Looking forward to the UK General Election, the options for our next national government seem somewhat limited.  The Labour party has shown itself unable to form an effective opposition, so it is hard to see how it can possibly be expected to form a government.  Whilst much of the media places the blame squarely on Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, I think the problems are symptomatic of a real struggle for identity in the party as a whole.  The “democratisation” of the leadership selection process has resulted in a schism between the parliamentary party and the party membership.  The result is a principled leader who has too few allies in parliament to form an effective opposition.  Looking to the Liberal Democrats, even they have turned their back on the most liberal thing to happen in UK politics for years:  the Coalition.  (If this statement has raised an eyebrow or two, don’t worry:  I’ll come back to it later.)  Tim Farron has declared that they will not form a coalition with either the Labour party or the Conservative party after the election.  With the Labour party unable to form a government and the Liberal Democrats unwilling to form a government, there would appear to be only one option.  To be faced with a general election where there is only one viable option for the next government is a rather sobering situation that feels distinctly undemocratic.  It is however, bound to happen when politics is dominated by two large political parties.  Any party is bound to need time out every now and then to find itself.

In order to limit the size of a likely Conservative victory, opponents of the party are variously proposing tactical voting or, more formally, a progressive alliance, whereby opposition parties agree not to field candidates or not to campaign in order to boost the chances of the candidate most likely to beat the Conservative candidate.  There are, I believe, two main reasons to be wary of such an alliance, although as an occasional tactic where the battle in a particular consistency becomes a single issue vote (e.g. Martin Bell vs Neil Hamilton or Louise Irvine vs Jeremy Hunt), it has some merit.  Firstly, it further diminishes the already limited options available to voters (another thing that I’ll return to later on).  Our politics has been, for some time, pretty polarised with two dominant parties.  It is not yet in as bad a situation as the USA, where even judges are labelled by which one of two political parties they support, but a widespread progressive alliance would push us further down that road.  The politics of the USA is not a destination that I want to pursue.  We will end up being a country irrevocably divided into left and right.  We need more options, not fewer.

The second (and more immediate) reason to be wary of a progressive alliance is that it might actually achieve its purpose and return a Conservative government with a small majority, much like we have had since 2015.  Why would this be a bad thing?  We need to pause and think about why Theresa May actually called this election now.  First, let’s get out of the way all those denials about having an early election, which she has made since taking office.  “Are you planning an early election?” is question to which the only responses that can be made these days are “Yes, now!” and “No, never!”  A truthful response of “I have no plans at the moment for an early election,” would only lead to endless media speculation about when and if one might happen.  Not for the first time, truth has been sacrificed at the altar of the 24 hour news cycle and our demands for certainty about the future.  (Similarly, much as I regret his decision, Tim Farron was caught between a rock and hard place with the question of whether the Liberal Democrats would form a coalition after the forthcoming election.)

In announcing her desire for an early election, Theresa May spoke about divisions at Westminster hampering Brexit negotiations and the need for an election to provide unity.  She blamed the opposition parties for the divisions.  However, with Theresa May I think you often need to look a bit deeper.  We need to look at what happened only a month or so earlier over the proposed budget increases in VAT.  The humiliating climb-down was not forced on the government by the opposition parties, but by the opposition within the Conservative party, predominantly from the right wing.  When a governing party has a small majority, real opposition comes from within the party because small numbers of “rebels” can bring about defeat for the government.  These “rebels” often come from the more extreme wings of the parties.  Although I don’t agree with all her policies, I think that Theresa May is a reasonably pragmatic politician.  Despite all the current hot air and posturing on Brexit, she will know that compromises will have to be made:  compromises that the right wing of her party will not like.  With a slim majority, it is right wing Conservative rebels who could hamper Brexit negotiations or, perhaps more likely, play havoc with domestic legislation as revenge for not getting everything their own way over Brexit.  I think that this is the opposition that Theresa May really wants to crush.  A progressive alliance could hand power right back to them.

These days, I hear lots of talk about Liberal Democracy:  how lucky we are to live in a Liberal Democracy; how we must defend our Liberal Democracy from the forces of nationalism and populism; how we must help nurture the values of Liberal Democracy in other parts of the world etc.  The thing is, I don’t think we have a Liberal Democracy.  I think we have an Authoritarian Democracy.  If that sounds like a contradiction in terms, then it should:  our system is full of contradictions.  I looked at one of these above:  to avoid handing power to the right wing of the Conservative party we need a large Conservative majority.  Another one I’ll return to below:  do we vote for a party or a person?  We do, of course, live in a democracy, because we get to vote for our local and national governments.  Some of us get to vote for a regional government or a regional mayor.  We even get to vote for our police and crime commissioner.  We were given a choice about joining the EEC (even if slightly after the event).  We were given a choice about leaving the EU.  However, looking at the national governments that our democratic choice produces, they are generally majority governments formed either by the Labour party or the Conservative party.  They, and the people who vote for them (in the post-war period, never more than 50%), take it in turns to impose their views on the whole country.  That is not liberal.  It is authoritarian.

Under our electoral system, of course, we do not vote directly for the government that we want.  Despite the way in which Theresa May is presenting herself, it is not a presidential system, which is why I do not think that televised debates between the party leaders are appropriate.  We have a representative democracy:  we vote for a person who will represent our constituency in the national parliament.  It is a beautifully simple idea.  Unfortunately, the existence of strong political parties, manifestos and over-zealous parliamentary whipping has combined to sap the democratic choice from our electoral system.  People suggest electoral reform as the answer.  I agree that this would help (because it would result in the Labour and Conservative parties splitting up which would contribute to giving us a wider choice of smaller political parties that would form coalition governments) but really it is treating the symptom rather than the cause.  I would much prefer to see political parties banned, or their powers severely limited by some means.

Imagine, for a moment, that there were no political parties.  At election time, we would really be forced to think about which candidate to vote for, rather than simply choosing the candidate of our preferred party.  We would have to engage with them in order to decide who best reflects our views and who has the skills to represent our constituency in the national parliament.  We would have to decide whose conscience we trust to guide the country through the next five years.  The candidates would also have to fully engage with us in order to get our votes.  Once elected, the MPs would have to find a way to choose a Prime Minister from amongst their number.  That Prime Minister could then form a government from the whole parliament, choosing the best qualified people without being limited to around half of the MPs.  The government could then represent the broad range of opinions of the country as a whole.  Such a parliament would undoubtedly produce fewer pieces of legislation, but that would be no bad thing.  Since any piece of legislation would require 50% support with no whipping, it would result in higher quality longer lasting legislation that benefitted the many, not the few.  Avoiding the periodic lurches from left to right and back again would provide more stability and make us all stronger.  That would be a truly Liberal Democracy.

Once political parties get in on the act, the first thing that happens is that the field of potential candidates in any constituency is immediately restricted to those people who feel able to sign up to one of the major political parties and are able to convince the members of the relevant local party to support them.  Political parties have taken away from the people the power to influence who stands for election as an MP.  Secondly, committees within the political parties draw up manifestos, which the candidates are expected to adopt.  Political parties have taken away from their candidates the power to fully express their own views.  The manifestos also play a major part in the problem of politicians making promises, which they can’t guarantee to be able to keep, in order to give voters the illusion of certainty that they crave.  Political parties have taken away from us the power to see the future for what it truly is:  uncertain.  Manifestos can also limit governments to acting within boundaries the committee set down several years earlier, removing from governments the power to react to events as they happen and to situations as they are at the time.  Finally, once elected, parties (both in government and opposition) require their MPs to vote with the party whip.  Except on the rare occasions, political parties have taken away from their MPs the power to vote with their own conscience.  This all means that political parties have turned our representatives in the nation’s parliament into their representatives in our constituencies.

This may all seem deeply negative and cynical, but it is not intended that way.  It is the truth I see about our system of government.  I believe that the majority of our MPs enter politics because they genuinely want to make life better for everyone in this country.  I believe that many of them enter politics with very liberal intentions.  I believe that much that happens behind the scenes in parliament, for example the cross-party committees which do so much work, is really very liberal.  I have heard so many new party leaders and new Prime Ministers promising a new kind of politics and promising to work more constructively.  The system works against all that.  It is unfortunate that the bits of parliament that we see are deeply illiberal.  The layout of the House of Commons presents politics as a two sided conflict, where those on one side of the house cannot risk admitting that those on the other side might have a point, something which also poisons political debate on the streets and on the internet.  That is why I see the 2010-2015 coalition government as the most liberal thing to have happened in years.  Two parties shared power and made it work.  They had to compromise.  In a small way, they had to live out the reality that the population is made up of many different people with many different opinions.  That the country reacted so badly to the compromises tells me that we have got a long way to go to become a truly liberal people.  However, looking around the world we’re not doing so badly.  I just think that it is time to have the courage and take the next step along the liberal road towards respecting and even accepting the opinions of others.  That way we can all move closer to the truth.