On July 4, the British public will go to the polls and exercise their right to choose which political party will govern the UK. The people will have their say. They will determine the political principles, policies and direction that will underpin British government for the next five years. The general election is thus a mechanism for holding politicians to account and ensuring that the country is run democratically in the interests of the people.
But is this really true? Is it democracy in action, or is it mere political theater that will make no significant difference to how the country is governed? George Monbiot, writing recently in The Guardian, stated: “An election is a device for maximizing conflict and minimizing democracy.” To most people in the West, this may sound like heresy. Surely, elections are the lifeblood of democracy and central to the concept of “government of the people, by the people, for the people”. On closer scrutiny, however, Monbiot’s withering indictment has much more than a grain of truth.
It’s manifestly true that elections maximize conflict. You only have to look at the United States where preelection division and anger are already stoking the flames of partisan conflict, months before the presidential election. In Britain, there’s currently a six-week general election campaign in which the venom normally reserved for the weekly spectacle of Prime Minister’s Questions is now the constant soundtrack of the nation. The media is dominated by politicians and journalists attacking opposing parties, sowing division, confecting outrage, and generating much more heat than light. The so-called “debates” between party leaders, far from illuminating party policies and principles, quickly degenerate into angry slanging matches, trading accusations and personal jibes. It is the very antithesis of the Confucian quest for harmony and consensus, which is at the heart of political dialogue in the East.
If this first part of Monbiot’s assessment of elections is patently true, is he also right in claiming that elections minimize democracy? This may seem counterintuitive, but it can be convincingly argued that elections merely provide a veneer of democratic accountability to a political system that is designed to maintain the status quo. After the razzmatazz of the election campaign is over, irrespective of which party forms the new government, nothing much changes. Government policies remain broadly the same, and politics are still dominated by big-party machines, career politicians, powerful commercial lobbies, and unelected press barons.
At the heart of this ossified structure is the de facto two-party system.
Technically, UK politics is a multiparty system. However, the “first past the post” or “winner takes all” electoral rules mean that the only realistic choice presented to voters at general elections is between a Conservative government and a Labour one. If you don’t support either of these two big parties, then you are effectively disenfranchised, your vote for a candidate from another party being little more than a protest vote.
This limitation on voting options is compounded by the fact that both Conservative and Labour leaders try to appeal to the middle ground of politics in order to maximize their votes. The Conservative Party doesn’t want to lose votes by being too far to the right in their manifesto promises, and Labour doesn’t want to lose votes by being too socialist in theirs. So in the majority of elections, the choice offered is usually between a left-leaning right-wing party or a right-leaning left-wing party. This means that on the big issues, the policy differences between Britain’s two major parties are minimal.
If you look at the current set of Conservative and Labour policies, you will see a remarkable alignment. Both parties promise more spending on defense, both support nuclear weapons, both are committed to keeping Brexit, both promise fiscal discipline, both are focused on stopping illegal migration, both promise more efficient public services, especially the National Health Service, and of course both are promising not to increase taxes. James Schneider, the former communications director for the previous Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, recently summarized the situation perfectly: “On all the major issues, Britain is now a one-party state; but with our traditional British eccentricity, we have two of them.”
If nothing much changes in the substance of government policies after a general election, neither is there much change in how government operates. Once the election is over, no matter which party has won, for the next five years the government is able to enjoy the sort of authoritarian rule that Britain likes to condemn in one-party states. The “first past the post” electoral system means that governments generally have a large majority in Parliament, even if most of the electorate voted against them. This gives the prime minister and the party machine enormous power, compounded by the fact that the government is also able to control how its own members of Parliament (MPs) vote through the appropriately named whipping system. This means that any dissenting voices in the government ranks will be “whipped” into supporting the party line. Any MPs daring to defy the party whips can be expelled from the parliamentary party and deselected at the next election. So the vast majority of MPs merely acquiesce in fulfilling their role as voting fodder, doing exactly as the party leader orders, rather than voting according to their principles or consciences.
So general elections do nothing to democratize the way government is conducted. The prime minister effectively heads up what is often referred to as an “elected autocracy”. Even more undemocratic are the strong links that exist between the governing party and the powerful commercial lobbies and media barons. Party funding relies heavily on donations from wealthy businesspeople or powerful trade unions, generally with the expectation that in government the grateful party will pursue policies that are favorable to them.
In short, British general elections do indeed seem to have the dual effect of maximizing conflict and minimizing democracy. They create division and disharmony while making little real difference to government policies or how the people are governed. For this to change and for democratic principles to flourish, a raft of radical electoral and participatory reforms is required. Until this happens, the British people will continue to be let down by an adversarial political system dominated by vested interests and designed to preserve the status quo.
As for the rest of the world, observing the general election from afar, what conclusions can be drawn? British politicians frequently condemn other countries or regions for being undemocratic. For example, Britain and its allies have criticized the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government for “the erosion of democratic elements of the special administrative region’s electoral system”. The irony here is palpable. Until Britain puts its own electoral house in order, it would do well to reflect on the adage: “People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.”
The author is a British historian and former principal of Sha Tin College, an international secondary school in Hong Kong.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
