As with most things political today, politicians and activists have the common habit of blaming everything they see as being wrong on something or some factor that is outside of them or outside of their control.
Boiled down to its basic components, this means that when something isn’t working – such as their own ability to get power by gaining or retaining enough Seats in Parliament or perhaps a local Council – they believe that the problem must be with someone or something else, and that the way to fix that problem will be to fix that ‘someone’ or that ‘something’, rather than to do anything else.
Right now, politics is broken.
In fact, politics has been broken for a long time.
Politics has been broken for a lot longer than the Brexit question has been around and Brexit is a symptom of the problem – not the cause.
Yet politicians who do not have power, or the working majorities that provide that power in Government and in our Councils, most often believe that the problem or the reason that politics is broken, is nothing to do with them.
Those politicians with power aren’t worried about gaining power. They only worry about keeping it. And that is why they are obsessive about sound bites and vote-winning policies that will keep them where they are. They aren’t worried about anything that has helped them to be in the position they are now such as the Electoral System.
But those politicians without power don’t believe that the Electoral System has served them and their ideas well.
They believe that it is the system itself that is at fault. Not the ideas that might actually be wrong.
Those politicians without power are the ones that advocate changing the Electoral System from First Past The Post (FPTP) to a form of Proportional Representation (PR) with the overt argument that it is much fairer and much more representative of Voters and their intentions – when it is actually nothing of the sort.
The reason that FPTP isn’t working in the way that those without power would like it to do so, is because the content within our political system – that’s the Politicians, the Parties and the ideas, policies and approach that they espouse – are actually undemocratic or unrepresentative of democracy.
In fact, FPTP is actually working very well. FPTP is working just as it should. Voters are simply giving their democratic support and mandate to the Parties and Policies which they believe in the most.
There just isn’t a majority in Parliament, because no Political Party is showing the leadership, reliability, reason, thought and trustworthiness to be trusted by the majority of Voters as any Party of Government surely should.
PR would actually make the problems that we are experiencing with politics in the UK significantly worse.
PR would consolidate the position of fringe ideas, idealistic philosophies and single-issue Political Parties and make compromise a permanent feature of Government.
Good Government can never compromise on key issues if it is to be responsible to all members of the Electorate as it always should.
Those Political Parties that are unhappy with their ‘showing’ or Electoral Results should be looking at themselves and the policies that they are offering; looking inside themselves instead of outwards and accepting that they and what they do are not representative of a majority democratic view.
That they are in effect, in it for themselves.
No Political Party can itself be perfect. But a Political Party can be professional and considerate of its obligations to others in all that it will do.
The acid test of a democracy is when a majority of people vote clearly for one Candidate or one Party over all others. Because it is then clear that what that Party or Candidate is offering at that specific time and in that Election Campaign, is representative of the real Democratic and therefore Political Tide.
We must retain FPTP in order to return democracy in this Country.
It is the Politicians and the Political Parties that must change.
Once Politicians are doing what they should be under FPTP, Majority Government will soon be restored.
We do not need the permanent state of flux that we would have if PR were to replace FPTP. Majority Government would only ever then be possible through Coalition – which would mean what we actually Vote for will be set aside in compromise so that power can be shared between different Parties that could otherwise never achieve a majority, whilst what we actually voted for will never be in mind.
Adam Tugwell 