://davelevy.info/wiki/on-presidentialism/
  2. Strongmen: Mussolini to the present, Author: Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Pub date: 2020/11/10, Publisher: WW Norton & Company
  3. Image Credit: from unsplash by Mark Stucky
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The popular will of the masses

The popular will of the masses

Starmer was glitter bombed at conference, the person that did this is part of the people demand democracy campaign who are campaigning for both proportional representation and a sortition based 2nd house, which they call a people’s house. They seem very proud of the impact their demo had, although I have to ask, why only at Labour conference. The rest of this article looks at citizen’s assemblies and Labour’s proposals for change, which last reviewed in an article, “New Britian, New Britcon” [or on Medium].

My work with CTOE has introduced me to several campaigning academics who have studied these citizen’s assemblies and developed a great belief in them. Such assemblies have been successful in numerous places such as Ireland, Iceland and Chile where they have been used to shape the debate and decisions on the constitution. The London Borough of Newham has implemented one and there are a number of others developed in the UK, and reported by the Constitution Unit whereas a more global view is taken at Bürgerrat who reference the OECD’s catalogue. Newham are to be congratulated because as we explore below, politicians are loathe to share either power or democratic legitimacy and in the UK, proposals such as this, for example the neighbourhood assemblies are often about putting barriers in the way of political party’s manifestos, enabling the the super-active and NIMBYism. Any representative body can and probably should convene Citizen’s Assemblies and the Ost Belgien model shows how even the agenda i.e. topic selection of citizen’s assemblies can also be devolved and a rolling programme implemented without creating a new class of unelected politician.

The citizens’ assembly that has preoccupied me is the EU’s Conference on the Future of Europe, which made numerous recommendations, including that the experiment be continued, however, there is a growing opposition within particularly the European Parliament to proposals for powerful citizens assemblies. This would seem natural where people argue about a superior democratic legitimacy of citizens assemblies, even as is the case of CoFoE the agenda was tightly controlled by the institutions and the membership of the assembly stuffed with politicians from those institutions. At a  more cynical level, those that have power rarely want to share it and often mythologise the role of the institutions to which they belong; from wikipedia’s article on parliamentary cretinism, in the words of Friedrich Engels:

‘Parliamentary cretinism’ is an incurable disease, an ailment whose unfortunate victims are permeated by the lofty conviction that the whole world, its history and its future are directed and determined by a majority of votes of just that very representative institution that has the honour of having them in the capacity of its members.

this is a cropped copy of an image on “people demand democracy’s web site”

I argue that the legitimacy of citizens’ assemblies is based on their expertise. The role of citizens’ assemblies is that people’s lived conditions and experience is directed towards solving a problem not on portfolio governance. This local expertise is then applied to specific problem solving and solutions development. The ‘lived experience’, the closeness to the problem, local expertise all lead to an enhanced solution development process and the focus on solution design is enforced by term limits. All of this makes sortition or random selection an effective, useful, and enhancing selection technique; it eliminates manifestos and prejudgement and weakens the personal networks of leading politicians. Citizen’s assemblies are also best when given a project or task & finish framework. Merely creating a new group of politicians chosen by random lot is not a democratic advance.

I ask myself, if there a dichotomy in political decision making between polarising decisions and decisions better taken by consensus, if so then sortition assemblies maybe better at developing consensual solutions. Pendulum i.e. polarising decisions might be better taken by representative assemblies. If this is right, then the role of referendums needs to be considered carefully. It seems to me that they have no role in either type of decision, certainly not if there is no super majority threshold.

Labour’s proposals are for an elected 2nd chamber with a renewed mandate. They also conceive of a treaty/constitution which the new 2nd chamber would enforce by having the power to reject Commons’ laws that breached the treaty thus ending Parliamentary Sovereignty. Again Labour’s proposals, have little room for the role of a revising chamber which study of the Commons over the last 10 years shows is badly needed. I have little doubt that the power of scrutiny and quality of legislation could be improved and that for some legislation there should be a means by which expert opinion can be sought.

There’s lots of room to do democracy better, but replacing representative democracy with juries is not really one of them. The advocates of Citizens’ Assemblies should not be suggesting they are an alternative, but they are a democratic supplement. …

New Britain, new Britcon

New Britain, new Britcon

Gordon Brown’s Commission on the constitution of the UK has finished its report. Much of the press focus on the proposal to abolish/reform the House of Lords but it is much more comprehensive than that. I originally wondered if in its way it is as ambitious as the Chilean constitution that failed to win approval in 2022. On reading it fully I conclude that it is not. They do however, propose a new constitution, with entrenched individual rights, of health, education and housing and a duty of the state to ensure no-one is poor. For all their controversy in this country, these rights are commonplace around the world. I summarise the report, commenting on parliamentary sovereignty, the devolution settlements, money and cleaning up Westminster, and make a comment on their civil service reform processes. There's more overleaf. ...

A short history of the British constitution

housesofparliament

How have the British ‘improved’ their constitution over the last 100 years. I have a look but conclude with how the Government is riding roughshod over what puny safeguards exist. I look at parliamentary sovereignty, suffrage, the parliament acts, the impact of the EU on the constitution, human rights act, the House of Lords and supreme court, and finally the Prime Minister. I conclude with a sad cry to do better.