Proportional Representation and the BNP
Posted on March 23, 2009
Filed Under A Progressive Viewpoint | 1 Comment
Sadie Smith has a thing or two to say about Jon Cruddas’ call for proportional representation:
Firstly, there’s the brain-wangling contention that to thwart the BNP we should actually work on getting more of them elected:
“First-past-the-post actually increases support for marginal parties such as the BNP because it allows Labour to ignore them in constituencies where there’s no real opposition. Some form of Proportional Representation is now desperately needed.” (Sunny’s summary)
Then there’s all the stuff about people “not being heard” because their constituency is safely Labour, LibDem, or Tory. Now, there are plenty of decent arguments for reforming the electoral system (none of which, for the record, I agree with) but probably the worst is the one that seems to confuse politics with an X-Factor sing-off. Have Unlock Democracy got at Simon Cowell or something?
“Right, people are a bit bored with the format of this representative democracy lark because if somebody wins they don’t agree with, they might have to engage with the idea that this collectivism stuff isn’t all about them. So I propose we TOTALLY destablise the system by making it easier for racist loons to be elected and less easy for governments to attain majorities and get on with the business of governing and getting their manifesto commitments on the statute book. We’ll have nail-biting elections every year and the increase in scuffles between students and the BNP will look lovely on the lunchtime bulletins. Now where did I put Cheryl Cole’s number?”
Now, I agree that (a) proportional representation is not a solution to stopping the BNP; and (b) stopping the BNP is a damn silly reason to introduce proportional representation. However, the whole debate here is again misconstrued. Proportional representation is largely irrelevant to the current performance of the BNP because the BNP, unlike most other minor parties (notably UKIP and the Greens), has geographically concentrated support in certain areas (for reasons which ought to be obvious). First-past-the-post works in favour of the BNP in these areas but against them elsewhere. Cruddas hopes that by introducing PR the BNP threat (which electorally means a threat to the Labour Party primarily) can be contained, and in this he is right, especially with a system such as the Single Transferable Vote as used in Scottish local elections these days. But…
All this is basically gerrymandering. The question really is why the BNP is getting the support it is getting these days. I have already addressed this in a previous post - the key point is that in a democracy under whichever electoral system voters will tend to vote as effectively as they can, which is why we used to see massive anti-Tory tactical voting. When people are seriously disgruntled with the Labour Party, a big vote for the BNP in a Labour heartland constituency is a pretty effective way of sticking up two fingers at the Labour government.
What this means is that there is very little that the Labour Party or the government can do to reduce BNP support, other than to resign and then lose the subsequent election to the Tories. Then all of those disgruntled voters, who suddenly have a Conservative government to moan about, will rally behind Labour again.
Obviously we can’t rely on Gordon Brown to commit hari-kiri on national television just for the sake of reducing the number of BNP councillors by a handful. Which means that we might all just have to live with the fact that for the time being we may have a few useless BNP councillors around the place. There are, after all, plenty of other things to worry about.
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With proportional representation, you get what you vote for. If you don’t want the BNP to get elected, vote for somebody else.
A right-wing threat is no reason to cancel democracy.