A national government for Britain in 2015?

Every time the political situation in Britain is not straightforward, there are voices saying that there will be a return to national government, last seen 1931-45.

Of course anything in the future can happen, but it seems highly likely that following the 2015 General Election in May this year either the Tories or Labour will emerge as the single largest party in Parliament with the other in second position. By British convention the party with the largest number of seats will be invited to form a government, and if not successful the remit will fall to second party. It is highly improbable that neither Cameron nor Miliband would be unable to form a government which would not immediately fall in a parliamentary vote of no confidence. UKIP and the Northern Ireland Unionists would lean towards the Tories, while the SNP (likely to emerge as a major player in 2015) along with Plaid Cymru and the Greens (if they win seats) would favour Labour. The Liberal Democrats would get into bed with anyone, and it is unlikely after an electoral beating in May 2015 they would want a second general election.

In any event, a coalition only between the Tories and Labour would be, to borrow German terminology, a “grand coalition,” not a national government. Such a government, if only because it was so unexpected and would deny the voters any say in the direction of the country, would be unpopular and would soon haemorrhage support to the left (mainly the Greens, but also the SNP in Scotland) and to the right (UKIP). Recent opinion polls put support for a Tory/Lab coalition as the preferred outcome of a hung parliament at a mere 9 percent. Anticipating low levels of public support and votes falling away, a grand coalition would be the last choice for both Cameron and Miliband, or their successors.

A “national government” is not impossible, but it is highly unlikely.

The Perversions of Eastleigh

The Eastleigh by-election shows that the British electoral system is becoming increasingly perverse.

The Liberal Democrats retained their seat in the Eastleigh by-election on 28 February 2013 because their diminishing electoral base still received tactical votes from the Left and because the protest and xenophobic rightwing vote (i.e. UKIP) was still slightly less.

The result was:

Liberal Democrat    13,342     32.06%   (-14.44%)
UKIP                       11,571     27.80%   (+24.00%)
Conservative            10,559    25.37%    (-13.93%)
Labour                      4,088       9.82%    (+0.22%)

Interestingly, had AV been in operation, as the Lib Dems wanted, then the Liberals would have picked up most of the transferred Labour vote, and UKIP most of the much higher Tory vote, handing the seat to UKIP.

I know this is a by-election, but the general point should still be made. Britain now has a complex multi-party system and the single seat constituencies, with no proportional top-ups, increasingly leads to perverse results.

2010 British General Election (after)

I thought I would just make a couple of remarks about the 2010 election.

On the eve of the election I outlined three possible outcomes: Conservative majority rule, Tory minority government (leading to a second election later in the year) and a Lib/Lab pact. I was right about one thing and wrong about another.

I was right in thinking that the authoritarians in New Labour (Straw, Blunket, Reid, Burnham, etc) would reject any alliance with liberalism preferring instead a Tory government. Labour would not offer the one thing that would ensure Liberal Democrat support and something that progressive should support anyway, namely proportional representation.

Much is made after the event of the fact that a Lib/Lab coalition would have been a minority government requiring 7 votes for a majority from the 13 nationalists, Green and SDLP to pass legislation. While that is true, accepting the challenge would have been better than the only other option, letting the Conservatives into office.

I was wrong in thinking that the Conservatives would prefer minority government to a formal coalition with the Liberal Democrats. Yet Cameron had clearly read the writing on the wall: the start of every period of Tory or Tory-dominated government since 1931 has enjoyed a lower share of the vote than the previous period. Cameron was not sure that a second election would give him the majority he needed.

Britain now has a fully bourgeois government. New Labour certainly abandoned social democracy and threw in its lot with capitalist power; yet always it was impeded by the fact that its core vote (and now its only vote) came from less well-off ordinary working people. No such impediment restrains the current government. Britain’s economic problems can be solved at the expense of its ordinary working people.

And something else. Since the 1980s the Liberal Democrats positioned themselves as part of the progressive majority in Britain and as an anti-Tory party. All those Liberal Democrat voters and activists who see themselves in that light have no future in the Tory-led coalition and will tend to drift away. The Liberal Democrats will become what they in fact are: the Tories junior partner.

It seems that the revolution against the forward march of labour that began in 1979 will have at least three parts: High Thatcherism (1979-97), New Labour (1997-2010) and now the Tory-Liberal coalition. Not optimistic stuff, I’m afraid.

British General Election 2010 (before the vote)

Writing in Guardian on 2 May 2010, the liberal commentator, Will Hutton, outlined the nightmare scenario of untrammelled Conservative Party power in Britain:

[Cameron will] refine the first-past-the-post voting system, reduce the number of constituencies by 10% but in so doing redraw their boundaries to be fairer to the Tories and disqualify Scottish and Welsh MPs from voting on English issues.

The state will become a Conservative fiefdom, with even local police forces directly run by Tory politicians in the name of "democratic accountability". The City of London will not be reformed. Wealth will become ever more concentrated in fewer hands. Scotland, Wales and many English regions will be devastated by swingeing public spending cuts – almost their sole economic prop for the last decade – and by ongoing de-industrialisation.

The management of an economy burdened by excessive private debt, fragile banks and a faltering economic recovery will be ideological. The prison population will grow even faster than under Labour as populist social repression intensifies.

[…] Britain will become a meaner, less generous and more unequal society despite David Cameron's declared intentions. This will be Murdoch's Britain, with the BBC to be cut back and Sky's influence extended.

I view Hutton’s scenario as realistic.

Resulting from the 6 May 2010 British General Election three outcomes are possible on the seemingly certain assumption that the Conservatives will win the most seats.

First, Cameron will achieve an overall majority, however small, and will start to implement the programme which Hutton describes above.

Second, Cameron falls short of his overall majority, but manages to form a minority administration (or less likely woos the Liberal Democrats into a coalition). In government he soft peddles and then dissolves parliament and calls a second election which would probably give him his overall majority – and the nightmare scenario starts.

Third, a non-Tory government, which by necessity would involve a coalition of Labour and the Liberal Democrats, can be formed; the key task of such a government would be to bring about proportional representation and fixed-term parliaments. This government would hardly do anything to challenge the vast levels of social inequality in Britain, but it would at least stop the Tories, as the single largest party in terms of the popular vote and seats in parliament, from being able to link up with capitalist power and complete Thatcher’s unfinished business.

My wish, of course, is for this third option; but I fear that Labour's hope of retaining its eternal role of one of the 'big two' at least for now in terms of seats if not in votes and Clegg's fear of splitting his own party by cuddling up to Labour would stymie such a government.

I am not optimistic.

A Hung Parliament

A hung parliament is many people's choice by elimination: they don't want to see New Labour re-elected, nor do they want the Tories in with an overall majority. A hung parliament would indeed be good for cutting back on executive dominance of the legislature - and would probably be more progressive on matters such as civil liberties.

If the Liberal Democrats refuse to form a coalition government (as they did with the Tories Feb 1974 or with the SNP in 2007) that leaves minority government as the only option. One problem with minority administrations (or near-minority ones) is that the Prime Minister has the power to dissolve Parliament and ask the electorate for a working majority (Atlee 1951, Wilson February 1974).

Only proportional representation and fixed term parliaments could really change the existing system.

The Glasgow North-East By-Election

Glasgow North-East is a heavily working-class seat, and the sad thing is that the working class have nothing better than New Labour. Today is not a time for protest voting but for participating in a dry run for the 2010 General Election.
What other options are there for working people?

The SNP is fundamentally a bourgeois party whose purpose is independence at any price for Scotland. Independence may be a good thing, but of itself it does not put bread on the table.

The left, who might be expected to do well, have self-marginalised themselves into three parties: Solidarity, The Scottish Socialist Party, the Socialist Labour Party. Indeed such is the factionalism and incompetence of the would-be left that they were outpolled by the fascist BNP.

Brown and New Labour deserve a good slap, but that can't be the first priority for working people.

2010 Tweedle Dum replacing Tweedle Dee

The Tory assumption of office in 2010 will be the replacement of Tweedle Dee by Tweedle Dum. Sure each party has its entourage of yes-people; New Labour cosmopolitan yuppies will be replaced by the offspring of landed families supplemented by a few Tebbit-like second hand car dealers.

Yet on the key issues of upholding the undemocratic authoritarian state, maintaining the vast levels of social inequality that characterise Britain and backing US-style capitalism, both the Tories and New Labour are one.

Movements in the German elections

Overall looking at the German election three things happened compared with 2005.

One: on the right (CDU, CSU and FDP), the balance shifted from the Christian parties to the Free Democrats.

Two: on the left the vote shifted from the SPD to the Greens and more significantly to the Left Party.

Three: with a tiny swing, the right block (who are prepared to form a coalition with each other), secured a majority over the left who “won” the election in 2005 (but who were not prepared to form a coalition with one another).

Polarisation within the blocks (the left for social reform and to the right for market fundamentalism) is more pronounced than the swing from the left to the right block.

The success of the Left Party in Germany

What this article attempts to sideline is the amazing breakthrough of the Left Party as an all-German Party with over 12% of the vote.

The Schroeder government 1998-2005 pushed through policies similar to those of New Labour, and when the right-wing parties (CDU, CSU and FDP) failed to win a majority in the Bundestag, his Social Democrats – instead of building a coalition with the Left - went into government with Merkel. Progressive and socialist votes haemorrhaged to the Left Party.

The real tragedy is that Britain has no equivalent of the Left Party.

Primaries for British elections

Party primaries, such as the one held recently by the Tories in Totnes, are a sham.

The candidate is elected from a closed list drawn up by the party leadership either locally or increasing nationally; these sorts of closed-list elections resemble those formally held in Eastern European. Such primaries give the appearance of choice to local electors, but the actual amount of real choice, if any, in terms of candidates’ policies is determined by the party leadership which drew up the list.

Moreover once the candidate is elected he or she is then bound by a centrally determined manifesto, and, if elected, is subject to the party whip in parliament.

Primaries also finally render local party activists utterly powerless. Joining a party will give them no say in candidate selection at all, so there is little incentive to become active in local politics. The main beneficiaries of primaries are not the local electors, nor the rank and file party members, but top brass of the party itself.

It is precisely these anti-democratic features which make primaries attractive to New Labour politicians such as David Miliband. At a stroke they see how they can rid themselves of any residual trade union and local activist pressure.

Proportional representation (under any of the PR systems) plus the devolution of power to local councils would actually increase the amount of democracy. Yet both Cameron and Miliband run a mile from such proposals.

Labour loses Norwich North By_Election

Yet again the cane bites deep into Gordon Brown. Yet it is saddening to see the Conservatives as the beneficiaries because everything which is rotten in New Labour is as bad or worse in the Tories.

British Party Politics

This short piece is a snapshot of the political situation following the municipal and Celtic assembly elections in May 2007. In some ways it has proved prophetic, but in other ways not.

The assumption of office of the minority SNP administration in Scotland and the likely rainbow coalition in Wales of Plaid, Tories and the Liberal Democrats (very damaging for Plaid in my view) creates a strange set up across Britain: Labour out of office in Edinburgh and Cardiff, but still holding the fort in London.

Labour’s position is contradictory and precarious. In the local election in May its vote fell to 27 percent (less than for Foot in the 1983 general election). New Labour for all its centre right polices was driven back to its urban heartlands north of the Severn Walsh line. Middle England for whom New Labour was designed wasn’t voting for it. In the so-called ‘sink estates’ whose interests Labour has abandoned, it wasn’t socialists who were chipping away at Labour, but the fascist BNP.

Cameron, now dressing up Toryism as an up-market version of Blairism, did well in the south and rural England, but made no headway in the English cities or in the Celtic countries. He may win in 2010 but only with difficulty. The fragmentation and ghetoisation of British party politics, which has accelerated since the 1980s (masked by Labour landslides in 1997 and 2003,) is very much evident, all of which makes the outcome of Westminster first-past-the-post elections somewhat arbitrary. But with the Liberal Democrats moving rightwards and jettisoning affinity with Labour, and with Celtic nationalism strengthening, the long term prospects for Gordon Brown’s Party geared towards the interests of people who don’t vote for it appears more and more precarious.

N. B. The rainbow coalition in Wales did not happen.