Tuesday 7 July 2020

#Putney: A C Grayling


 As our media concentrate almost entirely on  the coronavirus pandemic the government is working outside the glare of publicity to bring about an exit from the European Union way beyond anything that was suggested in the Referendum Campaign or promised in parliamentary debates before and after.  

The "easiest trade talks in history" look headed for collapse and a No-deal Brexit  The establishment of customs posts between Britain and Northern Ireland, something which "no British prime minister could ever contemplate" were discussed by a minister (of the Northern Ireland executive, I think) on Radio 4's "Today" programme this morning.

Concerned as we are for our health and safety until the pandemic is brought under control, the fact remains that leaving the EU, even if some sort of terms are achieved, will be a serious blow to our economy, culture  and international standing, and the arrangements with Ireland could easily lead to the break-up of the Union.

What are we to do?  Has the question already been answered?  Do we just sit back and let it happen?

The philosopher A C Grayling, in a polemic #Putney, written on the 22nd June, answers with a resounding "No!" 

The polemic is in three parts.  

The first argues that, although the Johnson government has constitutional legitimacy, in that it has achieved a majority of 80+ in the Commons, it does not have democratic legitimacy.  Its majority was achieved through a quirk in our inadequate electoral system. Only 29% of the eligible electorate voted for it and, given that: 

"we the people of the UK  have been taken hostage by group whose aims and activities are hostile to  our welfare and well-being," we have not only "a right... but a duty" to oppose it. 



The second part urges " a storm of continuous protest "  to MPs, the established media and social media, and argues  that:

 "[t]he effect of enough people taking one or more  of these forms of protest can be significant, and when some brave individuals do it , others will follow."

The third part argues that in the longer term the UK needs a serious reform of our constitution and political order, and this will not be achieved unless and until the progressive forces in Britain, who together are in the majority, unite. 

The first step will be to achieve a form of proportional representation.  The Greens, Liberal Democrats and nationalists have already taken measures to co-operate on this but the major obstacle is that the Labour Party, the largest of the progressive forces in our politics, and of which Grayling  is a member, has a clause in its constitution which requires it to contest  every seat. He therefore urges that this clause be rescinded, perhaps for only one election, so that PR can be achieved. He writes:

If [the Labour Party] does not suspend this clause, it wrecks the chance of a reforming coalition in Parliament by sharing out  the constituencies  among the opposition parties  on the basis of who  can really win in them .  It is this kind of practical tough action that Labour has to be lobbied hard to take. "  (my emphasis)

If there are any Labour Party members who read this blog I urge them to download #PUTNEY,  http://acgrayling.com/putney, take it to a party meeting, present the argument and propose the constitutional amendment.

Non-Labour party members, please write to your MP if she/he is Labour, and  any Labour contacts, attach #PUTNEY and ask them to act similarly.


16 comments:

  1. Why on Earth would Labour back PR, given that the practical result of implementing PR would be to make it impossible for Labour (or anyone else) to form a single-party government ever again?

    You're effectively asking them to load the pistol, take careful aim at their own foot, and pull the trigger.

    I mean we can see why the Lib Dems like PR, it's their only chance of ever being relevant again. But why would an actual serious party which actually has a chance of forming an administration deliberately do something which would destroy that chance for ever?

    (Also the precedent has been established in 2011 that you need to put a change to the voting system to a referendum, and the British people would never go for it; they want to know who to blame for the government, and how to chuck them out, something PR and coalition governments make impossible — see Ireland where thanks to PR and backroom shenanigans Varadkar, despite losing the election, looks set to become taoiseach again in 2022 — so it's a non-starter anyway)

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    Replies
    1. Because want to put an end to a system which gives groups with only minority support in the country a majority in parliament.

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    2. Because [we?] want to put an end to a system which gives groups with only minority support in the country a majority in parliament

      But then no group will ever have a majority in parliament. Which means permanent coalitions.

      Coalitions don't have the greatest reputation in the UK at the moment, you know? Everybody* hated the last one: Conservatives and lefties alike hated seeing Cameron and Clegg being all chummy-chummy. In 2011 the anti-AV campaign had loads of arguments; the campaign against the PR referendum you want will need only one: 'Remember the coalition government? Do you want to change to a system which ensures every government form now on will be one of them?'

      Guaranteed 80% 'No' vote. At least.

      * except for a few managerialist technocratic types, but to give them control over the system of government really would be letting a position with minority support define how the country should be run, and not just for five years but from now on — which is exactly the thing you say you're against

      Delete
    3. As well, of course, the claim that a coalition government would be more legitimate than our current government is rubbish. Our government is in power because it got a plurality of votes cast, not a majority. That much is true. However the Fine Gael / Fianna Fail coalition which is about to take power in Ireland was voted for by precisely 0% of the electorate, because it wasn't on the ballot paper.

      And it's ridiculous to simply add up the number of people who voted for each of the two parties and claim that the coalition somehow 'represents' them: a lot of people who voted for the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives in 2010 would be all too happy to tell you that they never voted for a coalition, and the resulting government certainly didn't represent them.

      Sure, some proportion of those who voted for each party probably were happy with the resulting coalition government; but did those together amount to over 50% of the voters? Who knows? According to your (or Grayling's, but then, he seems to have been driven insane over the past four years) logic, if not, then the resulting coalition is illegitimate, isn't it?

      (There's also the point that democracy is a process, and what grants legitimacy in such a system is not some magic 'democratic principle' but the fact that everyone agrees to play by the same rules and accept whoever emerges the winner form those rules as legitimate. Democracy isn't some magic force to produce a 'right' answer; it's a purely and simply a mechanism for managing disagreements in society without having to resort to armed civil conflict, and history shows it's the most effective way of avoiding civil conflict ever invented.)

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    4. Your argument is based on the supposition that governments with an over-all majority in parliament are more effective. But the facts don't bear this out. Perhaps the most effective government so far in dealing with the coronavirus pandemic is that of New Zealand, a coalition. And Germany hasn't done too badly either, again a coalition which took weeks to put together. The UK government, with its majority of 80+, is one of the worst performers in the world.

      And it's worth remembering that during what many regard as our "Finest Hour", the Second World War, we had a coalition government.

      The 2010-15 coalition government was far from perfect, but an analysis of of its actions indicates that it would have been worse without Liberal Democrat input and restraint, small as that was (We had only 57 MPs against the Tory 300+.) And the three governments since then have been infinitely worse.

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    5. Your argument is based on the supposition that governments with an over-all majority in parliament are more effective

      No, it's not. If you think that you totally misread it. It is based on the fact that only when you have a government with an overall majority do you know exactly who is to blame for everything, and only if you have a system which forms majority governments can you be sure of chucking them out en masse, and not having any of them slink back into power in combination with other coalition partners.

      The 2010-15 coalition government

      I think a big part of why the Liberal Democrats were wiped out in the 2015 election was their attempt to run their campaign as an explicit appeal for another coalition. Their message was basically, 'let us be part of the government whoever wins'. And that really got the backs of the British public up. When the British don't like a government, they want to chuck that government out. They don't want part of that government clinging on in a different coalition.

      It's nothing to do with 'effectiveness', it's about Tony Benn's principal question of democracy: 'how do we get rid of you?' Nick Clegg effectively wanted to make it impossible to get rid of him from government; he wanted to make it so that however people voted he would end up as Deputy PM, the only choice people could make being whether he was deputy to Cameron or deputy to Ed Miliband.

      The British people quite rightly were having none of that. They want to chuck their governments out; not to have a situation as in Ireland now where Varadkar can lose the election, and yet end up back as taoiseach.

      Delete
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