29th July 2005

The second Green party Coffee House Gathering in Stroud proved as popular as the first, with over 30 people squeezing into the Star Anise Cafe on Friday 22nd July to ask, 'Is Britain a Democracy?'

Mary Southcott (pictured above with talk organiser Chris Brain), from the Labour Campaign for Electoral Reform, 'Make Votes Count' campaign and the Electoral Reform Society joined the Greens' Janet Bailey in leading a very lively discussion with calls for a better voting system.  Although hosted by the Stroud District Green party, the audience was made up of wide ranging views and political colours.

Janet Bailey, who lives near Cirencester, kicked off the discussion by highlighting the problem. She said: "At the last election Labour was returned with a large majority despite the fact that for every person who voted Labour, almost two voted for other parties and two didn't vote (i). This is the flimsiest base of support ever for a majority government."

Janet Bailey said: "Our present system creates greatly exaggerated majorities and parties winning control with less than half the votes, and occasionally fewer than their opponents. The system also makes many believe their vote is wasted and that it will not make a difference (ii). This discourages participation in local democracy and many crucial issues like climate change and the environment just don't get discussed at election times."


Conservatives won election in England

Mary Southcott who co-authored the book "Making Votes Count" in a brief compelling presentation also considered the inadequacies of the current system. She said: "Big majorities are bad" and reminded us that in terms of votes, it was the Conservatives that won England but ended up with 92 seats less than Labour.  She also noted: "The issues discussed at election time are often those designed to win over the voters in marginal seats rather than the ones important to the whole country (iii)."

Both speakers were passionate about there belief that a reform to the electoral system to some form of proportional representation was essential to improving democracy.

Janet Bailey said: "The last election conclusively demonstrated that our present system is a discredited system. It is not just Greens and Lib Dems, but people from all parties that want to see their votes count. It is time for proportional representation in our electoral system, that will help re-engage people in politics and the running of our local services and communities."


As the coffee and cakes were consumed participants split up into smaller groups to talk and share more, before returning to the larger group for a final discussion.

Many issues were discussed. A selection of Green viewpoints are included below:

 - extending postal voting, changing parliamentary boundaries or even compulsory voting will not solve the problems (iv)

- reform to system must include other aspects like the House of Lords (v)

- the huge negative influence on our democracy from large multinational corporations and organisations like the undemocratic WTO and IMF (vi)

- the centralisation of our current system is damaging our communities (vii)

- democracy within political parties also needs improving/restoring (viii)


Notes:

(i)  The Green party, according to The Independent newspaper should have had 7 MPs at the last election in terms of votes but got none. That means no Green voice tackling the other parties moves towards privatisation or calling for a peaceful solution to Iraq or advocating measures to tackle climate change etc. It took 26,877 votes to elect a Labour MP compared with 44,521 to elect a Conservative and a staggering 96,378 to elect a Lib Dem. Only 34% of MPs were elected with over half the vote in their constituencies, the lowest proportion in British history. No MP polled a majority of electorate in their own constituency (back in the 60s around 1/3 of MPs enjoyed this level of support). This system also leads to electoral deserts. In metropolitan counties outside London 1.1m Conservative voters elected only 5 MPs. In Scotland 369,388 votes per Conservative MP; 48,007 per Lib Dem MP, 21,962 per Labour MP. Lib Dems won all 5 seats in Cornwall with 44.4% of the votes. Conservatives all 11 seats in Surrey with 50.5%. Labour all 13 seats in Tyne & Wear with 55.8%.

(ii) Over 70% of votes (over 19m) were wasted as they were cast either for a losing candidate or surplus to the winner's requirements - a slight increase compared with 2001.

(iii) During the campaign The Times reported that the two main parties were spending two thirds of their campaign resources in targeting the 850,000 swing voters in marginal seats that would determine the outcome of the election. This is just 2% of the electorate, giving the impression to 49 out of 50 potential voters that their vote would not make a difference. During the campaign Tony Blair warned that under the present voting system a vote for Kennedy could return Howard and that the result would rest with hundreds of voters in super marginal seats. The system encourages the parties to skew their policies towards the concerns of these swing voters of Middle England, increasing the impression that there is little to choose from between the parties and voting doesn't matter.

(iv) At the start of July, the new Leader of the House of Commons Geoff Hoon suggested making voting compulsory. The proposal, based on the compulsory systems of Australia and Belgium, is to fine individuals who fail or refuse to vote. This is based on Geoff Hoon's analysis that, all things being equal, countries with compulsory voting have higher turnouts in elections. However turnout in elections is not the same thing as popular participation in elections. There is little evidence to suggest, for example, that compulsory voting has made Australian citizens engage with politics more than their British counterparts. Indeed, turnout ceases to be a relevant statistic for measuring participation where an element of compulsion has been introduced. By contrast, there is a very clear link between proportional voting systems, turnout and participation. Australia, Belgium and Greece, which all have compulsory voting systems, struggle to compete with Malta in terms of turnout, which has no compulsion but uses a form of proportional representation. One possible positive side effect could be to increase the protest vote and if enough people did so, it would be a damning indictment that the government would be forced to respond to. The Poll Tax refuseniks in the late 80s have set a precedent.

(v) It is bizarre that, despite now living in the 21st century, so much of our society is rooted in medieval and undemocratic practices.  The House of Lords, while no longer dominated by hereditary peers remains wholly appointed with only one person allowed to decide who sits in it, the Prime Minister. Yet the House of Lords has a major say in the laws that affect our daily lives.  It isn't just foxhunting, but all the legislation that affects our schools, hospitals and police and even decides what we can't eat, do or say. Is it really such a radical idea that, like modern democracies the world over, the second chamber in our Parliament is subject to a degree of democratic control?

(vi) We need to work towards an ecologically sustainable, democratic, equitable and non-exploitative society. In achieving this part of the journey will mean dismantling the vast economic and political power of corporations and developing ecologically and socially just alternatives to the present economic system.

(vii) Government works best when government is closest to the governed. French and Italian red tape maybe terrible but they know from their history that democracy is precious. While Britain our local government has been stripped - the collapse under Thatcher going almost unnoticed. In France it used to be very centralised with the Education Minister even knowing what was being taught in each school at what time of day. In 1982 a dramatic change occured leading to local areas running all their public services, raising taxes etc. In Italy, Scandanavia and Spain the changes were even greater; Spain providing virtual autonomy to regions like Catalonia where they even decide on what they will contribute to the centre! Our democracy doesn't work - every poll of public services puts us at the bottom in Europe - there is no local control and little local say and little pride, yet in many cases our services are better than those overseas.

(viii) The current Labour party for example has been heavily criticised for the role of the leadership at their conferences. It is claimed their aim was to control and silence the membership, rather than give political direction and listen to the views and experiences of the members. Motions have been past by members only to be ignored by the leadership.