As you have almost
certainly read too many laments about having seven Prime Ministers in
(just over) ten years, and too many ‘10 years after Brexit’
pieces too, I’m not going to do either here. Yes, the two things
are connected of course, but as Chris
Dillow says, seeing Brexit alone as the underlying
problem ignores the fact that, after months of extensive debate, a
majority of people voted for it. We need to fix the problems that led
to the Brexit vote, as well as trying to undo the consequences of
that vote.
You have also
probably read plenty of pieces speculating about what Andy Burnham
will do as Prime Minister, or what he should do. But here also it is
important to see the political context. Burnham has at most three
years before the next election, and so his overriding priority will
undoubtedly be to do things that enhance his government’s
popularity. In a political system that works that would be the same
as enacting good policies, but we are still in the same system that
allowed Brexit to happen. As a result, popular policies and good
policies are very different things. (For example, a year ago a majority of people supported keeping the two child limit on welfare benefits.)
It is true that
Starmer’s Labour in government was far too focused on how policies
played in the short term. But this was a mistake for two reasons.
First, when his government came into power, it did have the chance to
undertake major reforms that would have future benefits even if they
were immediately unpopular. It did very little of that (and that little often came from ministers that No.10 briefed
against), and instead lost popularity by enacting more minor policies
that were very unpopular, like ending the Winter Fuel Allowance. Second, Starmer’s government was inept at
boosting its poll ratings. By affirming the right’s socially
conservative agenda they increased the Reform vote and alienated
their core support.
Given the failures
of his predecessor, Burnham doesn’t have the luxury of championing
major policies that are unpopular in the short term. For example, I
argued strongly in this blog that taxes on working people needed to
rise, and that the benefits of this in terms of better public
services would within five years outweigh any short term
unpopularity. But today that trade-off looks much less favourable.
The set of popular
policies that are also good for the country is not empty, but once we
take into account the ability of certain groups to make a lot of
noise then that set is pretty small. However what Burnham can do is
set in place three key processes which can begin to improve the UK’s
political system. It may take a second term for the benefits of these
measures to be felt, or even be enacted, but they need to be started
now for this to happen. These are all things Burnham has supported in
the past, so he has a strong motive to put them in place.
-
Changing FPTP
Many have noted that
the First Past the Post system of electing a government is a recipe
for chronic instability in a multi-party system. Of course FPTP was
meant to stop a multi-party system coming about, but it failed to do
that for one simple reason: the rise of right wing populism. Right
wing populism just doesn’t split the political right, but it also
fragments the centre and left. As the Conservatives go for ever more
socially conservative policies to compete with Reform, more liberal but economically right wing voters choose the Liberal Democrats. As Labour attempts
not to offend left leaning socially conservative voters, they are in danger of alienating their core socially liberal vote that can then move to the Green
party.
I
argue here that the rise of right wing populism is a
consequence of a change in what the political elite considers
acceptable, rather than a drift in voters’ attitudes. It will take
decades rather than years to replace the political and social norms
against racist and dehumanising rhetoric and policy, and that cannot happen with the
Conservative party under its current leadership. That in turn means
that there will always be a political party promoting far right
social policies with a core vote of over 20%, and with the
possibility of that vote going high enough to win a general election under
FPTP. This is an intolerable outcome for two reasons. First, the
majority of voters do not support far right social policies. Second,
right wing populists in power tend to dismantle key parts of a
pluralist democracy, and in extremis can end democracy itself.
Unless you support
right wing populism, this is in my view an utterly compelling reason
to get rid of FPTP. Having FPTP is like having a Brexit referendum
every five years where you need only around 30% rather than 50% to
choose major policies that will harm almost everyone in the country.
The Starmer government was prepared to keep FPTP because they were
happy to play high stakes poker to avoid making compromises with
others. Hopefully Labour under Burnham will be a little more
sensible. But another lesson of Brexit is what a disaster ending
something without a clear idea of what replaces it can be. Burnham
can start the process of ending FPTP by setting up some kind of
Commission to establish the best replacement for it.
-
Restoring
Leveson Two and Ofcom
The right wing press
in this country increasingly owes its power not to the size of its
direct readership, but the influence it has on the
broadcast media and the political elite. Brexit would not have
happened without the right wing press. In addition we now have the
problem of billionaires doing to social media what wealthy newpaper owner so: distorting the information it provides to boost their own
political agenda and to generate misinformation. This is an environment
in which evidence based policy has little chance.
Two things need to
happen for this influence to diminish. First, the right wing press
needs to be held publicly accountable. The original Levenson
inquiry did that very effectively, and that was
precisely why that press lobbied so hard to prevent the planned
follow-up happening. That Starmer decided to shelve Leveson Two inreturn for extremely small change was a clear indication of the
mindset that would eventually bring him down. We can only hope that
Burnham doesn’t allow his own preferences…
Source link
