Decreasing polls and approval ratings, a general view of doom and gloom, being blamed for everything – sound familiar? Well, if you are in the Labour party and you are currently active, you probably know what I am talking about. So what do we do to turn this around? A lot of people have written about what they think the party should do and I would like to put my two pennyworth in.
Change – whether we like it or not, people up and down the country are crying out for change. We find this difficult to resolve. We have always challenged the establishment and now we are it. The rhetoric we give starts off with ‘under the previous Conservative government…’ and then we contrast today with how bad things were. Fine, but we need to move on. I was 15 in 1997 and the country and the world has moved on. People do not remember the last Conservative government and they do not want to. For example, we have a lot of first time voters who only really know a Labour government. Anything wrong in the country will be blamed on us and our actions or perceived inactions. As there is a downturn in the economy, we get the blame.
Despite having made some mistakes recently, I do not think this is a rejection of the Labour party, what it stands for and what it is doing. In our political system, this inevitable swing from Labour to the Tories has become an expression of a rejection of political orthodoxy. We received the same anti-establishment support in the mid-90s. In time it will come back to us again.
However, I have a major problem with the way political parties campaign. If there is a local election you go after the middle ground, talking about middle-class issues rather than bread and butter values. As all the parties scurry for the centre ground the people have a difficulty in distinguishing between us and this leads to apathy.
In a general election the aim is to get your vote out, so normally you will be preaching to the converted, and this leads to apathy among others. In both instances we have a lack of resources and money. Therefore if we knock on a door and we get an ‘I am not voting this time’ response we will never speak to those individuals again. I am sure this is the same for all political parties. Therefore in subsequent elections turnout decreases, the majority of people did not vote for you, you have a lack of mandate, the press point out how unpopular you are so you are constantly looking over your shoulder. You end up running to stand still. You end up thinking your job is to maintain your majority and position rather than to help people. This then turns more people off politics, so they do not vote and the cycle starts again.
To summarise, people want change, we are seen as the establishment, we are disadvantaged by a ‘natural swing’ against us, apathy is growing, this is breading antagonism between the people and politicians and we do not have the time or money to stop this.
So what do we do? We need to be the change people want. We need to change the language that we use, the way we communicate with the people and what we are communicating to the people. Show tangible differences. Overhaul our entire political system from top to bottom. Ensure that our political systems and politicians reflect the people and their behaviour, habits, worries, needs and desires. We cannot expect them to fall into line with what the political class wants. Show that we are changing the country and that we are changing.
Restore the link between people and politicians. Spend some time a year dedicated to non-political community work. Show the public we are human beings before political orthodox robots. Have a directly elected Houses of Lords. Reform the way parliament works. End its archaic nuances and ensure that debates are in a language the public can understand. Introduce people’s bills so that parliament has time to discuss people-led prevalent issues. Overhaul the relationship between the devolved regions of the UK. We could even consider moving parliament, perhaps to somewhere in the centre of the UK, maybe York? We should change our voting system. Let people electronically vote, vote in supermarkets, by text message – make it as easy as possible to vote. This could be the beginning of a new contract between the political class and the people.
Just as the politicians will be making changes, so should the public. The public should accept that there should be state funding of political parties. Democracy costs money. Let’s remove the financial influence of big business and the unions and reintroduce a meritocracy to our democracy. Why should people be able to buy political parties and why should candidates be able to buy constituencies? The BNP will have to be looked at, but in a democracy you do have elements you do not like. Furthermore, as the political class will have given the people more of a reason to vote, we should expect compulsory voting. People can spoil their ballots if they want to. Politicians will then have a mandate.
These are just ideas but they would bring about change, we would be seen as the change, it would counteract a “natural swing” against us, decrease apathy, and the growing antagonism between the people and politicians and give us the time and money to speak to all our people.