Today might mark the end of something significant. Of course, predicting historic events as they happen is hard. But I will speculate nonetheless. What I think is happening is the end of three things.
The first is the UK two party system.
The second is the present rigid House of Commons voting system.
And the third is the end of party political discipline, come what may.
Add the three together and I think that today's so-called indicative votes in the Commons are more significant than just deciding what Brexit option we might proceed with, however important that might be.
Let me unpack this. I could spend my time this morning endlessly speculating on which of the many Brexit options might attract support tonight. But I do not know. And as yet, nor does anyone else. Nor do we know how this matter might progress next Monday, when the Commons supposedly takes control of the parliamentary process again. In that case I will leave that speculation to others. I have already made my wishes clear.
Instead I think it at least as interesting to note the systemic consequences of what is happening. Bill Cash and Theresa May are united in thinking that the Commons deciding for itself is dangerous. They side with Charles the first on this issue: they clearly believe, as he did, that the Executive, once in office, must have a divine right to rule without question being asked. I suggest they are wrong.
I accept, of course, that if we were ever to see again government with the sort of majority Tony Blair enjoyed in 1997 then the chance of a challenge to the Executive from the Commons would be very low indeed. Absolute rule by a prime minister - so that they could take us into an illegal war, for example - would remain a possibility in that case. But I do not expect to see such power afforded to any political party in the UK for a very long time to come. And that is because the two party system is broken.
The idea that there is a Tory party anymore is ludicrous:the ability to keep factions so opposed to each other operating under one label will very soon cease to be possible. The ERG has seen to that.
Labour is little better placed. Much as I like Jeremy Corbyn as a man (and I do) I do not trust the dangerous fantasists who surround him who will not engage with the reality of the economy that we live in. The UK is, and will continue to be a mixed economy, whatever they might think or desire. So to not consider how a mixed economy might work in the interests of all whilst they wish instead that private ownership of the means of production can be done away with, is a dangerous negation of their duty to all who depend on left wing government to protect their interests in the real world we actually live in. And people sense that, even if they might not articulate it that way.
This does not imply there is some mushy middle ground. There is not. The left of the Tories, the TIG and the Orange Book LibDems all occupy a neoliberal space that has been discredited by the failure of the policies to which they ascribe. And they fail to embrace any realistic approach to climate change. They cannot and will not be the heirs of the failure of left and right. Which does not mean, as yet, that it is clear who will emerge to take power. What, instead, is I think likely is that what has happened will encourage multiple new alliances, and in turn parties. And I happen to think that this will be good for politics.
Tonight's option before the Commons of multiple option voting to determine the basis for compromise is the forerunner for this, and the precedent from which there can then be no reversal. The two party system assumed wisdom was to be found in the mind of a single, or no more than two at a time, leaders. The loss of party control over tonight's votes is clear evidence that the Commons no longer thinks that. For better or worse, the Commons is now beginning to think for itself. I believe that better: time alone will tell. But I think it irreversible.
And the change in logic is what makes a change in politics possible. Indeed, it is what makes it inevitable. This is how coalitions are made. And how they also fall.
And this too should be how bad Executives are held to account.
But that requires a fluidity on voting that the Commons does not know as yet, but which I think will also come.
Which in turn will break the power of the Whips.
And which will, I think, lead to better government. I should add, eventually.
The indicative votes today are important. But, I think, they are more important by far than what they might decide (or not) in themselves. We may just be building a new democracy. Its arrival is well overdue.
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If you go into many Council Chambers, for at least the last 20 years, they have a buttons where they sit that they use to vote on the issues at hand. It is so archaic to see how parliament still has an unrepresentative system which gives total power to the elected government but does not take into account a wide range of views and opinion.
Brexit has given us a clear and transparent viewing into how our actually system works. I think we have an opportunity to change this, politicians should demand it, our failing democracy certainly needs it to happen.
You have a way laying out what I think.
I feel cautiously optimistic something might emerge, not just in terms of Brexit but a better way of doing things.
I hope so….
“I accept, of course, that if we were ever to see again government with the sort of majority Tony Blair enjoyed in 1997…..”
You lay bare so clearly the many defects of the adversarial approach to parliamentary ‘democracy’ taken in Westminster. It is quite an anachronism, having been replaced in Nordic regions about 1200 years ago by some of our forebears by the consensual means of the Things. It really is time we caught up!
Also, what is the place, today, of the group called “whips” in any civilised gathering of people? Was there ever a possibility that they might be called “goads”? Probably, no, since Members who did not object to being directed in the manner of noble horses might have railed at the thought of being driven as lowly cattle. What’s in a word, eh?
“……the sort of majority Tony Blair enjoyed in 1997….”
Exactly the sort of nonsense FPTP delivers. Blair, like Thatcher before him, (and others many in the past) have enjoyed unassailable majorities of seats in the house on a third or less of the votes cast.
It’s been said more than once in the virtual pages of this blog that the only hope of anything good coming from the Brexit fiasco is that it just might change (for ever) the way we organise UK governance and the way we ‘do’ politics.
Fingers crossed. It seems to be ‘a happening thing’. And not before time.
Let’s hope you’re right Richard, especially in regard to points 1 and 2. Then end of the FPTP voting system that just gives us Buggins turn between Tory and Labour is long overdue. PR is oen of the first requirements for progressive politics to actually get going in Britain; Labour’s failure to implement it from 1997 to 2010, and refusal to countenance it now is frankly pathetic. I’ve been disenfranchised my entire life thanks to FPTP, and am now seriously considering giving up voting altogether, thanks to that, and Brexit.
I hope that we are entering a period of cognitive dissonance – where the utter tripe of the promises of Neo-liberalism, the Turd Way (sic – the ultimate Liberal wet dream) and ‘market fundamentalism’ rub up against the harsh lessons/reality checks of unfairness (greater inequality), environmental catastrophe and increasing tension, instability and fear brought about by nationalism which really seems like a form of competition for scarce resources to me.
And, that as result, people begin to realise where their problems actually lie. Whoever grasps at the opportunities provided by GQE/GND, MMT, PQE and presents those to the public and keeps them there may indeed seize the day.
I hope that it is the Left (with the Greens) that picks up these new ways because I agree with Chantel Mouffe’s summary of Carl Schmitt’s assertion that although Liberalism’s strength is that it can offer a good critique of the status quo, its weakness is in the mobilisation of ideas into practice – moving them from discussion into action.
Email Address supplied says:
“…….nationalism which really seems like a form of competition for scarce resources to me. ”
I’m sure that’s what you are supposed to think. In reality it’s not so much scarcity of the natural resources which is creating the tension it has more to do with artificially manipulated scarcity of money.
This scarcity is entirely deliberate and quite fallacious. Until enough people get their heads round the Modern Monetary Theory and Practice explanation of how money operates in an economy we will be easily manipulated into creating false and dangerous old fashioned ‘solutions’.
So-called ‘progressive’ politicians who don’t ‘get’ this are howling for the moon; they are absolutely no use to us at all.
‘Supposed to think’?
No – not at all – it’s from participant observation.
Much of the resentment that is stirred up by Fascism for example rests on micro differences between groups being able to access any resource – housing, health services, personal space, social security, jobs and yes – money.
The Left may talk a lot about money (wealth) but the Right talks about everything else to get groups falling out with each other. They make it out to be a form of competition.
But make no mistake, the Right are more likely to create those conditions by underfunding , under providing etc. The Right have even got us competing with the EU for who apparently controls our laws and budgets, trade etc.
In short, nationalism in this guise sucks.
@Email Address Supplied
You say “no not at all” then agree.
That’ll do me. We’re singing from the same hymn sheet.
The trick is to make money appear to be a finite (natural) resource then insist that it is scarce. The rest follows and creates a feedback loop.
MMTP breaks the stranglehold of the traditional power structure, and that’s why there is so much resistance to it.