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Sunday 27 May 2012

Reselect Democracy

Wednesday, 20th May 2009

Hats of to Paul Evans of the Local Democracy blog who has come up with a brilliant idea for renewing our political culture: Reselect Democracy. I am happy to endorse it along with Liberal Conspiracy.

Here's the Reselect Democracy pitch to the major political parties:

Following recent revelations about the abuse of expenses by a minority of MPs, the public appear to have lost some of their confidence in parliamentary politics. It is easy to conclude that a professional political class - many of whom have no real experience outside of the political bubble - has emerged. One that lives on a different planet to the rest of us.

The time has come for Parliament to reconnect with the public. It is time for a fully open selection - as a one-off measure - wherever there is a reasonable demand for it.It’s also time for more of us to take responsibility and to participate in the selection of our candidates. For this reason, Reselect Democracy has been launched to offer every local constituency party that plans to field a candidate the following deal:

We will help to build your membership if you are prepared to prove that the candidate that will fight the next election can command our respect and support.

The idea is that individuals will agree to join political parties but only in return for a pledge that local reselection contests will be open affairs free from interference from central party machines. With enough support his would kill the apparatchik culture that has dominated British politics for at least a decade and ensure local people got the candidates they wanted.

There is a serious risk that people are being turned off conventional politics altogether. The answer is not celebrity independent candidates but a revival of representative democracy.

Filed under: Democracy (93 more articles) , MPs' expenses (115 more articles)

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TomTom

May 20th, 2009 9:59am Report this comment

Britain is NOT a Democracy it is an Oligarchy which has been forced throughout history to expand its support base but which nevertheless remains a London-based Oligarchy in Political, Media and Financial terms. It is the nature of living on an island

Gawain

May 20th, 2009 10:24am Report this comment

If they really believe in representative democracy why not support a general election now so people can vote in a new Parlaiment to sort the mess out ? Some of us remember the corrupt local politics of the 70s and 80s. It did in the old Labour Party. Why would open selections be any better ? Isn't this just another way for the unelected, left of centre nomenklatura to get homogonised candidates in their own image ?

Denis Cooper

May 20th, 2009 2:11pm Report this comment

We know why there can't be an election, now, Gawain; and it's not because it would mean the death of the Labour government - they're more or less ready to give up the ghost, anyway - but because it would mean the death of the Lisbon Treaty.

Just be patient; the Irish will vote again in October, and most likely they'll be bullied into voting "yes", and once the treaty has come into legal force the way will be open for Cameron to become Prime Minister and say "Oh dear, we vigorously opposed this treaty and we demanded a referendum on it; but it's too late now, it's already in force, so there's nothing we can do about it."

Diversity

May 20th, 2009 6:44pm Report this comment

I can see the Greens, the LibDems and probably the Tories buying this. But New Labour? Have they ever wanted vigorous, independent-minded constituency parties?

Orkadian

May 21st, 2009 6:39am Report this comment

Mandelson is a canny bugger, and he has hit on constitutional reform as Labour's ticket out of this mess.

The reform "agenda" is flavour of the month with the public at present.

Labour can use (Millbank wonks would say "leverage") this purported mandate to look busy knocking the stuffing out of any parliamentary institution it so wishes (aka 'toffbashing'), and all to Labour's long term advantage.

Labour still loses the next election? So be it. In the next year then can engineer a new system where such a result may not be the long term disaster for Labour it would be under the current one.

That, my friends, is the real game right now.

"Reconnecting with the public"? Meh. You're playing right into Mandy's hands.

Ian Walker

May 21st, 2009 7:25am Report this comment

Surely it would be better to put more effort into replacing the first-past=the-post system with something that means that people's votes count more, such as the STV.

That's the way to get people to pay attention to politics - giving them a louder voice at election times, not throwing them a morsel of taking part in "primaries".

John Lea

May 21st, 2009 11:10am Report this comment

As that old miseryguts Plato rightly said: 'democracy and wisdom are not synonymous'.

Ronnie

May 21st, 2009 3:11pm Report this comment

And what if we are not very interested in helping the existing political parties try to recover their credibility? Suppose we've had enough of them and their limited version of representative democracy?

TrevorsDen

May 22nd, 2009 2:29pm Report this comment

Tom Tom - are you saying you do not have a vote?

Every 5 years or so you have an opportunity to vote out the govt in power.

So do it. If you want to argue about the nature of the democracy afterwards then fine. but do not say you have no power.

Just complain about this
"Independent BBC??"

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamesduncan/3551122687/

hat tip to 'Dizzy Thinks'

TomTom

May 23rd, 2009 5:23am Report this comment

"Tom Tom - are you saying you do not have a vote?

Every 5 years or so you have an opportunity to vote out the govt in power."

Even Joe Stalin would have given me a vote. I do NOT have an opportunity to change anything since I do not pay directly for services rendered.

Tell me TrevorsDen that the 16% Labour Party Members who voted for Blair as Labour leader and 22.6% voters who voted for Labour in 2005 wanted the society and economy they have imposed ?

Tell me that every piece of legislation passed since 2005 was willed by the public ?

British society is not democratic it is oligarchic and Putin's Russia is the template

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