Ben Wray (Common Weal), 2.9.13
Intro: Ironic Syria
Ironic that I have meeting about what's wrong with
British democracy and what could be right about Scottish democracy when, for
maybe the first time in my lifetime, British democracy has actually achieved
something. The vote against war in Syria was a victory for democracy against
the hacks, party whips and careerism that almost always wins out. Although its
worth putting the vote in its proper historical context. It’s the first-time
since 1782 that the House of Commons has voted against war. Its also worth
saying that the vote against war in Syria was comparable with previous Tory
rebellions over the EU, in the sense that the Tories were divided by different
elite strategies for the British state at a time when Britain's role in the
world is in transition. Tories never rebel unless they think the interests of
the elite are potentially in danger.
Plan for meeting
Anyway, I want to argue that British democracy can no
longer be recognised in any sense as a 'representative democracy', since its
neither represenative nor democratic. However, if we simply replace Westminster
for Holyrood, we'll make some progress, but it will be quantitative rather than
qualitative. That is, the PR system in Scotland is progress on first past the
post, but it has failed to transform democratic participation in Scotland, with
voter turnouts as low if not lower in Scottish elections as they are in
Westminster elections. Secondly, local government is not really local at all,
Scotland has the largest local councils in Europe, with the lowest
participation in terms of candidates standing and voter turnout.
Therefore, for Scotland to have a qualitative shift in
democratic form, it needs more radical ideas about what democracy means and
what form it should take.
I'll argue that a radical approach to democracy in
Scotland has to encompass change at three levels: the local, the national, and,
most radically of all, at the workplace. In doing so, Scotland needs to be
willing to adopt mixed democratic methods, with elements of participative and
properly representative democracy.
Westminster democracy
voter turnout: 25% of votes can get
Tories into power, and since nearly half the population don't vote, Westminster
government can come from less than 15% of the population voting for them. Add
into that the Scottish dimension, with only one MP here, and it becomes fairly
straightforward to say that the population really doesn't elect those in power
here.
'Apathy' and neoliberalism: It is
complacent and elitist to understand this disengagement as purely about apathy.
In another report titled 'The crisis of the British Regime', Adrian Cousins
takes statistics from various opinion polls to analyse the trust and belief
that the public have in political institutions. The results are stunning, and I
would urge you to read the full report.
Two examples will suffice here: The “percentage who 'almost never' trust the British governments
of any party to place the needs of the nation above the interests of their own
political party” has risen from 10% in 1974 to 40% in 2009; whilst the
“percentage of respondents who believe there's a 'good deal of difference'
between political parties” has declined from 82% to 12%.
Its clear that as neoliberalism has become
increasingly hegemonic, democracy has waned. Its not difficult to see why this
would be the case: since profit is king, the need for the mass of society to
engage critically with the general organisation of things is unnecessary. The role of the citizen is to be as
functional as possible within this framework. So University courses are
increasingly departmentalised, so that we bring our children up to be, say,
fantastic chemical engineers, but to not know or care about why they are doing
the chemical engineering and for whom they are doing it.
Neoliberal politics is, therefore, a tool of
governance, not representation. We elect parties who we think will be most
effective at managing the capitalist economy, and the problems that come with
it. When Blairites endlessly bang on about Labour being 'a party of government,
not protest' this is what they mean: that the task of politics is to most
effectively run a system in which corporations rule the economy, poverty and
growing inequality are facts of life, and so on. The ruling ideology is the
only possible ideology that can rule.
We should stop calling our Westminster system a
'representative' democracy because the government elected does not intend to
meet the will of the people and does not receive votes of the overwhelming
majority of the people. We should instead call it neoliberal democracy: yes
there is a vote once every five years, but the vote is strictly for the party
who the electorate believe is best at governing a neoliberal economy. No wonder
voting turnout is in steady decline.
Nexus of power from corporate
elites at Westminster (eg City of London remembrancer sits behind the chair in
House of Commons to ensure its interests are protected) – how can they say
trade-unions play to
Is Britain a democracy? Stuart Wilks-Heeg, the author of a recent report by Democratic Audit on
democracy in Britain, has gone as far as to question “whether it's really
representative democracy any more?”
Wilks-Heeg's report compared
British democracy to other OECD countries on various scales and found it well
behind. On all indicators of a democratic systems' representativeness Britain
was in 'catastrophic decline'.
Wilks-Heeg puts the increase
in political disengagement into its proper context:
"Over time, disengagement skews the
political process yet further towards those who are already more advantaged by
virtue of their wealth, education or professional connections. And without mass
political participation, the sense of disconnection between citizens and their
representatives will inevitably grow."
Scottish democracy
SNP argument: 'Scotland's future in Scotland's hands' no Tories and we get who we vote
for – simple argument, but not transformational – doesn't challenge the more
fundamental weaknesses of the democratic system.
There was a similar flurry of excitement around
devolution, that it would be a much more open space where diverse views can
have an input into, only for it to make way for corporate dominance
Voter turnout in
Scottish elections is lower than for Westminster, our system means more votes count, but not
enough people vote
National level – corporate capture, lobbying,
lack of engagement: “Over 70 per cent of the Scottish population lives on an
income lower than the average salary of £24,000 • Of the 'influencers' group
(excluding elected politicians) only about three per cent have an income lower
than the national average.”
Lobbying – Scottish Parliament-Business
Exchange, Futures Forum.
What we want
Constitution – Should be written with proper
democratic input, like in British Columbia or Iceland, or even better an actual
constituent assembly
National – we don't want a new state to be
carved out by big accounting firms and corporate vultures with the aid of
unaccountable civil servants.
Radical decentralisation – Sao Paolo,
participatory budgeting, local public services – not big society
Workers – trade-union rights, worker-management
boards, and – eventually – participatory economics
Discussion
Bob, Chris, Allan, Luke, Stuart, Pat and Alister contributed
to the discussion raising the issues of what was meant by self-determination,
monopoly ownership of land, water and the media; possible dangers of increased
local democracy being used to promote cuts under Cameron’s ‘Great Society’
proposals; the limited nature of democracy in the UK with the ruling class
ability to resort to the Crown Powers, which the SNP would also maintain; the
need for a written constitution and possible state financing of political
parties: the need for a new Left/Socialist party.
