An antidote to Peston

Yesterday all my troubles...

Start again.  

Yesterday Robert Peston posted a long spiel on Facebook following his ITV interview with Jeremy Corbyn.  It began thusly: I've interviewed Jeremy Corbyn three times in the past year, and it is always a slightly disconcerting experience. 

Well Robert. May I call you Robert? Well Robert I imagine being interviewed by you can be a slightly disconcerting experience.

Anyway Mr Peston goes in to analyse in some detail the consequences of the changes to the way the Labour Party is run proposed by Mr Corbyn. And it makes interesting reading and raises some interesting points.  The full script is here 
https://www.facebook.com/pestonitv/posts/1694904357500969 and those of you who are interested may like to read it in full.

For those of you who can't be arsed however I will attempt a precis. What Peston has realised is that what Corbyn is proposing will turn British politics on its head.  In the past the various parties have put up candidates in each constituency; the electorate in each constituency decided which of those candidates they would like to represent them in Parliament by the simple expedient of seeing which of them got the most votes; and then that elected member sat in the House of Commons and represented that constituency and all the voters in it, whether they had voted for them or not. It is what is known as a representative democracy.  Until the next time they stand for election the member is free to vote how he or she chooses, without reference to his or her constituency.  What Jeremy Corbyn proposes is that the those in the constituency should have a greater say in development of policy within the party. Instead of top down paternalism, Corbyn favours bottom up policy making.  

Peston claims that this will mean that MPs will cease to be representatives and will instead become delegates representing the wishes of the grass-roots of the party.

He worries that this will give Corbyn a stranglehold on the party and will subvert the unwritten constitution of the United Kingdom.

Let, me a mere mortal examine this assertion.

Firstly let us examine the benefits or otherwise of a representative democracy.  Under our appalling first-past-the-post system we are presented every five years with a list of candidates and asked to put our cross against the name of one of them.  The one that gets the most crosses then gets to spend five years in Westminster representing our best interests. Ha bloody ha.

So what choice do we actually have in this so called democratic system?  We have a choice of whether or not we make a cross and if we do, where we put it.  If we are a member of a political party and are very active in the local constituency party we may get some say in who we choose to vote for.  In the Labour Party a shortlist in each constituency is drawn up by the shortlist committee which is then voted on by branch members.  The winner is then the candidate.  In the case of the Conservative Party they have a national list of approved candidates, with a series of hoops through which a hopeful has to jump before being co-opted and local associations choose a candidate form this list, I think...

Basically therefore most people have no say in who is actually on the ballot paper in the first place.  How they then decide to vote is also interesting. I don't suppose many voters actually attend hustings.  Most people will have been unfamiliar with the concept before it was revived on a monumental scale in recent weeks.  How many people would turn out to a political meeting? Three or four, a dozen at most: the party activists and someone to make the tea and help clear the chairs away afterwards. Most people I am sure vote for a party not a person.  This maybe less true in very marginal constituencies and where there is either some sort of scandal surrounding the sitting MP or where one of the candidates is some sort of celebrity, either nationally or locally, but in general most voters know very little about their MP unless they have had personal dealings with them.

And most constituencies are nominally safe seats.  

This person, this MP is therefore the one who has been chosen by some of your fellow constituents to represent you all in Parliament. In the 2010 General Election, the most recent I can get figures for without going right back to source, only 127 Conservative, 77 Labour and 12 Lib Dem MPs were elected with more than 50% of the votes cast.  If we factor in turnout those figures would be much lower.  Nevertheless this MP is the person who represents your interest in Parliament, whoever you voted for.  Except it doesn't work like that in the real world.  It is, not to put too fine a point on it, absolute bollocks.

For a start the parties have what is known as the whipping system which ensures, as far as possible that all MPs follow the party line.  So in a constituency which has a Conservative MP but also has a proportion of the electorate who are dependent on tax credits, when the MP is faced with having to vote on a bill to cut those tax credits how does he or she vote? Well experience tells us that they vote with their party rather than with their conscience. One of the reasons Jeremy Corbyn is so unpopular with elements of his own party is that he voted with his conscience rather than with the whip when he felt it was necessary. History has proved that in the majority of cases he voted correctly, but that is not the issue here. In fact it is not possible for Constituency MPs to represent the best interests of all their constituents because sometimes their interests are diametrically opposed.

What we actually have is a dogs' breakfast of a system where it is possible, nay more common than not, for an MP to be elected with less than 50% of the popular vote and then to vote entirely as he or she pleases on any matter in the house of Commons. He or she is pressured to vote along party lines by the whips' offices, organisations which in any other walk of life would be investigated for workplace bullying.  If this does not accord with the wishes of the constituency then the voters have an opportunity every five years to vote them out. But as we have seen because the constituents have very little say in who stands as a candidate in their constituency and also because most people vote for a party not a person they have a very good chance of being re-elected.

What Jeremy Corbyn is suggesting is an extension of power in terms of policy making and candidate selection to include ordinary members of the party, and possibly, I don't know, party supporters such as the £3/£25 supporters who were able to vote in the leadership elections.  This may or may not include re-selection/de-selection every five years.  We are not clear on this.  If it does it will be a powerful tool to keep MPs in line with their CLP's wishes. 

Mr Peston sees this as an attempt by Corbyn to grab more power.  He says 'That would mean a future Labour government - if Corbyn has his way - would to a great extent be directly answerable to paid-up Labour members, and ministers and MPs ties and loyalty to the wider electorate would be weakened.'

I don't know what planet Mr Peston is living on but I see precious little evidence of these ties and loyalty to the wider electorate at present.  How do they manifest themselves?  Does he refer, I wonder to the disconnect between MP and constituency when MPs are parachuted into safe seats.  Are these 'ties and loyalty to the wider electorate'?  If so why are they good.  MPs should be answerable to their constituency. The constituency members are the ones who put in all the leg work to get them elected, who run things when they are off at Westminster or somewhere exotic at an international conference.  I wonder how the members of Hartlepool CLC really felt about having Peter Mandelson as their MP?  It's a wonder he even knew where Hartlepool was.  I'm sure someone will now tell me what brilliant constituency MP he was, but he was hardly local, or working class was he and that is a perceived reason for the desertion of 'natural' Labour voters in the direction of UKIP.

What is Mr Peston frightened of? Probably nothing really.  He is a provocative journalist who I actually quite admire, but he is still part of the establishment and that makes him relatively conservative in his outlook if not his politics.