The
bigger picture should also look at the remarkable 8% taken by 'others' - smaller
parties and independent candidates. Abstentions are still very high too: turnout
is only up around 2% on its record low of 2001, standing now at just over 60%.
This shift can largely be accounted for by the rise of postal voting.
High
levels of abstention and the rise of smaller parties are not unusual to the UK. A similar
pattern has been seen elsewhere in Western Europe in recent years. Major parties have been haemorrhaging support, as their vote is fragmented across a whole range of smaller parties. The most notable instance
of this is probably in France, where far left and far right have both recorded large gains in national
elections. There are important political reasons for this fragmentation: with major
parties converging on a neoliberal economic model, there are no longer serious political
disputes 'at the centre', which means that the losers from that system are left
looking for another home. This doesn't mean, of course, that these discontents
will be expressed as renewed strength for the left.
In Britain up to now, the First Past the Post (FPTP) system has acted as a check upon this fragmentation. When
political commentators start to reflect on this, many will no doubt see it as
an additional argument in favour of Britain's current electoral system.
The
left may be tempted by this argument too. Certainly, squeezing the electoral
preferences of the nation into a winner-takes-all model of single member,
single vote constituencies does make
the electoral rise of far right (as well as far left) more difficult: it is
hard to imagine an equivalent to Le Pen breaking through in Britain as has
happened in France. But it does not make the rise of far right politics any trickier. This election
campaign has seen attacks on immigrants and gypsies, as scapegoats are sought
to explain away social discontents. This political strategy, spearheaded by the
Conservatives' authoritarian populist campaign, but acquiesced by Labour too,
is designed to appeal to an imagined, reactionary core of the British
electorate – the 'middle England' voters who populate the marginal seats that the parties know determine their fate in electoral competition. As a result, the political centre has been pushed further to the right during the campaign – and the electoral system, which encourages this kind of pandering to a lowest common denominator, is a part of that big picture. OR, 7.22am
The suggestion has been made on www.sonowwhodowevotefor.net that the next step for dismayed Labour supporters should be to rejuvenate the campaign for electoral reform.
There is no credible argument for retaining first past the post in a >2 party system, full stop. Any advocate of it is merely in the business of trying to kill off voter choice and retain (or get in the future) power without having to bother getting a genuine democratic mandate.
Billy Bragg made the interesting point on "Any Questions" that the crucial convert to electoral reform that will get this campaign moving is the Tory party. They need and claim to want to do something that really transforms the offer they make to the electorate, and this is the acid test.
Posted by: carlton | Saturday, May 07, 2005 at 06:18 PM