The Party is Dead, Long Live the Party!
Guest post by Steve Goodrich
Before we get saturated by over-zealous coverage of the conference season it is perhaps time to step back and look at the state of Britain’s political parties. Despite the new logos, leaders and spin, they have undoubtedly been under strain in recent years.
Over the past two decades alone, party membership has halved and faith in political parties is on the wane with over half the population, according to a study conducted by the European Journal of Political Research, claiming they have little if any trust in them. Declining membership is mirrored by falling turnout, with only 58% of the voting age population turning out at the 2005 General Election. In sum, they have lost all the pretences of mass support.
Does this matter? Well it depends on who you’re asking. For their leaders it is no big deal. Whilst declining membership means less in individual donations, there are plenty of multi-billionaires looking for something to invest their hard stolen cash in. If someone’s stupid enough to pump millions into Man City then who would turn down a potential stake in the next government?
Fewer members also means less debate. This might seem like a problem for the rank and file; however for those at the top if there’s no-one there to oppose them then they’re always going to get their way. This is especially useful at conference when the media looks out for the slightest dissent to the Great Leaders’ plan.
For policy ideas there are 1001 think-tanks and wonks out there to tell them what to do. Why do they need members when they’ve got mini-universities to line their intellectual piggy-banks? Even increased abstention is unproblematic due to the lack of a quorum at elections.
For the rest of us, however, there is reason for concern. Parties remain the vehicle for those seeking to climb the greasy pole to power. They have little interest in what we or even their members think. Their primary motivation is to win votes and achieve power. Our votes are then liberally interpreted as a mandate for them to do whatever they want. If we get shafted in the process, so be it.
There has been progress on the fringes with the Greens gaining support and the odd leftist formation fluttering briefly into existence, however the odds are against them. “It is difficult for smaller political parties to contest elections under the first-past-the-post system,” said Caroline Lucas this week, berating the distinct disadvantage smaller parties face when trying to get into Westminster. They neither have the money nor concentration of votes to win a seat.
To rectify this inequality there have been calls for electoral reform, however there is no evidence that fresh blood into the system will stave off public discontent with parties as a whole. Germany has PR and yet party support and turnout are still declining. The same goes for Italy. Electoral reform would be a step in the right direction, but it is a poor end in and of itself.
Even if new Parties, like the Greens, breakthrough into the mainstream, who is to say they will not suffer the same fate as the current establishment? It must be remembered that the party in power originates from the good intentions of a century before.
For now however we are stuck as there appears to be no coherent alternative to party politics or representative government. If we are to create a new politics, a reassessment of parties must be at its core. Without such an appraisal we will be left with the contradictory edict “the party is dead, long live the party!”
Reader Comments
I wonder whether it is necessarily a cause for concern. The choice not to vote and not to support any party is itself a democratic choice and, if you think about it, it might be a sign that people just don’t have any greivances that they desperately need politics to help solve.
My impression is that the current decline in political engagement is because people are pissed off at the whole political system and politicians in general, which is bad if you’re a politician I suppose, but it’s not necessarily bad for the rest of us.
Where it becomes bad is if it leads to inaction on important issues, like, say, global warming. But it’s not clear that it has to, one could campaign for reduced carbon emissions, say, without doing so by campaigning for a particular party.
I think it’s bad insofar as parties are elected on minority support with a lower turnout. A little over a third of the country backed Labour in the last general election, but they were returned with a (reduced but) significant majority. With declining voter turnout, governments are formed from the least unpopular party rather than the most popular one. Moreover, since extremists will tend to vote for their chosen party regardless, it means the BNP have been able to make gains despite their vote remaining the same, and in some cases falling.
The is however that people not voting is never interpreted publically as a deliberate abstention but as ‘apathy’. Maybe to an extent it is. Even before PR I think the best first step to take would be an ‘abstain’ option on the ballot – it might be revealing.
PR however is desperately needed here. The article mentions Germany as an example, and although party membership may be declining, at least with PR fringe parties (especially the Greens) actually are winning seats and gaining influence. A similar thing might happen here?
Quick question though: to what extant are the Lib Dems a ‘fringe party’ or just like Labour and the Tories? It’s difficult to tell sometimes.
I don’t consider the Lib Dems a fringe party. They’re just a slightly less successful mainstrem centre party whose policies flip from centre-left to centre-right from leader to leader and to fit whichever seats they are targetting.
I have to admit I’m not the biggest fan of parties, but I am a little confused as to what you are calling for here. You are telling us that the current political problems are endemic to party structure, and yet you have failed to explain quite what has changed between the time when parties did work and now. You seem to be making a “power corrupts” argument, but have offered no basis for any such generalisation other than something or other about apathy, and in the process you seem quite happy to write off the opinions of the many millions of people who do go out and vote just because there happen to be a couple of million fewer than there have been in previous elections. Especially in the context of Labour being pretty much unbeatable in the last two general elections, low turnout is hardly a massive surprise, and then Europeans have always had low turnouts. The fact is that living in certain situations (in big cities, or as a student) it becomes pretty hard to believe at times that tories really do exist, or that people do back the politics the government pushes even if they have little confidence in politicians. But maybe we should have a little more belief in people, that they know what they’re voting for, and that maybe we should be making the challenge on ideological grounds rather than this meta-political debate in which we sit around discussing why the whole system is shit (which has its place, but can at times lead to a complete disengagement with what is actually going on politically.)
I don’t think ideological and systemic issues are as separate as all that Jacob. The system is shit precisely because there is a lack of ideological challenge. I’m not talking here about the hegemony of capitalist ideology. Unfortunately we have to take that for granted. More that the ideological differences between the main capitalist parties have become less distinct. That, I think, is what has changed most significantly. PR might go some way towards addressing the problem of falling turnout, as it will give people a clear ideological choice in the myriad minor parties that will become more credible alternatives, but unless voters perceive that their vote will actually matter, there is a case to be made for the system being shit.
A number of thoughtful comments, sorry I haven’t been able to reply sooner. Jacob, I admit the article did leave a little bit to the imagination however there was a need to keep things as short a possible to keep people’s interest. There are a number of questions I tried to raise. The first implicit question is whether declining party support actually affects the ability for parties to carry out their pseudo-democratic functions. The answer I give to this is no. Parties can continue as electoral machines so long as they have the necessary means to do so e.g. finance, enough members to hand out leaflets and PR people to do the media gaff.
This then leads on to the next question. What impact does this have on us? Jacob rightly points out that abstention is both a democratic right and often a show of discontent with the choices (or lack thereof) on offer at election time. The point is however that abstention alone cannot protect us from the actions of government. Voting is not an opt-in/out choice that has implications for our relation to government and its administrative organs. Whatever we choose to do we are still subjected to the actions of party-run governments, even if they do not rule in our name. This is where the system stuff matters as it is not only set up against those who oppose it, it even works against those who try and work within it e.g. the Greens.
The power corrupts bit was a reflection on the seemingly inherent dynamics of parties and implicitly a questioning of parties as a whole. This leads on to a much wider debate surrounding democracy, which is probably better saved for another time). Such a debate would also touch upon Neuroskeptic’s point about single issue/non-electoral forms of engagement that can bypass political parties and the mainstream system altogether. They may have good causes, one’s that I would more often than not support, however by the same token there are problems to say they are more democratic.
Re: the Lib Dems as a fringe party. I would suggest it depends on what level of government you look at and where. They’ve made inroads at local government level with majorities/a significant presence in Labour heartlands such as Newcastle, Sheffield and Liverpool. When it comes to national elections though their presence is much less substantial, which is in part due to FPTP.
I’ve just realised I didn’t answer Jacob’s first question as to what I was actually calling for. First and foremost it would be a revision of the role of parties in society. The second heavily interrelated issue is a revision of what democracy is, can be and should be. Without both these two tenets I feel it’s hard to make any coherent or logical analysis/comments/actions regarding the political status quo. Partisans of all inclinations have pre-prepared positions (including the fringe Left) however there seems to be little non-partisan (or shall I say anti-partisan) position that I have come across. I couldn’t say what I’m 100% for as I haven’t quite figured that out yet, however I feel this is a good starting point on my road to an answer.