Our future: a question for the people

April 18, 2019April 18, 2019 / Alison Pope

Returning to the electorate is the most democratic way to resolve the current Brexit impasse.

The 2016 referendum has not been ignored or betrayed. The Government and Parliament have been working on Brexit for 3 years now. A withdrawal agreement has been negotiated. As has a political declaration on a future relationship.

Parliament continues to debate but reject these. This has been hard work and has taken up much Parliamentary time detracting from other much needed business that mean the underlying conditions of austerity, inequality and alienation still fester.

The next democratic step forward would be to seek further instruction from the people now a deal has been concluded.

A single issue ballot

Doing this via general election or treating the European elections as a proxy referendum risk making those single issue elections when they are so much more than that. In those elections voters should feel free to vote for the party or candidate they think would best represent them in the UK or European Parliament across all issues.

I have sympathy for those who argue this is how European elections will be interpreted though. Polls generally suggest that pro-Brexit (Brexit party, UKIP) and pro-Remain (Greens, Liberal Democrats, Change UK, SNP) camps are equally balanced on around 25-30% of the vote. Labour and the Conservatives poll around 40% for their orderly Brexit negotiations, leaning slightly softer towards the Labour version. The headline splash of the neo-Faragist pale blue is a focal story though whilst you have to add up the pro-Remain parties to establish their equivalence. In a media ecosystem big on amplification and short on attention these snapshots matter.

However, I still think a single issue question demands a single issue vote. The question of Europe should not have been put to the people in 2016 when it wasn’t a single issue question, but it needs to be put directly to the people now it has become one.

Brexiteer outrage that consulting further withe the people on Brexit and allowing the electorate to choose a relationship with the EU is a democratic betrayal that would precipitate violent disorder is misplaced. It is their undemocratic way of clinging to their one, ill-gotten, success and deflecting from their subsequent political failure to deliver.

With Government collective responsibility and party discipline unravelling we are left with a hung Parliament that is exhausted, bereft of ideas and running short on Parliamentary business. They can only anchor their arguments with what the public thought then not what they think now and the end of the negotiation period.

We can also see from these polls that the Conservative vote is crumbling. It now faces a three-way challenge from the Brexit Party and UIP on the right and Change UK on the centre. If the 2016 referendum was designed to settle the European question and unify the Conservative Party it has been a miserable failure. Party considerations are still coming first despite the ramifications for the nation as a whole. This question of our future with Europe must be separated from party politics.

The choice of a future relationship must be put directly to the people

I would favour a choice between the deal we already have (our EU membership with it various rebates, opt-outs and vetoes ), the terms and direction set out in the Government’s agreement or the preferred deal of Parliament.

This latter should be the option that prevails in Parliamentary indicative votes once EU membership, the WA and procedural options such as a revoke/referendum has been excluded. Just a straightforward indicative vote where MPs must vote for one of the options put forward.

The option with the most votes (it wouldn’t have to be a majority) would be put forward as Parliaments proposal. No abstentions, no votes against.

Realistically it would therefore be one of Custom’s Union, Common Market 2.0, Malthouse compromise or leave without an agreement.

This would allow an option to deliver the Brexit mandate to be proposed by both the Government and Parliament as two leave options alongside our current membership arrangements.

The challenges of a free and fair referendum

This would be a difficult referendum. The question would matter. The conduct of the referendum would matter. The campaigns would matter.

We would need to move on from current terminology which is mostly about principles and procedures and focus minds on the terms of specific future relationships with Europe, a trading partner we cannot ignore.

Unfortunately , the lessons and irregularity of the precious referendum have not yet been heeded. Our systems will struggle to redesign democracy for the social media era. This challenge cannot he avoided though; it must be confronted and we must try.

Damian Collins’ select committee investigations lead the way in tackling these challenges but resolving them would take longer than needed to answer the question of Europe in the current time frame. Our democracy must be reformed for 21st century by the next general election but for now temporary arrangements would be needed to allow people to deliberate and vote freely but fairly, avoiding the hazards of the previous campaign whilst allowing a referendum to be held this summer.

A national conversation

This is where a citizen’s assembly or other temporary representative mechanism could come in, to deliberate on this question alone outside party structures. This assembly could contain advocates of each option to debate and discuss. These three assembly groups could be charged with leading each official campaign supported by the civil service and each working with a publicly allocated budget and an independent fact checker.

Ideally, there would be devolved regional and local assemblies beneath a national assembly engaged in their own town hall and market place open spaces that feed into the national conversation like tributaries.

This is a question of national importance; it should be transparently funded by taxpayers not hidden donors. We do not need the same tired party politics and media conglomerations. Nor do we need dark ads and propagandist bots.

We need new voices, debating the future, not the past. This referendum should be a decision made by all, for all, based on a national conversation that informs and includes all. At the end of this national conversation we have a ballot that hands a renewed mandate to the Government and Parliament to work on over the next 3 years. The people can then start on the next national conversation we need: on the need to urgently respond to our changing climate.

This won’t be easy, and we may not have much time but I have faith that where there is a will there’s a way and I am hopeful that that ingenuity, pragmatism, fair play and good humour of our nation will ultimately prevail.

Thoughts On … the Europe I Want

March 17, 2019 / Alison Pope

Some Brexit therapy, stepping back and take a breath after a rollercoaster week. You may Dias agree, and that’s fine, but don’t attack me for it – we’re all dealing with this in our own way!

TL;DR Reflecting on a rollercoaster #Brexit week, the path taken since 2016 and the road ahead. Reconciling my ideals with the least bad option from here. Hoping for a less partisan approach as we look to a future with, if not in, Europe.

Continue reading →

Thoughts On … the Ins and Outs of Brexit Options

March 17, 2019 / Alison Pope

Brexit’s core problem is there are too many alternatives each favoured by a minority but there isn’t one option convincing enough for a majority. The leave vote was a majority against something not a homogeneous vote for something. We’re left with no obvious way forward.

Ironically, with 48% in favour, support for the EU membership we already have is probably the option closest to having a majority.

Other options for a future relationship I’ve seen mooted are EEA/EFTA, Norway+, Canada+, Common Market 2.0, Labour’s customs union based plan, bespoke FTA, plus many other variations I’ve probably missed all/any of which could’ve been meant by ‘leave the EU’.

These all have varying levels of support but there’s little evidence so far one of them could command more than 48% either in Parliament or amongst the public. Perhaps because none of them are better than what we’ve already spent 40 years negotiating. For any non-EU option we will need to step back to go forward.

And we’re still creating more options trying out different variations. They are good ideas, that should have been debated, but at this stage, with just 12 days to go, they add confusion when we need focus. The options analysis we are doing now was needed 2015-2017.

Had we broken down the various leave options and had a preferential vote on “a future relationship with the EU” rather than an in/out referendum, or indicative votes since, it would have been clear what the option(s) that commanded most support was and we probably wouldn’t be having this crisis of legitimacy.

We got the Brexit referendum so wrong. You can respect the result that was returned in 2016 and understand many of the reasons it went the way it did and still think it’s flawed as a solution: the right answer to a simplistically wrong question.

There’s also two options for leaving. With a negotiated withdrawal agreement that would govern transitional arrangements and provide some continuity/protection whilst a future relationship is negotiated. Or without a withdrawal agreement (no-deal) leaving us operating under WTO rules until something else is agreed.

So far we’ve ruled out both of these options, as well as remaining, so it’s not entirely clear how we actually leave. Or stay. Or limbo.

The preferred way forward for Parliament is now extension. Given the EU have said the WA is the only one on offer and we must leave before we negotiate a future relationship it’s not clear what an extension would achieve beyond delaying. Unless I’ve got this wrong or we are hoping they shift on these.

As someone in favour of letting the people have a better/final say I’m not actually sure what form of referendum could help right now.

A referendum that asked us to choose between leaving this way (May’s deal), leaving that way (without a WA) or remaining would potentially be seen as an attempt to split the leave vote yet still wouldn’t resolve the question of a future relationship.

This is frustrating for everyone. For all of us waiting for an outcome but powerless, for MPs embroiled in party politics and most of all for the EU. Britain keeps saying we don’t want our current bespoke membership but it’s not obvious what we are asking for instead or what would command more support than what we already have.

Meanwhile days, debates, and votes tick past and deadlines approach. We wouldn’t start from here, we didn’t need to be here, but here we are and it’s not obvious how we get out.

All Hail a Deeply Depressing Day

January 20, 2017 / Alison Pope

Tomorrow I’m going to pay attention to the many, many reasons to be optimistic about the world but tonight I’m just going to cry into my wine and mourn a week when President Trump became a reality and our PM announced we’d be leaving every European institution going in order to become a global power … on our terms or else. Apparently these were statements of Atlanticist grandeur and greatness but they just seem like small minded nationalism to me and historically that sucks.

Wanted: A Political Vision

February 13, 2016 / Alison Pope

An entrepreneurial state that safeguards:

Security;
Sustainability;
Prosperity.

An agile government that balances:

Environment;
Society;
Economy.

An ideology that includes communism, socialism and capitalism in their rightful (effective) places to provide people with access to:

productive work in profitable businesses;
prosperous lives in loving families;
resilient communities in healthy environments.

A belief system that is anchored in the 1948 settlement and advocates a shared humanity:

protecting common rights;
providing common minimum standards of welfare;
promoting common responsibility.

A political party that is:

collectivist;
open minded;
future oriented;
internationalist.

A Britain to be proud of where every citizen counts.

Vote for Policies 2015

February 24, 2015February 24, 2015 / Alison Pope

The updated version of Vote for Policies was released last week in preparation for the 2015 General Election. Having tried the previous version only recently I decided to take the new version for a spin. As before the site aims to extract party policies from the personalities and rhetoric of the surrounding campaign and lay them out next to each other so voters can really focus on the issues that matter to them. They claim it helps make “an informed, unbiased decision about who to vote for” for those who might want to vote with their head as much as their heart. It still works by taking you through a survey that presents policies for different issues and inciting you to select your preferred set of policies. At the end the survey presents results of which parties you prefer based on your policy selections.

Taking the Survey

The new site looks great visually. It’s clear and easy to see how to get started. There are ten issues in all of which you need to select at least four to start. Being a geek I selected all ten. The next screen asks you to select your country. This is so the policies can be tailored for your region so the five most relevant parties are used. This means voters in different parts of the country will have slightly different options. This is something the TV debates could perhaps consider? For England the parties are: Conservatives, Green Party, Labour, Liberal Democrats and UKIP.

The bulk of the survey is being presented with the policies issues by issues. Up comes the first issue and then 5 policy sets will be presented. An improvement on the previous version is you first shortlist the policies which makes comparison easier. So you review a policy set then are asked to say whether you would consider voting for these policies are not. This quickly helps eliminate policies you are not interested in.

Once you have decided on each of the five policy sets then all the policy sets on the shortlist of those you may consider voting for are presented on a single screen. You can then pay more attention to the policy details and compare them against each other before selecting which policy set you prefer. Having done this the survey moves onto the next issue and repeats for as many issues as you have selected.

This all takes a while, and I’m not sure if you can stop in the middle and come back, but progress through the survey is well signposted.

Reflecting on the Survey Process

I felt this worked well and helped reduce the amount of information at the comparison stage. For me this usually meant quickly eliminating the more right wing policies leaving me with a set of more left learning policies to compare. This isn’t surprising although there were a few areas where I selected four policy sets and one where I shortlisted all five. Some issues are closer to the centre than others it seems. I found it easy to quickly eliminate one or two policy sets from my decision. I found it much harder to select between my shortlisted options. I felt there were many good ideas and policies put forward.

I still felt at times it was still too easy to identify a particular party. As before it is admirable that VfP fillets the policies from the party literature and leaves it untouched but some rhetorical styles and phrases are so distinctive the party appears through the policies limiting the unbiased nature of the exercise. Neutralising the language would make the policies more unbiased. Whilst their is editorial risk in doing so I did feel that it would be possible to ‘clean up’ some of the rhetorical flourishes to make the policy statements more stark whilst avoiding accusations of impartiality.

Smart Policies?

The other thing a focus on policy statements demonstrates is how some are more policy like than others. There is variation between SMART (Specific, Measurable, Agreed, Realistic, Timed) policy statements and vague slogans for some issues that made comparison difficult. Overall, I always erred on the side of the party who offered SMARTer policies rather than vague and slippery aspirations. This is an area where I think Green policy can improve I think and where Labour policy is very good. Still, many people would agree that the Labour Party’s problem is one of style and communication rather than substance; they would easily win an election if more attention was paid to the good work they have done in government and the good work they pledge to do beneath all the canards and red herrings town their way and the shouty froth of political mediation.

Getting the Results

The final stage is to enter your postcode, for constituency comparisons and then the results are presented. This was the first time I’d seen any pie charts and I think it works well that you have to take the survey before getting and idea of how your constituency and national results look as this helps reduce bias.

The results are really well presented. There is a clear pie chart showing your overall breakdown. My result of 40% Green, 40% Labour and 20% Liberal Democrat was pretty much unchanged from my 2010 attempt.

Underneath there is an option to enter an email address so be sent a link to your results and send a reminder on polling day. There are also the usual social media sharing options to spread the word. VfP are hoping for 5 million completed surveys this time around.

In the final section the results are broken down by issue so you can see which party you voted for on which issue. This is where some of my results were a bit surprising. There was evidence of a left leaning consensus in my selections with variation at the level of implementation detail or phrasing rather than aspiration.

Overall, and not surprisingly, I felt the Green Party were better at articulating a social democratic vision whilst Labour in particular was better at translating vaguer ambitions into something that could be implemented and might actually work. There are some sticking points, Trident being an obvious one, but I finished feeling optimistic about the prospects of a leftish coalition and wondering yet again why the Liberal Democrats are members of the current coalition.

In fact, I would probably prefer a left leaning coalition with a broader spectrum of policies than perhaps a majority to better provide a mix of head, heart and soul. Certainly I think the Green surge, and to be fair the emergence of UKIP, is widening the Overton window and that is welcome.

The results are also then shown for my constituency where 61 surveys have currently been completed and nationally where 47,000 have currently been completed. I won’t say much about these results yet to prevent influencing those yet to take the survey but the results are still looking strange. I still have my reservation from my 2010 attempt about the demographic sample of this kind of tool:

An online tool like this appeals only to a minority of voters in certain demographics. There is no demographic breakdown for the constituency or overall responses. Those advocating the tool are likely to be tech-savvy, media literate and used to obtaining their information from diverse sources. Do these really represent the core voters who turn out and decide elections?

Policy Browsing

A welcome addition is a policies browser. This allows you to go back and look at all policies again, this time knowing which policies belong to which party. This allows a more reflective look at all the policies for a party or to compare policies by issue. The browser also shows which policies you voted for. There is no login for the site which suggests this information using cookies and local storage to remember your participation. If you attempt to start the survey again then the site prompts that you have already completed and provides a link to your results (the same permalink as used when sharing). However it does also give an option to forget you, suggesting you can erase the memory of your previous attempt and have another go. Not clear if you do this whether your previous result will be erased from constituency and national results or not or whether you could complete multiple attempts all adding to the overall verdict. It is this question that makes me have reservations about using any results as campaign leverage.

Summary

Overall I think the site itself is much improved and I do hope it will be successful in introducing policies and a more thoughtful reflection on their voting preference to as many people as possible. Caveats still remain about its use as evidence.

Pros

Clear and easy to use
Like introduction of shortlisting stage to quickly eliminate some policies
Result presentation much improved
Addition of the policy browser makes it easy to compare all parties across an issue or see all policies for a party to better review/reconsider after taking the initial survey
Don’t get to see national and constituency results until taken the survey preventing influence

Cons

Still possibly open to gaming results so still a better tool for individuals rather than evidence of voting intention.
Still too easy to identify policies for some parties because of their distinctive language and policies. The editorial/neutrality conundrum is not yet resolved

Vote for Policies

January 22, 2015January 20, 2015 / Alison Pope

Vote for Policies is a site that aims to extract party policies from the personalities and rhetoric of the surrounding campaign and lay them out next to each other so voters can really focus on the issues that matter to them. They claim it helps make “an informed, unbiased decision about who to vote for” for those who might want to vote with their head as much as their heart.

How it Works

A simple survey allows voters to compare policies for issues they select. At the end of the survey the results will show which party’s policies you most agree with both overall and broken down by each issue. You can also see the overall results for your constituency.

How it is Funded

The site is run by volunteers and aims to be neutral and objective. It is funded using crowdsourcing via donations. It was created for the 2010 General Election and over 500,000 surveys have been taken so far. For the May 2015 General Election they are aiming for over 5,000,00

Trying it Out

It’s worth noting that presently the site remains the one created for the 2010 election. This means the policies are not current and the parties represented do not represent current developments of the major Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland parties. The site is being updating for 2015 and a new mobile friendly version with updated policies and parties is due in February.

I decided to try the current version out to see my current starting point and outlook based on the 2010 policies.

I tried out every issue and at the completion of the survey my doughnut chart revealed I was 44% Labour, 33% Green and 22% Liberal Democrat. This isn’t really surprisingly as it reflects many of the starting views I’ve outlined and accurately reflects how I voted at the last election and elections since then. This is where I would expect to be or at least to have been in 2010.

This is not too dissimilar to my constituency picture with Labour, Green and the Liberal Democrats followed by the Conservatives and UKIP.

Which is nothing like how the constituency voted in 2010 or indeed in my living memory.

Source: Guardian

What Does this Tell Us?

It is not surprising that leftist advocates will happily point to vote for policies as a better way of deciding on your vote. The overall position consistently puts the Greens, Labour and the Liberal Democrats ahead and recently the Greens have surged. Many suggest this is indicative of the current green surge and whilst I’d like it to be so I’m not sure about using the data so uncritically. The picture for my constituency is totally at odds with what happened.

Some possible reasons for the difference and reasons to use Vote for Policies with caution include:

voters only discovered Vote for Policies after the 2010 election and had they had tools to help them separate the policies from the personalities they may have voted differently?
Vote for Policies is seen as interesting but mostly a bit of fun and established media and campaigns have much greater influence in voter decisions.
The sample size is small. Vote for Policies didn’t reach that many people previously but may play a bigger role in the coming 2015 election.
An online tool like this appeals only to a minority of voters in certain demographics. There is no demographic breakdown for the constituency or overall responses. Those advocating the tool are likely to be tech-savvy, media literate and used to obtaining their information from diverse sources. Do these really represent the core voters who turn out and decide elections?
The algorithm for calculating scores is only simply described on the FAQ page and is quite simple. Is this kind of averaging the best way to represent choices.
As far as I can see there is nothing to prevent people ‘gaming’ the system.
- In some cases it is blatantly obvious which party is which. The policies are compiled without editing except to remove party names. This is admirable as editing brings its own problems but different parties have quite distinctive language. Their rhetoric is still discernible in their policies even out of context. More neutral language would make it harder to distinguish part policies by their language. Given this someone could go through and simply vote for the policies they recognise from their party rather than make an “informed, biased choice”.
- There is nothing as far as I can see to stop people completing the survey multiple times to influence the results.

I also found it interesting to note that not everyone taking the survey is examining every issue. The issues that voters are selecting may tell us something about priorities with Health/NHS top with 404.2K votes followed by Education (392.1K) and the Economy (379.6K). Europe is least voted on (258.6K) so perhaps these agonised debates about the European Union have undue prominence. Bearing in mind the caveats above there are still little vignettes to chew over such as the Liberal Democrats leading on Democracy and reflecting on the possibilities for democratic reform they have squandered this parliament.

Going Forward

Whilst I want the Vote for Policies outcomes to be truly representative of how people would vote if they focused more on policies I am concerned that it’s not enough to hold up data that reflects your point of view and use it uncritically as a campaigning tool. Despite the prominence given to overall results on the site I’m also not sure this is the intended use of the tool.

The current Vote for Policies results. It looks good for the left but how representative is it?

There are too many caveats and questions about how the data is compiled. If Vote for Policies are hoping to be more powerful this time around, or at least tolerate use of their data for campaigning, they might need to address some of these and be more transparent about their data and maybe even open it up. Certainly if multiple survey completions by the same people can’t be prevented the data isn’t that representative generally and those using it as a kind of opinion poll should do so with caution.

Where Vote for Policies works best is in the particular: as a useful tool for individuals that aids the engaged voter review, compare and contrast all policies on a particular issue in one place.

Despite my reservations I do appreciate all the work the team behind Votes for Policies are putting in to help present information differently and making it simple and clear for voters to compare parties on key issues. I am looking forward to seeing how they refresh the site and the policies over the coming weeks.

I will take the survey again once it has been revised to see how my views change and to critically appraise the update. I’ll also continue to keep an eye on the overall data and how people use both the tool and data during the campaign.

Some Starting Views

January 21, 2015January 20, 2015 / Alison Pope

It should be obvious that my starting position is on the left political wing. I am a social democrat. I instinctively believe things the Left represent and in a reformist, slightly radical but not not revolutionary approach to achieving them.

Most people have a complex relationships with the political spectrum. You can support policies that come from a range of parties. Philosophically a key dimension of the political spectrum is the tension between the common good and individual good. Everyone wants what is best for themselves but how far are you willing to pursue this if it means harming others? How much should individual’s compromise in order to achieve a shared basic social compromise? These are some of the big questions that peek from behind the policies.

Filters and Lenses

Some of the things I believe in are:

I believe that we need to pay more attention to the environments and ecosystems we live in if we are to provide sustainable security for all. Not just in the short term but the security that comes from believing these things will exist in the long term. This is welfare in the large not the narrow-minded definition of welfare we’ve turned it into. Sustainable security comes from:
- having physical safety
- having enough food to eat
- having warmth and shelter
- being healthy
- having fulfilling work that receives respect and fair remuneration or benefit in kind
- having access to education
- having the opportunity to be active member of a community.
I believe mostly in pluralism and consensual approaches to increasingly complex problems.
I believe it is my patriotic duty and moral responsibility to make a shared contribution to the governance and infrastructure of this country. Pooling our resources makes the country better and safer for all of us and provides important protection for those in need whether they are businesses or individuals. We all have a responsibility to contribute to social and charitable provision as well as meet our individual needs and should do so for as long as we are able.
I think governments and politics need reforming but I also think that marketplaces need regulating.
I don’t think public or private are inherently better than the other. All large, old complex organisations have issues and both public and private organisations have important contributions to our society. Neither one should be vilified in general but should be innovated and improved in the particular.
I prefer the word we to them. Every time debates reduce an issue to “them and us” it has grossly over simplified a problem and closed off many potential solutions. I find it hard to think of scenarios where we don’t all have some responsibility for problems or ability to contribute to solutions.
I believe people should be paid a fair wage for a fair days work. That should be at least the legal minimum and the legal minimum should be a living wage.
I believe in individual freedom and individual responsibility but I also believe neither is absolute and governments exist to support the greater good. I think governance should be by many for many not by few for few.
I believe most strongly in the [universal declaration of human rights](http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/). This emerged from the darkness of war in the middle of the twentieth century and whenever I read it I think yes, this should guide us towards a sustainable future that ensures a better life for more people.

Voting Green 2015

At the moment my current voting intention in the UK 2015 general election is to vote for the Green Party. I’ve been a Green member for several years without being terribly active about it. I have mostly voted Labour all my life and was born into a strong Methodist, Socialist tradition. However, I think it is important that we have greater choice if politics is to continue being meaningful to people going forward. We should have 5 major parties in each constituent country and a vote for the Greens will make it clear that there is greater energy and diversity in than country’s left wing than First Past the Post tactical voting demonstrates.

That’s not to say I am lost to Labour. They just have to get off the fence and do better. Not in their policies but are usually better than the mediated interpretations give them credit for. No, the Labour party need to stop hedging their bets and tell better, more persuasive, more seductive stories about the power of social democracy.

To be honest I don’t think this is a great election to win. We have yet to reach rock bottom in this crisis and the full social effects of the austerity cuts to public services have yet to be felt in full. Better perhaps that they should be revealed under those who instigated them rather than a left wing coalition be caught in possession. My wish for May 2015 is that another Conservative led coalition or minority government forms narrowly sneaks in the face of a diverse left surge (featuring Labour, Green parties, SNP, Plaid Cymru) and staggers on until the nadir is reached and a no confidence vote is able to trigger dissolution. The left will hopefully be bold enough to finally seize its social democratic moment over this crisis and won’t be caught in a position where they will be too easily maneuvered into being responsible for austerity outcomes. We can but dream.

Asking Questions

However, this is my starting point. I don’t want my views to be fixed or dogmatic. Yes I will be using the blog to advocate for more left wing politics but I also want to use it as a space to genuinely interrogate modern UK politics both the policies and bigger philosophies were are grappling with and being asked to choose between. Most political party philosophies have faded from view as the technocratic demands of governance take over. Most were formed in order to practically implement strongly held philosophical beliefs. Gradually these have been eroded into the corporate platitudes of modern politics. One of the things that attracts me to the Green Party is it has a published philosophical basis that is both visionary and humble.

I think the biggest asset you can have in the world is an open and inquiring mind. Whilst I won’t be able to get away from the fact that my background and beliefs will always filter politics for me towards a certain bias an important aspect of civic participation is listening to the perspectives of others and attempting to understand views that aren’t your own.

Society is made up from all sorts of people and so a balanced view means taking account of all sorts of opinions. Of course I’m going to be more lenient towards left wing ideas and more critical of those further to the right but that’s why there are all sorts of other people with their blogs out their arguing the opposite. That is pluralism. That is politics.

Misgivings

January 20, 2015January 20, 2015 / Alison Pope

I also want to write something about why I haven’t been obviously and actively political; why in fact I’ve been put off.

It’s an awful thing to say but I’m actually scared. Yes that’s right in a modern, democratic country as citizens and leaders stand up for freedom of speech in the face of horrific violence I’m scared to say something meaningful because I’ve seen that women (and indeed men) having and articulating opinions, possibly contentious opinions, in public fora attracts abuse ranging from the patronising to the disgustingly violent.

Personally, I am more fearful of the boorish and bullying trolling that passes for public discourse and online debate in this country than I am of terrorist attack or ‘Sharia law taking over my country’. My country is already full of anti-social, vicious people shutting down views that don’t conform to theirs. Is this the freedom of speech we are defending?

I do occasionally fear acts of terrorism and vicious criminality but no more today than I did as a student in London in the 90s wondering where the IRA may strike or maybe a nail bomber who is not a fan of minorities. No more than I fear travelling home on a train later in the evening.

Yet as a mature, capable, intelligent, homosexual woman in 21st century Britain I do increasingly think

“actually I don’t want to put myself in a position where people seem to think it would be perfectly acceptable to sneer, bully, threaten and abuse me just for having an opinion or being a bit different. Why bother?”

That’s apathy based on fear of my ordinary fellow citizens not foreign extremists. The risk of me suffering a fatal terrorist attack is utterly unpredictable so I fear it less; the risk of me encountering distempered debate and personal abuse seems utterly predictable so I fear it more and am more altered by it.

People will say it’s not the same. Angry trolls respond with verbal barbs not guns; men who ask if you want to have sex with them on the train aren’t so scary; murderous ideologues are the only bad guys to fear because they are the worst. But that’s what terrorism is about isn’t it? Using fear in order to influence the behaviour of others not the actuality? Such relativism is a taxonomy of criminality, deviance from legal codes, not a measure of fear. Extremism’s very sensationalism makes it both more shocking and less likely than the more petty acts that insidiously feed my anxieties. I fear them all.

So yes, I’ve been practicing a form of self-censorship as an act of self protection. Then you reflect on people who are brave enough to stand up for what they believe in the face of violence and horror I cannot imagine and you realise, as many others have done before, that the insecurities of bullies will never be assuaged by appeasement.

My failure to participate becomes part of the failure of the Left, a failure of social democracy, a failure of pluralism, a failure of achieving a human civilisation that is safer and fairer for all and, failure to prevent unnecessary damage to the rich and precious ecosystem of our planet.

You have to be part of public debates if you want to change things however uncomfortable, difficult and even tedious at times that may be. I have to hope that talking about the world with others will turn out to be more polite, respectful and thoughtful than I fear.

Why Write a Political Blog?

January 19, 2015January 19, 2015 / Alison Pope

Simply because I wanted a space to engage more, think more and write more about social democratic politics. Because I want things to be different and that’s not going to happen unless people make it so. I believe, rightly or wrongly, that the current parliament has been regressive for the country. I think the left are better at managing the economy than common mythology has allowed and their policies are more effective than they have been given credit for.

Telling Stories

That is because politics is less about facts, less about the practical realities of ordinary lives and more about the subtle arts of persuasion: of being skilled at telling sublime stories, modern myths and the subtle rhetoric of making true become false and false become true. It’s frustrating if you want politics to be about facts because political discourse allows for no such thing. The facts are never allowed to speak for themselves and lies are encouraged to flourish.

Instead you find yourself in a world where the 2008 financial crash is said to be caused by those who were least involved and have been punished mostly harshly by the outcomes. You find those who gambled unwisely and took all the rewards carried no risk after all and continue thrive. You see those who provided the assets to prop up the financial sector roundly criticised for their profligacy. We will never know how a different government would have handled 2008 and what they would have done instead. We will never know how an economy that was already recovering in 2010 would have mended under a different government to the one we got in 2010. We do know the myths that have taken root to justify the blatant asset stripping of our state and subjugation of public sector and low paid workers.

It is not enough to act. It is not enough to cry unfair at blatant manipulation of the public record. It is not enough to complain about the Fourth Estate without leveraging social media in response. The left needs to find its voice and add intellectual weight and articulate stories itself to advocate and argue for what the left does.

Terrorism, Critical Theory and Politics

Then there was the horrific criminal attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo. The small-minded but deadly violence of that assault and related attacks was atrocious. Such blatant acts of violence and criminality are easy to condemn. There is no place for such assaults in our world.

The debates about freedom and responsibility that have been unleashed are harder to comprehend and form a position on. I have read many words about these attacks since that awful day in Paris and no doubt there are many more to come.

Some represent extremist views from the full spectrum of political and philosophical dogmas but others have been complex and more nuanced. It’s been worrying how easy it’s become to use this assault on free speech to shut down divergent views and open debate with variants of the line “ah but whatever our faults we don’t react with an AK47”. Whilst true, this kind of absolutism disallows any form of self-reflection, critical thought or opportunity for any of us other than the perpetrators to reform. The terrorists are not winning but neither are the disenfranchised. There are unfortunately no easy and simplistic answers to many of these questions.

I do know that to paint Western society as entirely perfect and liberal and Muslim society as entirely barbaric and conservative is the most ridiculously simplistic answer of all. All societies have their benefits, problems and violent outliers to different degrees. Different times suffer different wars. In our time many conflicts connect to Islamic insurgents though others don’t. I don’t pretend to understand the complexity of it all.

One article in particular stuck with me and that was by Slavoj Žižek in the New Statesman

In it he said:

“it is the right moment to gather the courage to think”

He traces the faultlines or violent, radical Islam and liberal Western responses through critical theory finally settling on Walter Benjamin to tie the failure to mobilise dissatisfaction in more constructive progressive ways to a failure of the Left to lead that way. Instead conservative voices, opportunist demagogues and violent radicals are seizing on dissatisfaction full not just of “passionate intensity” but also passionate insecurity.

Now you may not agree with his argument that the difference between permissive liberalism and Islamic fundamentalism is but the latest false dichotomy: false because they are both reactions to the same dissatisfaction and reactions to each other. They cannot exist without each other. You may also not agree with his view that “those who do not want to talk critically about liberal democracy should also keep quiet about religious fundamentalism”. I however don’t wish to tolerate radical Islam but nor do I wish to use its presence as an excuse to avoid taking a critical look at my own society.

Failings of the Left

It’s all too easy to react furiously and to blame others if the world is not as you would like it but the first thing to do is examine yourself before tackling the incomprehensible. Change can only and always start with yourself.

The rise of fundamentalist, perhaps violent, ideology of any variety will fill a vacuum left by the failure to offer any credible response to people who, rightly or wrongly, feel like they have a raw deal.

It’s hard for me to say it but since the post-WWII settlement I think the radical, reformist Left’s intellectual hinterland and it’s political appeal has been slowly seeping away.

The failure to change anything, anything, following the 2008 financial crash and the ability of others to turn that narrative into one of state spending culpability justifying unnecessary austerity and a vicious ideological slashing of the state that is iniquitous and damages whole swathes of our society is as big a defeat for social democracy as I’ve lived through.

I stood by and let it happen.

It should be impossible for any left leaning pluralist to ignore the siren screams of discrimination, corruption and violent crime. We won’t all participate in Politics on a grand stage but that doesn’t been we should abdicate our responsibilities to participate in our politics locally and/or and join debates about what is a better society, what is sustainable living in order to build it from the ground up. I believe that society and that lifestyle comes from social democratic politics so I should stand up for that.

Stand Up and Be Counted

The analysis on major parties by Ofcom showed that nor is it is not enough to have an opinion. You have to have an obvious and measurable opinion in the hyper mediated world. You don’t just have to stand up you have to stand up and be counted.

Their analysis of current support uses only opinion polls not party membership. Their analysis of elections considers not just elected representatives but share of the vote. If that is the case then protest votes and tactical votes become invisible. No vote is ever wasted if it means more media recognition that alternatives exist and people are willing to vote for them. That told me it was not enough to be against what I disagreed with but I had to more obviously and actively be for what I believe.

I certainly don’t agree the answer to disaffection with politics is to turn your back on it and not vote. If you don’t like it you have to do more. You can’t complain that all politicians are the same if you aren’t willing to represent difference.

All this led me to believe, despite my misgivings, I should do something, however small, to be a more democratic and engaged citizen and to represent and advocate social democracy in public discourse. So this is a start.

GreenFinch Song

Politics and society

Author: Alison Pope