Electoral reform

The real case for reform

Lord Beaumont of WhitleY

Most arguments about electoral reform tend to centre around the problem of the injustice t° minority parties on the one hand and the suggested drawbacks of so-called weal government on the other. That argument course has a central place but it is too often allowed to obscure some of the other advan" tages that proportional representation * would give. Firstly it would help to revive the political system in parts of the country where it is more or less dead. Where you get one-party govern; ment as in parts of the East End or the mini' valleys or parts of the opulent south, partY politics, which is the politics of ideas, disappears and what takes its place is unidealistic politics of personalities, of am'''. tion, of jockeying for position. This is at its besi uncreative and at its worst leads to the kind (Id corruption that we have recently seen expose in the industrial north and which there is everYe reason to believe exists in many parts of thA country. How can the politics of ideas all'e ideals flourish in a situation where onlY 0°3 party has any chance of ever returning ,1 member of Parliament? Proportio% representation would mean that there woulcl me Labour members in the rural south and In the following discussion proportional rePre,,, sentation means election by the single transferable vote in multi-member constituencies.

would be Conservative members in the industrial north. It would reawaken the interest of many citizens who cannot be bothered by the trivialisation which local one-party politics produces.

I have been able to see that for myself. When there has been a Liberal revival many people emerge to take part in local politics who otherwise would not have dreamed of doing so. They do so not just because they are Liberals

and now have someone to work with and for,•but also because there is now a chance of

starting an argument of ideas. Whatever people may say against party politics in local government, this is infinitely healthier than the present situation.

Secondly, the ordinary voter and the ordinary constituent can feel that he is better and more sympathetically represented than he is at the moment. I know that the enormous majority of members of Parliament do go to great lengths to see that their party-political and ideological prejudices do not in any way interfere with their duty to represent all of their constituents, but none the less it is quite Obvious that a long-haired youngster of left-wing views has considerable reservations about approaching his right-wing Conservative Member of Parliament on matters to do with say, Pop festivals or conscientious objection, While on the other hand businessmen may have equal qualms about approaching their left-wing socialist Member of Parliament on matters to do with rented accommodation. And yet under the law of the land each may have a good case which should be handled by the MP. . if we had the single transferable vote in multi-member constituencies there would almost always be an MP, representing the Person concerned whom he would find sym pathetic

Pathetic to his attitude. Indeed, so far from, as is

pathetic

Pathetic to his attitude. Indeed, so far from, as is usually supposed, the MP knowing fewer People in his constituency because it was far bigger, he would almost certainly know more because he would have a greater network of People supporting and sympathising with him.

Thirdly, there would probably be Members of Parliament of a higher calibre. At the moment safe seats for either of the big major parties tend to be dominated by extremists, and the moderates, who by definition are those who are Prepared to listen to other people's arguments and see both sides of a question, sit in marginal seats where they have a greater chance of being kicked out every five or seven years. A good MP would get second and third preferences from voters of other parties and the real dead wood Would soon be got rid of. Fourthly, the dangerous constitutional into of the introduction of a referendum a representative parliamentary system would be avoided. Proportional representation enables voters to distinguish between candidates of the same party with differing views on the Common Market (or any other issue) without splitting that party's vote. A free vote in a House of Commons elected in this way would therefore represent the general wishes of the country. , These are all important arguments but before i.proceed to the most important of all, I would like to deal with one or two of the objections commonly put forward. i.. We are told that proportional representation inS too Complicated to operate. This is nonsense c— a Country which regularly fills in its football _°uPons. It is also nonsense in a country. which .t,PPare. ntly revels in jokes about the stupidity of tarli:ie, Irish. The Irish have had very successful very stable governments under proportional representation for a long time and have twice ice refused to let greedy governments asholis. h. the system, in one case in a very e9Ph!sticated piece of cross-voting where the Ject.ion of de Valera as President of Ireland ,7ra_s m the same ballot as a proposal to abolish 11)°rtional representation, both put forward d'Yee.le government. The electorate voted ul,sivelY for the one and against the other. ■ ^, e are told that proportional representation leads to more political parties. There is really no evidence about this one way or the other. But what evidence there is seems to be that some countries have a predilection for many parties, such as Italy which has proportional representation and France which does not. Other countries such as Ireland or states like Tasmania which do not have this predilection do not have many parties even if they have proportional representation. Incidentally Britain now has six parties of reasonable impor tance!

We are told that proportional representation gives disproportionate influence to small parties. But which is more healthy, a system like ours which allows a party which has only 40 per cent of the votes to put through a programme of nationalisation of which according to opinion polls only 17 per cent of the population approve or a situation as in Germany where the Liberals are able to use the balance of power to control the influence of the extreme left wing of the majority socialist party? No influence is disproportionate which has as its result the greater adaptation of affairs to the will of the people.

We are told that coalitions mean weak government. But whatever its majority a government is weak which knows that it does not have the country behind it. The only strong government worth having is that which can unify the country.

And that brings me to what is the major advantage of proportional representation at the moment for this country. We are facing several crises, psychological and economic. To combat these crises we need a situation where people will accept the verdict and the leadership of the government, where people will not feel themselves alienated from society; we need a situation where people will accept the necessary reforms to bind our country together because they are seen to be just and to have the backing of everyone behind them. How can you have such a situation at the present time where the government is only supported by 40 per cent of the people and that government is itself controlled by a very small number of people whom those 40 per cent wanted. We now seem to have a state of what Ralf Dahrendorf has called systematic fascism: "A state in which the individual may be well off, may have a safe job" (though both these now seem less likely!) "is provided for by the State in case of need, has the right to move about, to read different newspapers and to vote for different parties, and yet is not free in the sense of having a realistic chance to influence the course of events." This is a situation of great frustration. It leads to bitterness.

'There is nothing in the present age," said a great man, "at once so galling and so alarming as the alienation of the people from their own public affairs. They have had so little to do with the game through all these years of Parliamentary reform that they have sullenly laid down

their cards and taken to looking on." Thus Charles Dickens in 1855 and it still applies

today. We must involve people in decisions at every level, and both at local and parliamentary level this involves a complete reform of the voting system. I said at the beginning that I would avoid the most usual argument, that of justice, but I cannot close without mentioning it because it

goes to the heart of the problem. 'What is morally wrong," said Gladstone, "cannot be

politically right." And Disraeli on the other side

of the fence said, "Justice is truth in action." So many of the problems that we are seeing at the

moment in our society could have been dealt with (as so often) by radical action attacking the roots of the system. In the last resort all you need to say is that this system is unjust and must be changed, and that should be enough for all honest men.

Lord Beaumont, formerly the Revd Timothy Beaumont, has long been active in the Liberal Party.