On Electoral Reform

The recent news about a potential referendum on electoral reform has created a lot of excitement for some. Despite the fact that I can see a case for the reform of the electoral system, I can't get too excited about this referendum. Firstly, all electoral systems have flaws, and you're not going to get true representation under any system. As far as I can see, we'd be replacing one flawed system with another, equally flawed, system.

And there's another reason why I don't think it is worth getting too excited about the concept of electoral reform - it isn't going to happen. I think the referendum will go ahead - it is too important for the Liberal Democrats and therefore for the coalition to be abandoned in the Commons. But at that referendum, only the Liberal Democrats will be campaigning for electoral reform. The Labour party will have overcome their brief flirtation with electoral reform that they experienced after the election, and will use the chance to fight against electoral reform during the referendum campaign as an opportunity to punish the Liberal Democrats for not joining them in a so-called "progressive coalition". The Tories aren't going to campaign for electoral reform either; the current system served them very well prior to 1992, and (the way things are going) will give them a workable majority at the next election. The electoral machines of the two main parties in this country will almost certainly campaign against electoral reform which means, with the best will in the world, that it ain't going to happen.

However, let's not get too carried away with the notion that the Liberal Democrats are seeking electoral reform because, unlike the two main parties, they are concerned with issues of representation. The reason why the Liberal Democrats want a new voting system is because it will benefit them. They are the victims of this current situation, and they - perhaps understandably - want to change that. However, this has nothing to do with democracy; instead it is down to self-interest.

And that's the biggest problem I have with electoral reform - it isn't going to change the way politics in this country works. It is smokes and mirrors - creating debate about a potential change that will, in reality, change very little. The problem with our democracy is that it is now dominated by three parties which, on so many areas, operate in open agreement on political fundamentals. And their party machines choose candidates - they take them, remove independence and thought from those candidates - and turn them into blind automatons to fight elections without using ideology or controversy. Then they can enter the Commons, where they become lobby fodder. In the unlikely event that they reach a position of real political power, they will be so used to conformity and so fearful of taking a controversial position that they will be just as bland as every post-Thatcher PM has been. The problem isn't with the electoral system; it is down to the fact that our "democracy" has become a self-perpetuating oligarchy dominated by bland party machines lost in a general ideological consensus.

Sure, yeah, let's have a referendum on electoral reform. Let's change the electoral system. But until we are actually willing to use that electoral system to reject the bland mainstream parties and consider more radical alternatives, nothing will really change in British politics.