Our first priority must be to reform the voting system

I do not need to tell you that British politics is in serious crisis, a crisis that has been brewing since Thatcher first took office. There are many reasons for this, but one of the principal culprits is Britain's first-past-the-post (FPTP) voting system which is unsustainable and is seriously damaging the social cohesion of the state. The principal effect of FPTP on the political culture of the United Kingdom is what we call ‘the two party system’ which I argue, is a fundamental cause of the increasing erosion of social cohesion in the United Kingdom and has resulted in alienating the public from the political process and political participation, and that no meaningful solution to our problems are possible until FPTP has been replaced. Electoral systems are not simply mechanisms for electing people to public office. They have a more profound impact than that. They impact on a nation’s culture and help to shape the political structure of the state. In addition they impact on people’s everyday lives as they are responsible for the make-up of the parliament and other decision-making forums in a state, and affect policy formation and implementation. They shape the nature and composition of Parliament, local government, the European Parliament, the Scottish and Welsh Assemblies etc. and therefore impact on the decisions themselves.

As early as 2006, an influential group of academics produced what is known as The Power Report that made many observations about the British political system and stated that Britain was suffering from what they termed a ‘democratic malaise’. The Commission also stated that there was
‘a well-ingrained popular view across the country that our political institutions and their politicians are failing, untrustworthy, and disconnected from the great mass of the British people.’ And that
"The British party system is based on the dominance of two parties constructed around the pursuit of the interests and ideological leanings of the two dominant classes that existed during the industrial era" in which "even Members of Parliament have little say because all the decisions are made by a handful of people at the centre and then driven through the system. Politics and government are increasingly slipping back into the hands of privileged elites as if democracy has run out of steam.”

We must always be aware when we are operating within the context of modern British politics, that in the absence of a written constitution and a judiciary with the power of legislative review and veto, the British people invest an enormous amount of trust in their parliamentary institutions. Elections in the UK are therefore votes of confidence, not just in the parties, but in the system itself. Should a government betray the trust of the electorate, there are no constitutional mechanisms outside of the next election to remove such a government. Another purpose of election in Britain is therefore an affirmation of the elected Parliament by the British people as a safeguard of their securities and rights and in the elected representatives as the watchmen of the people over the executive. Should the parties betray that confidence and trust, then the party system, and the entire political system itself is in danger of losing the confidence and trust of the people, and that, I am arguing is the real cause of the catastrophic vote to leave the EU on Thursday.

I have written before how the UK has a set of some of the most appalling politicians imaginable. This is the result of how FPTP has entrenched a two party system that has consolidated a very powerful centralisation of power and removed the process of accountability. This has in turn bestowed significant political privilege onto the political elite within the two main parties that has institutionalised a form of hereditary government within the UK. What do I mean by this? To pursue a meaningful political career in British politics, one must, almost by necessity, attach one’s future to one of the two main parties. Regardless of your ideological position, or your political preferences on policy matters, if you wish to have a successful political career at almost any level of British politics, then membership of, and loyalty to, one of the two major parties in Britain is essential. Of course some individuals pursue long careers in another party, but they are few. This produces the situation where many candidates for election are standing for a constituency on a party ticket quite simply in order to be elected as an MP, not necessarily because they believe in that particular style of politics. They are political careerists whose loyalty and focus is not to the people who elected them, but to the party to whom they owe their nomination. This is because the motivation of such people to being elected is not to any particular programme, constituency, cause, ideological commitment, or any of the standard explanations why people seek to enter politics; it is simply to get a job as an MP, preferably a job for life in a safe party seat. In most constituencies, the combination of FPTP and the party system almost guarantees the successful candidate a job for life, regardless of the performance of the elected MP once in office. This happens because FPTP has produced an electoral system whereby people vote for parties as opposed to persons. Thus, to succeed in British politics, at all levels, not just at Westminster, you need neither be competent, hardworking, nor know anything about politics. You simply have to belong to the right party and people will continue to vote for you even if they have never heard of you

 This is the opposite of a meritocracy. If the British get a competent Prime Minister and a competent government, that is largely by accident. If they get a competent constituency MP or local councillor etc, then that is almost wholly by accident. They get what the party is prepared to give them. As a result, the MP and councillor etc become dependent on, and answerable to, their party. They very quickly become detached from the people who elect them, and become submerged into the world of party politics. British politicians, especially at Westminster, have, because of the effect of FPTP, become almost wholly detached from the British people. One of the most visible signs of Westminster's irrelevance is that this system has produced a parliament that is almost wholly unrepresentative, a parliament that has been almost totally purged of real working people with a spread of talents and skills that reflect the wider society. In the UK we have a government that is almost wholly staffed by millionaires. Thus, whilst the British political system is not hereditary in the sense of family, it is most certainly hereditary in the sense of class, education and particularly economic and social outlook. Thatcher defined this process as: only those who were considered ‘one of us’ would be considered suitable for success in her political system. Now, it can be argued that not all of this elite share the same economic and social background, but regardless of background, if one fails to subscribe to the dominant ideology of this ruling elite, then they will most certainly be excluded from it. If you don’t become ‘one of us’ you don’t succeed and Mad Tony actually took Thatcher’s ‘one of us’ philosophy to a level that would have been ridiculous were it not so serious. The party that was founded by manual labour to represent manual labour, had, by the 2010 election, almost cleansed itself of manual labouring influence and representation, and they still cannot seem to understand why they have been deserted by their traditional supporters in the millions.

The UK political system rewards parties. As a result, individual candidates are relatively unimportant in terms of party success. The party selects the leader and the party hierarchy. In return, the leader surrounds him/herself with favourites and people who only agree with him/her. They owe their career to a successful leader and leadership policies. This leadership therefore becomes the natural focus, particularly for the media, and supposedly intelligent people who advance within the party system become craven apologists for leaders and their policies and will happily lie through their teeth on the party’s behalf. The sociologist Max Weber argued that modern democratic states encourage what he terms ‘Caesarism.’ This happens because in countries with universal suffrage, political leaders are deemed to require charismatic qualities that will appeal to the majority of the electorate. As a result, regardless of the ability or quality of a modern politician, they will have great difficulty reaching the top positions in the political structures if they fail to display charismatic leadership. Caesarism therefore presents a genuine threat to the democratic process. It encourages the increasing centralisation of power and decision-making in the leadership and his/her immediate chosen circle, it threatens to corrupt the leadership itself by inflating their sense of importance whilst diminishing others, and it has the effect of elevating the executive at the expense of the legislature. All those tendencies are very evident in modern Britain, and the democratic institutions and structures that are supposed to counter caesarist tendencies in our society are failing us and not working. Principal amongst those failures are an effective and accountable Parliament and an efficient electoral system. This post has become far too long and I thank you if you have read this far. This topic is obviously huge and I have only really given you an introduction. But Britain will never be able to offer meaningful solutions until we reform its politics and that will have to start with the electoral system. You have been warned.

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat