Election systems
Why left must say no to Jenkins' feeble PR fudge!
Matters are moving apace around issues of voting systems, and Labour/Liberal Democrat alliances.
There is considerable confusion on the left about voting systems. For some the starting point is not the voting system as such, but who they want to see win.
So for many in the Labour Party, First Past The Post has to be defended because anything else allows the Liberal Democrats to determine the outcome. Some on the Labour Left state explicitly that they are opposed to any system which might prevent Labour governing alone - an argument for ballot rigging if ever there was one.
Socialists, i.e. those who want to see capitalism replaced by socialism, are not advocates of parliamentary democracy.
Parliamentary democracy is a facade which masks the fact that the people making the real decisions over our lives are not parliamentarians, but the owners and controllers of big companies. We want to see it replaced by a system of workers councils, or soviets, running society.
Any government in capitalist society acts primarily as facilitator and arbitrator of the interests of capitalism. However the greater democracy there is, the greater the space is for the working class to organise.
This is why until we are able to replace bourgeois democracy by a superior, socialist, system, we fight for the maximum freedom and democracy under capitalism.
This means the right to organise, to strike, to demonstrate, but it also means that as long as parliament exists we are in favour of elections to it being as fair as possible.
Socialists use parliamentary elections and, if elected, parliament itself, as a platform to argue the need for the destruction of capitalism and to support and encourage the struggles of the working class. A voting system which allows them some chance of getting elected also means they will get more of a hearing in the election campaign and beyond.
Any system which can deprive a party winning 25 per cent of the popular vote of any seats in parliament - as First Past The Post (FPTP) can - is undemocratic. The make up of parliament should reflect as directly as possible the way the electorate votes.
FPTP means that a small proportion of the electorate in marginal seats determine the outcome of the election. Governments get a large majority of seats in the Commons on a minority vote and many people feel disenfranchised.
The arguments of the defenders of First Past The Post in the labour movement vary, but are usually a combination of the following:
that PR inevitably produces coalition government and gives disproportionate power to small parties;
this in turn mitigates against `stable government';
we would not have had Labour governments under PR;
PR allows the far right representation which they would not get otherwise;
PR removes the link between the MP and a geographical constituency.
Some on the Labour left are prone to announcing that PR is a `class issue' and anyone supporting PR is taking sides against the working class, conveniently forgetting that the Tories are the most ardent defenders of First Past The Post. Supporters of PR have always included the likes of Ken Livingstone and Arthur Scargill.
Among the strongest opponents of PR in the Labour Party are not only Dennis Skinner on the left, but also Jack Straw and Stuart Bell, stalwarts of the right. The recent glossy pamphlet from the First Past The Post campaign is sponsored by the AEEU, recently renowned for its heavy funding of the Blairite slate for the NEC elections. It contains supportive quotes from several Tory MPs, including John Major and the Party chair!
Socialists are not advocates of Parliamentary democracy
Why socialists should favour stable government is a mystery. We have just had 18 years of stable Conservative rule and a lot of good it did us. Stable government under capitalism surely means an unchallenged ability to carry out a programme in the interests of capitalism. Shouldn't socialists therefore favour unstable government? Of course, we prefer governments being destabilised by working class action, but if the electoral system helps, who are we to complain?
As for coalitions and the election of fascists, these are political questions that cannot be wished away by rigging the electoral system to make them less likely. The growth of fascism has to be prevented by posing a socialist alternative and by mass mobilisations. Fascists have anyway been elected under FPTP
FPTP did not prevent the Lib-Lab pact of the 70s and it is not stopping Blair and Ashdown's current rapprochement, despite Labour's overwhelming majority in parliament. Such coalitions have to be fought politically, regardless of the voting system. The argument has to be raised for the political independence of the workers' movement from bourgeois parties.
The opposition to PR reveals a vision of politics which is purely parliamentary among sections of the Labour Left . The struggle for socialism gets subsumed in a desire to see Labour elected at all costs. The trajectory of the current government reveals the bankruptcy of such a view. It is an echo of the view put forward by the right during the Tory government, that all we could do was wait for a Labour government, to avoid leading any kind of fight against their policies in the immediate term.
Support for PR does not by any means imply support for the proposals of the Jenkins' commission. The system it has put forward - `AV plus' - is the least proportional of any system devised. Even the strongest advocates of PR have difficulty in arguing the merits of this system over FPTP. Its small `top up' quota would mean that a third largish party would get nearer to its proportional number of seats in parliament, but small parties which got around 10% of the votes would not. It creates two different categories of MPs, those directly elected and those from the top up list.
Of all the voting systems on offer, only one, Single Transferable Vote really offers anything approaching true proportionality for all parties which get above a basic quota of votes. Because this involves multi-member constituencies there is not the same identification of an MP with a (relatively) small geographical area as for FPTP, but this is a small price to pay for a fairer system.
The fudge which Jenkins has come up with seems based on the calculation that it is the least the Liberal Democrats would accept (given they have long campaigned for STV) and the most the die-hards in the Labour leadership would accept. As with any such fudge, it has in fact satisfied nobody but those in the middle.
The timetable for discussion of the Jenkins' proposal is drawn-out, probably in the hope of wearing down the opposition. Labour Party conference won't take a position until October 2000, with a referendum some time after that. It is unlikely a new system will come in before the next general election. Activists should argue in the meantime that Jenkins is unacceptable and that STV should be adopted instead.