coalition, electoral reform and devolution

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DAMM

ACCESS UPDATE: COALITION, ELECTORAL REFORM AND DEVOLUTION -

NEW POLITICAL LANDSCAPES IN THE UK?

CAPPELEN DAMM

ACCESS UPDATE: Coalition, Electoral Reform and Devolution - New Political

Landscapes in the UK?

2

Coalition, Electoral Reform and Devolution – New Political Landscapes in the UK?

By Richard Burgess

Published 28.10 2010

Every time there is general election in Britain the media tends to dish out the hyperbole about “sea-

changes”, “seismic shifts” and “watersheds”. Of course, every election is an important event with

very real consequences at every level of society, particularly in a country where two-party,

adversarial politics has been the norm and where the

voting system has a tendency to turn relatively small

changes in voting patterns into decisive shifts in the

parliamentary balance of power. But for that very reason,

we can perhaps be forgiven for using a bit of hyperbole

about the election 2010. After all, for the first time since

the Second World War, Britain has a coalition government.

For the first time since 1918 the Liberal Party (or, to be

precise, its modern descendant the Liberal Democrats) are

back in office in peacetime. And for the first time since

1983 the Labour Party polled less than 30% of the popular

vote.

The Coalition – a forced marriage

The election result in May presented voters with the unusual spectacle of all three major parties in

defeat. Labour’s defeat was unequivocal, and widely predicted. 13 years in power had taken its toll

and Gordon Brown, who succeeded Tony Blair as Prime Minister in 2007, had gradually proved to

be something of a liability for his party. The Liberal Democrats, whose quick-witted and smooth-

talking leader Nick Clegg had captured the headlines with his television performances, failed to

deliver at the final hurdle, losing 5 parliamentary seats. Not even the Conservatives, who emerged

as the largest party, could call themselves winners with any real conviction. After all those years in

Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, London

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opposition and an election campaign against a Prime Minister of such monumental unpopularity, a

result that left them twenty seats short of an overall majority could hardly be seen as a success.

Neither could the coalition government that emerged after a week of frenzied negotiations be

called a love match. Most Liberal voters, and indeed many Liberal MPs, would have preferred a

coalition with the Labour Party, with whom they had more in common on a number of important

issues. But the arithmetic was against such a solution; even together the Lib Dems and Labour

would still have been a minority in Parliament, at the mercy of the smaller, nationalist parties from

vote to vote. Some sort of cooperation between the Lib Dems and the Tories was the only viable

alternative. So David Cameron and Nick Clegg were forced to bury the hatchet (which had been

fairly well sharpened during the election campaign) and become “Nick ‘n’ Dave”, the new double-

act of British politics. On the 12th May they met the press together on the lawn of 10 Downing

Street, blushing like a couple of newly-weds.

Actually, Cameron is probably more pleased with

the marriage than he dare admit. Analysts point out

that there are deep divisions within the

Conservative party, and that many backbenchers

are secretly sceptical of their moderate, charismatic

leader. Had the Tories won an overall majority,

analysts say, these divisions would quickly have come to the surface, with the party’s right-wingers

demanding good, old-fashioned Tory policies rather than the centrist, “one-nation” line favoured by

Cameron. But coalition with the Lib Dems gives him cover; he can always “blame” his coalition

partners if there are compromises. And if the coalition should fall apart, he can play the

“uncompromising leader” card and strengthen his hand within his own party.

Things are a little more precarious for Nick Clegg, whose future very much depends on making this

marriage work. If it does not, there is a fair chance that the Lib Dems would be severely punished

by the electorate at the next crossroads. Labour MPs have already signalled that the long-term

prospect of cooperation with the Lib Dems, at least with Clegg at the helm, has been severely

compromised by their present choice of bedfellows. On the other hand, Clegg must be careful not

to be seen to be sacrificing too much for the marriage. If it lasts, Clegg still needs to make it clear to

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his supporters and the rest of the electorate that a dividing line remains between the two parties,

that the Lib Dems have a soul of their own. He can only do this by bringing a distinctively Liberal

agenda into government.

Prime Minister David Cameron (Cons.) (left) and Deputy Prime Minster Nick Clegg (LibDem)

The first big test of Lib Dem influence came with the public spending cuts that were introduced in

October. These cuts are the deepest and most far-reaching since the end of

the Second World War – some 81 billion pounds, to cover a huge borrowing

deficit now costing around 120 million pounds a day in interest. Coalition

politicians have talked darkly of Britain being on “the brink of bankruptcy” and

blame the deficit on Labour’s economic mismanagement. Labour, on the

other hand, point to the worldwide recession. But although they may differ about whose fault it is,

there is a general consensus across the political spectrum in Britain (unlike in some other European

countries) that drastic cuts do need to be made and that Britons should be prepared for a period of

austerity.

The question is: how drastic and how austere? Labour, as the party of opposition, has

unsurprisingly declared that the medicine is too strong and too quick and risks killing the patient off

rather than curing him. Secretly, however, many were surprised at the influence that the Lib Dems

seem to have had on the social profile of the cuts: direct funding of state schools, the NHS, climate

change measures and international aid – all Lib Dem priorities – have all been largely exempted.

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Even so, the pace and depth of the cuts proposed in welfare may well prove a stumbling block for

the coalition. For one thing, there are suspicions among some Lib Dems that the Tories are secretly

rubbing their hands in glee: At last, under the cover of a borrowing deficit, they can do what

Conservative governments traditionally like doing most; rolling back the state, cutting public

spending, introducing “small government”.

Electoral reform

Another issue that will test the cohesion of the coalition is electoral reform. The issue has been at

the top of the Liberal agenda for half a century, and for obvious reasons; the present first-past-the-

post (FPTP) system has effectively kept them out of power since they lost their dominant position

on the left of British politics to the Labour Party back in the 1920s. As the third party in what is

essentially a two-horse race, they have consistently been underrepresented in Parliament

compared to their percentage of the popular vote (at the last election 23% of the votes gave them

8.8% of the seats). Sympathy for their cause extends far beyond their own voters, and Labour itself

had electoral reform among its election pledges.

The Conservative Party, however, has traditionally opposed changes to a voting system that has

served them very well for a couple of centuries. Tory backbenchers were therefore taken aback

when it was announced that Cameron and Clegg, in their post-election negotiations, had done a

deal on electoral reform. In May 2011, on the same day as the elections for the Scottish Parliament

and the Welsh Assembly, there will be a referendum on whether FPTP should be replaced. It has

since been alleged that Clegg achieved this agreement by means of a bluff; he got Cameron to

believe that Gordon Brown had offered the Lib Dems electoral reform without a referendum,

thereby pressing Cameron to make greater concessions than he would have done otherwise.

Whatever the truth of this, the British electorate has for the first time the chance to change the

way it goes about choosing its governments. However, the alternative to FPTP that it is being

presented with is not what many had hoped. In fact, the system being proposed – the Alternative

Vote (AV) is not one that either party feel happy about. “Nick’n’Dave’s unwanted child”, one

commentator called it. Briefly, the AV system entails that the present constituency system is

retained, with one representative for each constituency. But instead of voting for just one

candidate, voters may vote for several, putting them in numerical order. If any candidate polls over

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50% on the first preference, he or she is elected. If not, then the second preferences are taken into

consideration: and so on, down the list, until there is an outright winner. The system has the

advantage, seen from a traditionalist perspective, that it retains the “sacred” bond between the

voter and his/her MP, whilst at the same time ensuring that the MP actually has majority support.

Statistically, the system is also likely to elect parties with a clear majority. For the smaller parties,

though, AV is not particularly good news. It will still mean an enormous number of “wasted votes”.

For the Liberal Democrats there are gains to be made by the AV system – for example, it would

have gained them 22 more seats at the last election. But AV is far cry from the system of

proportional representation that they have been advocating, and that works well enough in the

devolved assemblies. Proportional representation would very likely change the whole ballgame of

British politics, breaking the back of the two-party system, opening up for smaller parties and

making coalition government the norm rather than the exception. For the Lib Dems AV reform,

should the electorate endorse it, is a step on the way rather than a final destination.

Devolution – a runaway train?

Even without AV reform, the ballgame of British politics has already changed significantly since the

Conservatives were last in power. Large areas of the United Kingdom are actually beyond the direct

control of the coalition government in a number of key areas. A decade after Wales gained its

Assembly and Scotland its Parliament, the process of

devolution is now firmly embedded in the political life

of the UK. Even in sectarian Northern Ireland a

devolved Assembly has been functioning

uninterruptedly since 2007, after several years of

intermittent suspension.

It is worth remembering how the present dynamic of

devolution came about. Under Margaret Thatcher

nationalist sentiment and deep frustration had grown

as a result of her free-market economic policies that hit Scotland and Wales particularly hard. Her

crusade against the unions and, not least, her refusal to save a failing coal mining industry that had

formed the backbone of many communities, made her very unpopular with Welsh and Scottish

Welsh Assembly debating chamber, Cardiff

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voters. The election results of the time speak of a divided nation. In 1987, for example, the

Conservatives won comfortably over Labour in the UK as a whole, but were reduced to their lowest

representation in Scotland since the First World War. This was the perfect seedbed for separatist

nationalist parties that had walked in the shadows for decades. As the queues of the unemployed

grew and economic decline deepened, they could argue, quite correctly, that their fate was being

dictated by English politicians they had not voted for. In short, Scotland was “occupied territory”.

Tony Blair, who took over the Labour leadership in 1994, was quick to register the rise of nationalist

sentiment in Scotland and Wales, and made devolution one of the key policies of his “New” Labour,

promising a referendum in both countries on the question

of devolved assemblies. It is important to understand his

motives in doing this. Voting patterns in both countries

showed that the Scottish National Party (SNP) and Plaid

Cymru, who were both left of centre, were likely to “steal”

voters, not from the Conservatives, but from Labour.

Blair’s espousal of the cause of devolution was not

motivated by any long-term wish to see the dismantling of

the United Kingdom. Rather the opposite – the hope was

that by setting up national assemblies, some of the steam

would be taken out of the separatist movements. Once

the nationalists were transformed from raucous activists

to responsible, budget-bound politicians, the theory ran,

their public support would tail off.

A decade later we can conclude that the theory was mistaken. Once it is set in motion, devolution

has had a dynamic of its own. Like a dog on an ever-longer leash, the nationalist cause has

celebrated its new influence by demanding greater fiscal freedom and political clout for the

devolved assemblies, and its popularity shows no sign of tailing off. In the 2007 election to the

Scottish Parliament at Holyrood, support for the SNP rose by 9%, making them the largest party,

one seat ahead of Labour.

The Scottish Parliament, Edinburgh

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The ultimate aim for the SNP is not simply devolution, but full independence. A planned

Referendum Bill was shelved by the SNP in September because they realised that a combined

opposition at Holyrood would defeat it. But Alex Salmond, the SNP leader, promises to make the

referendum the key issue in the 2011 Scottish elections. Scottish independence, once the distant

dream of a few romantic poets, is now looming on the horizon as a real possibility – even a

likelihood, in the view of some commentators. The separatist cause has less support in Wales,

where Plaid Cymru still come a poor second behind Labour in terms of electoral support. But no

one is in any doubt – the union of England and Scotland is at the core of the UK. Scottish secession

would mean the end of Britain as a nation.

Northern Ireland, of course, remains a special case on the question of devolution. Here the

nationalist cause seeks not independence, but unification with another sovereign state. And here

the divisions between nationalist and unionist parties run on sectarian, religious lines. Those of us

for whom the violence of the Troubles are a recent memory rubbed our eyes in disbelief at the

spectacle of then First Minister Ian Paisley indulging in friendly banter with his deputy, Sinn Fein

politician and former IRA combatant Martin McGuinness. But just as we thought that miracles were

the order of the day, the ghosts of the past return putting the cohesion of the cross-party Northern

Ireland Executive to the test. Rioting by nationalist youths and killings and bombings carried out by

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dissident republican groups are a

particular nightmare for Sinn Fein.

It puts them in the bizarre position

of having to condemn acts that

they only recently actively

supported, using language

identical to that used by their

Unionist opponents against them.

One of the challenges ahead is

whether Sinn Fein, as the largest

nationalist, republican party, can

reassert its authority over its own communities. The alternative is very bleak indeed.

On the other side of the Irish Sea English nationalism (not to be confused with British nationalism)

is still largely dormant as a united, political force. The English show little enthusiasm for having a

parliament of their own, in spite of the obvious iniquity of the so-called West Lothian question, i.e.

that Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs still have a say in

England’s internal affairs while English MPs are excluded from the

affairs of the three devolved assemblies. Interestingly, while Scottish,

Welsh and Irish nationalism tends to be left-of-centre, if not radical,

English nationalism has a distinctly conservative (and Conservative)

flavour, with resentment of Scottish “greed” at its core. Attempts by

the likes of folk-rocker Billy Bragg to awaken a left-wing English nationalism based on tolerance and

inclusiveness is still no more than an interesting sideshow.

So far the Tories have been firmly Unionist in their policies, opposing devolution at every turn and

ridiculing the idea of an English parliament. But the temptation to play “the English card” is

growing. The arithmetic speaks for itself: at the last election, the Conservatives managed to win

only one of the 59 Scottish constituencies at Westminster. Labour, on the other hand, who did so

badly in the country as a whole, won 41 Scottish seats, effectively denying the Conservatives an

absolute majority in Parliament. In other words, the Tories have everything to gain by excluding

Scottish MPs from influence over decisions concerning internal English affairs. This explains why

England's St George's Cross flag

Republican mural in Belfast

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Cameron favours a policy often called “English votes for English law”. This policy attempts to

answer the West Lothian question without going as far as pushing devolution still further and

establishing an English parliament. It suggests instead making constitutional changes that would

exclude Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs from voting at Westminster on issues that only

concern England. Labour has consistently opposed the policy, saying that it would create two

classes of MPs. More importantly, though, they know that such a change would leave 85% of the

United Kingdom in the hands of the Conservatives for the foreseeable future.

Labour dusts itself off

The man now charged with the task of preventing such an eclipse of power is Labour’s new leader,

Ed Miliband. At 41 he is even younger than Cameron and Clegg (who are both the youngest leaders

of their parties in modern times). The son of a Jewish holocaust survivor and a Polish-Belgian

Marxist intellectual, his newly-coined nickname “Red Ed” actually owes

more to the temptations of a good rhyme and the paranoia of a right-

wing tabloid press than to any real policy priorities. In his campaign for

the leadership, in which he narrowly beat his elder brother David, he

repeatedly underlined the wisdom learnt from recent history: that Labour

can only win from the centre. Being seen as the mouthpiece of the unions

is no recipe for success with the broader electorate. One of the real

challenges he will have to deal with is how to oppose a coalition

government that itself has occupied the centre of the British political

spectrum without moving his own party too far to the left. If Labour are to regain power in

Westminster, Miliband must emulate the great achievement of Blair: persuading a substantial

portion of middle-class, southern England that Labour represents their best interests. It will require

great skill where Miliband is concerned – or a spectacular failure by the coalition government.

Three charismatic young politicians now dominate British politics. The Blairs and the Browns, the

Straws and the Mandelsons – they are now the stuff of history and rancorous autobiography, not of

the political present. There is a fresh feeling to British politics these days. The next five years will

show whether this feeling will translate into substantial change, and whether a cliché like “seismic

shift” is actually warranted. Are we witnessing the end of two-party, adversarial politics in Britain -

or is the coalition just a passing “blip” on the seismograph? Are we to see the introduction of

Labour leader Ed Miliband

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electoral reform that will change the way decisions are made in Britain? Are we, indeed, witnessing

the beginning of the end of the United Kingdom itself, as devolution changes the way the four

nations of the union think about themselves and their futures? These are exciting times – for the

British electorate and for teachers of British background the world over.

Vocabulary

hyperbole overdrivelse

adversarial basert på motstandere

unequivocal utvetydig

liability belastning

arithmetic regnestykke

viable gangbar

hatchet stridsøks

deficit underskudd

recession konjunkturnedgang

austerity innstramming

exempt unntatt

stumbling block hindring

referendum folkeavstemming

entail innebære

retain beholde

devolved selvstyrt

endorse godkjenne

sectarian sekterisk

intermittent ofte avbrutt

seedbed grobunn

espousal tilslutning

raucous høylytt

fiscal skattepolitisk

clout makt

secession løsrivelse

banter godmodig erting

cohesion sammenheng

dissident utbryter

reassert hevde på nytt

dormant sovende

iniquity urettferdighet

emulate etterlikne

rancorous hatsk

warrant fortjene

Comprehension tasks

1 What arguments are there for saying that the recent election was a “seismic shift” in British

politics?

2 How can it be argued that none of the three major parties were truly victorious at the

election?

3 Why can it be argued that the Lib Dems are taking more of a risk by joining the coalition

than the Conservatives are?

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4 How does the proposed Alternative Vote system fall short of proportional representation?

5 Why do you think the two largest parties oppose proportional representation?

6 What is meant by “wasted votes” in this context?

7 What reasons did Blair have for making devolution one of New Labour’s policies?

8 Why can it be said that the ghosts of the past have returned to Northern Ireland?

9 The policy of “English votes for English law” means excluding MPs from the smaller nations

from taking part in votes on English issues. Why is this a threat to Labour’s power in

Westminster?

coalition, electoral reform and devolution

Documents

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electoral reform

election result

election campaign

labour party

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