Public Discourse

Letter to My MP

/ Alison Pope

I am increasingly concerned by the poor example this Government sets in its conduct, it’s lack of respect for the standards in public life and its use of numerous internal investigations to avoid independent scrutiny from public inquiries, the media, the courts and above all Parliament.

The Government seems to think the PM gave a fulsome apology yesterday. He did not. Nor have the many questions been answered. They were not answered in either PMQs or the UQ, they were not answered in the lobby briefing.

An internal investigation into the many reports of gatherings in Government contrary to the guidance the Government issued to the public is necessary but insufficient.

Ministers need to answer questions put to them by MPs in Parliament.

Their testimony should be fully transparent.

Civil servants may investigate the civil service for the purposes of internal disciplinary proceedings but they are not in a position to investigate ministers or make a judgement on the legality of their conduct.

A Government that prizes the sovereignty of Parliament above unelected bureaucrats should recognise that.

The high court ruling this week that the use of VIP procurement lines during covid was unlawful (and it seems also unnecessary) provides another recent example of why the calls for an independent public inquiry into the pandemic response should not just be heeded but be expedited. 

That investigators are not getting the evidence they need due to (mis-)use of private devices for Government business also needs investigating. There should also be an inquiry, including digital forensics, into the Government’s poor record keeping practices. The opaqueness of the evidentiary basis for these internal reports undermines their veracity and rigour.

I have no confidence in these internal investigations. I have no confidence that the Government has any intention of abiding by the ministerial code of upholding the standards of public life.

Our democracy depends on the checks and balances evolved over centuries across the Executive, Legislature and Judiciary. I fear this Government is fatally undermining these. 

Apparently, the only comment on the Government’s conduct that matters is the ballot box. I shall use my vote accordingly.

On … Seeking Refuge

/ Alison Pope

Letter to Dr Philip Lee MP on the Refugee Crisis September 2015. Updated 2020.

This long letter is really just a short request to support a parliamentary debate on the refugee crisis.

War. climate, and human trafficking are undoubtedly wicked problems that will not be solved simply or quickly. However that is no excuse for facing them with indifference, hostility and a lack of compassion.

I find it disappointing that since coming to power the present government has celebrated aspiration and the levelling up of disadvantaged communities whilst advocating a Global Britain open to the world, yet condemns those who look to our country as a means to escape hostile environments and a place to seek a better life.

I can think of nothing more shameful than wanting to be a hostile environment for people seeking help. This seems to me neither decent nor Christian.

The answer may not be to take ever more refugees or migrants but it is also certainly not to do nothing or to assume that those approaching our country mean harm. The long term solution is of course to tackles the causes of displacement and engines of migration, but that does not mean that distress and desperation manifested by global problems can just be ignored or repelled is the meantime.

Whilst many people may not want to encourage or welcome entrants to our country, especially those entering illegally, many of us do recognise there are myriad situations that prompt migration and recognise the right to seek asylum, to seek work. Some people will see illegality as evidence of criminality, others may see it more sympathetically as a symptom of unbearable desperation. Law and order is guaranteed by states; it is not always available to the stateless or the subdued.

Yet these differences perhaps mask a common sense that unsafe passage is in some way intolerable and upholding the right of all individuals to state protection, legal recognition and justice is a shared goal.

Whatever our personal feelings and ethics, we, as a nation have a duty, a legal and moral duty, to acknowledge their arrival and process claims correctly and courteously. We do not have the right to judge, diminish, insult or reject people whose circumstances we do not know and whose lives we can barely imagine.

Of course, our altruism must be tempered with pragmatism. However, we are nowhere near the point where a greater response on our part would jeopardise the prosperity and security of this country and its citizens.

Even if we were at our limit, there is no reason our policies cannot be implemented with courtesy rather than degradation, our limits enforced with regret and onward support not indignation.

Even if we think the solutions should come from elsewhere, and other countries should pull more weight, we are only answerable for ourselves and the tone of our response. We have faced much sterner challenges than accommodating asylum seekers and have responded with great ingenuity and fortitude.

Our country would not be what it is if others had said they had no more to spare in our times of need and war. As others stood with us in darker times so we should stand with them today.

One of the greatest achievements to come from one of the darkest and deadliest times the world has ever seen was the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We should certainly not forget that global co-operation and the recognition of the validity of every human life is what we fought for.

Forgetting the “inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family” is something we should all resist just as we should condemn and not contribute when “disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind” (The Universal Declaration of Human Rights)

I would welcome a debate in parliament on the UK response to the increasing numbers of asylum seekers. I am proud of the existing work government, non-government agencies and our armed services are already doing to assist refugees and I would be even prouder of this country if, even in these straitened times, we were to stand up and do even more. I believe we can.

I would like to hear the voice of the refugees more in the debate, because we presume too much about those arriving at our shores, their motives and their effects. It should not be beyond the capability of some of the most advanced countries in the world to enable those voices to be heard so we can truly understand why they are fleeing and what conditions would enable them to thrive in their own countries, particularly for those who fled reluctantly from their homes.

Only then, when we listen, understand and involve them rather assuming we know where they have come from, what they are seeking and what is best for them can we get beyond a simplistic and toxic discourse. Only then can we draw on the wealth and great minds available in this world to make our way towards some sort of more stable solution for as many people as possible. To find solutions that work for and allay the fears of those who are domiciled and those who are displaced: the rooted and the routed.

We cannot and should not shut our doors and isolate ourselves from the world as though those suffering are not there and we have no part to play in either the problems or the solutions. We should not exempt ourselves from the difficult task of building a more prosperous and sustainable future for all who share this planet. This cannot always be done at arms length.

It is easy as an individual to think there is little I can do personally, that my voice makes little difference. It is easy to retreat, to try and avoid the news and get on with my own life. It’s easy to react too hastily to the provocations of social media. It is easy to feel helpless and powerless. It’s easy to be angry. It’s easy to say this isn’t my problem. It’s hard to understand and to know what actions will make a difference, hard to devote time, money and energy to doing them and hard to have patience and hope.

But it’s no longer possible for me not to see the growing suffering beyond our shores nor the desperation of those trying to reach us. It’s no longer possible for me to ignore the demeaning language and degrading treatment that is directed at migrants by some of us. Having seen, I cannot in good conscience simply stand by and accept this.

I am urging you to recognise that there are members of the public in this country and your constituency who would like to see this matter tackled with less hostility. I ask for your support in seeing the crisis debated in parliament soon to discuss both short-term relief and concerted leadership on the long-term, joined-up commitment solving these intractable problem will require.

I know not everyone will agree with the sentiments in this letter.  This is a difficult subject that arouses strong opinions all round.  That’s why we have parliaments and councils so our grievances are channelled not at each other but into a democratic process that works towards consensus on how we should act and proceed.

If you disagree first check the facts, a range of viewpoints and come to your own conclusions. The sharing of sensationalist anecdote and hearsay on social media helps no one and harms many.

Then feel free to write your own thoughts in your own letter to your MP or on your own blog so that should when we get into debate it can be an informed, respectful and representative one. Don’t feel free to hurl abuse at people who may have a different opinion to you. There is no freedom, no right to do that.

If you are as frustrated and saddened as I am at the number of people forcibly displaced from their homes, the amount of senseless violence in supposedly civilised societies and the way we treat and speak of people experiencing adversity then there are things you can do, some of them quite easy.

Above all let us reflect that both the journeys of those who come here and the anxieties of those who live here are rooted in the same, shared desire to protect ourselves and forge a better life for our families.

So, whilst we may at times disagree, let’s not forget our common humanity and let’s act with dignity and decency.

The Curious Case of the BBC Licence Fee

/ Alison Pope

Access to information and entertainment, provided via the BBC and public libraries as a universal basic service, is important. Not just to educate, inform and entertain as per the BBC’s Reithian mission but vital to maintain the bonds that underpin the imagined community of our nation. The fragmented alternative of personalised subscription media choices would diminish both our national cultural capital and soft power.

As streaming services proliferate either the cost to an individual subscriber of ‘keeping up’ goes up or their choice becomes more limited. How many could afford to subscribe to several services? Given how important it was in the general election, how many lack the broadband capacity for reliable streaming? Never mind the data processing we have to consent to in order to consume streaming media as opposed to free to air broadcasts.

It is easy for those who can afford premium services and have access to premium infrastructure to think that universal basic services don’t matter and the market will fill the gap. Once such a principle is selectively established then it is easily then applied to services such as education, transport, health or waste. The questions as to whether they are necessary in the present form, what are the alternatives and who pays apply to any current public service. Why should the NHS be sacrosanct rather than be funded by personal insurance like other instances of risk protection? Yes it deals in life or death matters but hopefully each individual uses it sparingly rather than most days. If the BBC is unnecessary why not also public libraries now that the world has moved on and their services are available at cost elsewhere?

No other broadcaster provides the same range and diversity of the BBC’s multichannel output in a single place never mind the innovation of the BBC’s R&D department and the training the BBC Academy provides to the media industry. I think our media sector would be poorer in a pure free market than with the current mixed economy of commercial and public sector broadcasters funded by various methods with the BBC as keystone. Perhaps there are legitimate questions about whether the BBC, like any public service, should pay salaries at the market rate, and whether non-payment of the licence fee should be a civil rather than criminal offence, but those is a different issues to how it should be funded. The BBC is a remarkably good value national asset given all that it does for its cost of less than £3 a week per household.

That our national broadcaster is funded by licence fee not general taxation does allow those who do not wish to have a TV or use iPlayer to opt out of paying. Just like anyone who doesn’t use a car doesn’t have to pay VED. Both are similar systems and it’s an offence to avoid paying them if you access the infrastructure.

However, 95% of households still have a TV (down only 3%), 85% watch live TV, evasion has declined and the proportion of complaints about TV licensing halved to 0.05% (Source: Parliament House of Commons Library Briefing on TV Licensing, January 2019). Perhaps the world is moving on but it doesn’t seem to have yet.

This strikes me as something, like Europe, that is currently a non-issue for most people but risks becoming an issue if those few who are strongly against the BBC succeed in turning it into another divisive and unnecessary culture war.

All That Remains

/ Alison Pope

So here we are. The United Kingdom has left the European Union, the joint political and governmental institutions of Europe. Accepting the reality of this situation is not the same as liking it.

It pains me that we have rejected principles of cooperation and mutualism. It annoys me that the left defended these principles so poorly and chose a more parochial oath. It bewilders me that a right that lauds our own union of nations and that of American states and a left that lauds unions and cooperatives as beneficial organising methods should both abandon a noble attempt to scale-up unionism as an alternative to warfare. It saddens me that for the first time in my life I woke up this morning with fewer rights than I had before. It concerns me I still don’t know what exactly those rights have been sacrificed for or what will gilt this heralded national golden age.

I remain a Brexitsceptic.

I hope to be proved wrong. I hope we succeed, despite my doubts, in thriving as an independent trading nation forging peace, prosperity and friendship with all nations. I’d happily be as wrong about Brexit as those doomsters and gloomsters who thought wind turbines wouldn’t pull the skin off a rice pudding were about our ability to generate renewable energy. I want to believe in the promise of great things to come but I need more substance to the optimism.

We remain though, European.

Not just geographically, but rooted in the fundamental and enduring values of liberty, equality and solidarity. Along with 46 other countries we are members of the Council of Europe, the organisation founded by the Treaty of London in 1949 to uphold human rights, democracy and the rule of law.

Today is both much the same and yet fundamentally different in as yet unseen ways. All these facts and feelings need to be wrangled into a new way of being.

So Long Status Quo

I’m someone who wants the EU to exist, wants to be part of it but also wasn’t entirely uncritical of it. Like any complex system its both good and flawed. Like many people I wanted the EU to become leaner, more democratic and agile albeit in unspecified ways. I was supportive of that journey even if fraught and slow and bedevilled by crisis. What large-scale project isn’t?

When the choice was between leaving and continuing our bespoke membership I found it easy to be a remainer.

I thought the UK’s bespoke membership was a good deal for us. Negotiated over decades it made the best of this all-round scepticism and has bought us a large measure of peace, prosperity and productivity for limited concessions. It was home. It was worth fighting for. We may find out we did indeed never have it so good.

However, when polled in the referendum, a majority, albeit slim, disagreed and were not persuaded that the benefits of membership outweighed the constraints. We have been negotiating the consequences of that mandate ever since and probably will be for many years to come.

During the Article 50 negotiating period I continued to argue for the merits of our existing deal by probing the suggested alternatives and pressing for a specific, single option to be compared with the status quo. For me the 2016 referendum was a matter of principles and I advocated for a second one to consider the practicalities. Given there is no recorded majority for any single option (leave encompasses several alternatives to membership), the unanswered question remains: what is the people’s second preference?

In a democracy, we contest then live with our collective decisions. Now the Article 50 process has concluded those arguments are moot, mute. A new phase begins.

Still, The Europe Question

This is a transformative moment for Europe too. Losing a member state for the first time, approaching the end of the stabilising Merkel era, grappling with the macro forces of migration, climate and technology, the destabilising geopolitics of Trump’s foreign policy, the threat of trade and information warfare along with Middle Eastern conflict and faltering neoliberalism and rising populism in political ideology.

The remaining members could find that the tensions of the EU’s murky statehood are unsustainable and unreconcilable. Does the EU represent a shared Europe or a single Europe?

The institutions of the EU are feeling the strain but they also have their own opportunity for renewal and redirection. There is a new Parliament and Commission and a new set of strategic priorities. I hope the EU finds a way towards social democratic principles and sustainability under the auspices of initiatives like the European Green Deal.

Like it or not, these are no longer questions for us but they remain inherent in the European Union project.

Given our ambiguous position a stark choice between europhilia (ever closer union) and hard euroscepticism (complete exit from EU jurisdiction) perhaps had to be faced but was in fact never even on the table in the referendum debate of the last three years (as far as I’m aware remainers were campaigning for the status quo or evolutionary reform not a switch to standard EU membership).

I’m not entirely sure what I would choose if being British European meant opting form standard membership rather than continuing to muddle along as we were. We’ve always been bespoke European, not all-in. Brexit has made it clear that many people choose sovereignty even over economy. That’s why I find it hard to see a movement to rejoin any time soon as surely that way both greater pressure towards standard membership and fraught debates on the EU’s direction of travel lie. Finding a UK majority for that is I suspect a long time and/or a lot of pain away.

The campaigns of the last three years have been about getting Brexit done, not about what comes next. The referendum of 2016 set the course to this point but it neither asked what should come next nor decided on the alternative(s) to EU membership. We’ve effectively ruled out three options but haven’t definitively decided on a way forward yet though the likeliest is some form of bilateral agreement.

Table: Models of relationship to the European Union

This next stage, negotiating a new British and Northern Irish identity, a new way of operating and new ways of trading internationally begins now and will take years to complete and is without a definitive mandate. This is the debate we move onto and it’s one that doesn’t belong to leave or remain, but to all of us.

With the first two of these models, those concerning varieties of EU membership, now firmly ruled out, fulfilling the 2016 referendum mandate, the question remains which of the alternatives should, will, form the basis of the future relationship with Europe? We face months, maybe years, having done Brexit but still debating the ‘reverse Swiss’ or the ‘Canada plus’ or the ‘cliff edge’ of no-deal. The people now have no say; the Government will decide.

They have to figure out what a new relationship with Europe looks like, how that fits with other trading opportunities and how to fairly share the costs and benefits of this path. This will take long and painstaking diplomacy and a period of adjustment. The trade offs and tough decisions involved haven’t gone away just because the bells tolled (or not) on Brexit day.

Replacing EU, So Much To Do

I’m not going to stop stop challenging the assumptions, policies and tactics of Brexit as a strategy or the Government’s delivery, probity and integrity just because we’ve reached the implementation stage. It’s even more important to do so now. After all we have so much to do now to make this work and there’s only the sketch of a plan.

The recent triumphalism seems premature when not only do we need to replace all that our EU membership provided, the trade, the science, the security, the structural funding, but there is the pressing domestic agenda needed to repair a crumbling public realm neglected by austerity in order to provide homes, jobs, education, opportunity and care more equitably along with levelling up regionally and economically and sharing the Brexit dividend around fairly.

The New Conservatives now in Government have to move on from the slogans and nail the specifics to deliver on all its promises for this so-called golden age. We can help but they must lead and act on their words. No excuses. No evading scrutiny.

It’s tempting for those of us who think this is the wrong course of action to continue to protest, look for the worst and stand like a chorus of Cassandras as the country moves on. I think this would be a mistake. Given we cannot prophecy the future it risks chauvinism when we need stoicism. Our critique needs to be pertinent not petty. We need to participate not just protest and do our best to both guard against hubristic jingoism and make sure our own misrerabilist predictions don’t become a reality.

We need to help forge this new place in the world if we want it to be something we can celebrate. We have to push for close partnership with our European neighbours based on our common values and objectives whilst exploring new opportunities elsewhere. Find ways to continue to be bespoke Europeans, members of the Commonwealth, global operators and distinctively, proudly British.

Above all we need to focus ruthlessly and relentlessly on what really matters: that people get the homes, sustenance, work, environments, communities and care they need in ways that are respectful to all the life our planet sustains.

Seizing the Opportunity

After all neither Brexit or EU membership are ends; they are means.

Systems thinking leads to another conclusion, however, waiting, shining, obvious, as soon as we stop being blinded by the illusion of control. It says that there is plenty to do, of a different sort of “doing”. The future can’t be predicted, but it can be envisioned and brought lovingly into bring. Systems can’t be controlled, but they can be designed and redesigned. We can’t surge forward with certainty in a world of no surprises, but we can expect surprises and learn from them and even profit from them. We can’t impose our will on a system. We can listen to what the system tells us, and discover how its properties and our values can work together to bring forth something better than could ever be produced by our will alone. We can’t control systems or figure the out. But we can dance with them.[^1]

The means may have changed but the ends of liberal, ethical and social democracy remain the same: a society that is free, fair, equal and sustainable

However way you look at Brexit this is a transformative moment for our country. Such moments are disruptive but also provide the opportunity for radical renewal. We shouldn’t cede that ground. We can use this moment to regenerate, innovate and lead the way towards a new political economy that finds prosperity and peace in being socially just and ecologically sound.

These goals remain as important today as they were yesterday. So we have to roll up our sleeves, elbow our way into mapping out this new direction and change the narrative.

References

[^1] Donella Meadows, Thinking In Systems. 2008. pp. 169-170

Cover Image: Britannia by Tom Purvis

Turning the Kaleidoscope

/ Alison Pope

2020 will be an interesting year, maybe even a pivotal one.

Things have tilted but understanding how all the fragments will rearrange themselves has only just begun; it will take at least a year for the contours of our new political reality to reform.

The status quo is in flux. There is no remaining where we are, no going back and all attention is now on a future as yet only imagined, willed and feared in equal measure.

Change is a disorienting force that disrupts the present, chewing up the comfort of the familiar and churning out strong emotions that favour prejudice over critical thinking. We are quick to presume and preempt, to judge things based on expectation or preference rather then events or evidence. To suspect is not to know.

I don’t know how Boris Johnson will govern as a Prime Minister with a comfortable majority.

I don’t know when the scourge of austerity will be over.

I don’t know how we will trade with other nations in future or the economic impact.

I don’t know the implications of a resurgent right.

I don’t know how liberalism or the left will regather and renew.

I don’t know how we will arrest and adapt to accelerating environmental stress and ecological degradation.

I don’t know how we will recognise and respond to increasingly sophisticated information disorder.

The shape of these will become more discernible as the year unfolds. They will not be the unmitigated triumphs or disasters we immediately augur in the breaking up of things. The world usually turns out more complicated and nuanced than that. They will though be what we allow to come to pass.

As these things fall into place we can wish for the best whilst fearing the worst. We can choose amity over enmity. We can hold all that we have in common closely and our disagreements more loosely. We can endeavour to pay attention and reject chauvinism. We can question but keep an open mind. We can campaign without becoming too comfortable with certainty or prophecy. We can hold to account without raising false alarm. We can celebrate success and censure failure. We can make the political less personal. We can pause to ask whether claims are substantiated before considering a response or succumbing to the emotions they arouse. We can strategise without scorn and scrutinise without being scathing. We can seek out facts buried under dissembling and distracting misconceptions. We can favour specific, justified critique over sweeping generalisation. We can be purposeful but mindful of hubris. We can back our words with practical action.

Otherwise, instead of linking the chain of events to alternative arguments going forward, we will simply be buffeted by the storm of progress like Walter Benjamin’s Angelus Novus, seeing only wreckage rising skywards as we are irresistibly propelled into a future to which our back is turned.

It is ultimately less exhausting and more enjoyable to amplify the world we want to see than to perpetually lament the ones we don’t. So keep looking for beauty and opportunity in the tumble of events. We should be sceptical and diligent but also hopeful as these new patterns shift and settle.

—

Image by H. Pellika CC-BY-SA source: Wikimedia Commons

Rooted/Routed

/ Alison Pope

How the spaces of place and flows are realigning politics.

After four tumultuous years the European question may finally be settled for the UK in 2020 albeit not fully resolved. Beyond the foremost question of Europe lie the threads and consequences of a political realignment we can barely discern.

We don’t yet know what will happen on election day but it’s worth thinking about what’s happening and what might come next. For me, the most interesting and determinative question in the next Parliament may be how well the Brexit coalition can hold together and to what ends? The broader question is how will politics reconfigure around the realigned outlooks and revised ambitions of the shifting groupings within remain and leave once Brexit is concluded one way or the other?

Roots and Routes

First it’s worth thinking about how the remain and leave coalitions are constituted and how traditional party affiliations have been fractured under the demands of the network society. There are many existing social classifiers that provide lenses on political affiliation such as employment, income, religion, age, ethnicity and education. I’ve been thinking about these can be augmented by borrowing and adapting Castells’ idea of spaces of place and spaces of flows and our relationship to them.

Spaces of place are more fixed, both geographically and by identification with enduring imagined communities. Spaces of flows are more kinetic and mutable; they are the financial, logistical and information networks that connect and circulate.

These concepts allow us to consider the way people are rooted in place and how they are routed by flows as further facets of social classification. People’s political alignment can be influenced by both their affinity for place and their access to flows and this might help explain some of the potential shifts in this election. I think this leads to six broad groupings in the network society that political parties are attempting to organise into a majority.

The Remain Coalition

Remainers are a coalition of two broad groups.

They are the social democrats and conservative/christian democrats: the centre left and centre right of European liberal democracy. The political power they have traded between them throughout the decades of European membership has withered leaving them adrift, bewildered and uncertain but they have found it harder to leave their traditional political boundaries and come together in common cause than leavers.

What remainers do have in common is they are mostly are routed in flows having a more globalist outlook but it’s a globalism that is rooted in a European identity. They live in cities and their metropolitan hinterlands stretching out into well connected villages but they have failed to fully realise the distinctiveness of place or the inclusiveness of flows never mind integrate them into a persuasive whole.

They like the world as it is, it works well for them, so have been motivated to do little more than preserve and extend the status quo and pursue incremental progress. They are beginning to recognise this may not be enough for local community, environmental sustainability and social justice and the space of flows may not be the unalloyed good they thought, having unintended consequences for places, but they are unsure how (radically) to respond.

The Leave Coalition

Leavers seem to be a coalition of three broad groups.

There are those that are firmly rooted in place, having been left behind or chosen to stay behind a more globalist world. These places are Britain’s towns: former industrial hubs, fading seaside resorts, the empty markets and exchanges of the shires, places no longer bustling but hollowed out and disconnected. These are the places Brexiteers and Lexiteers want to protect and revive in the comforting embrace of national pride, solidarity and industry. They want more control over the space of flows. Their lives and their loyalties are increasingly precarious and their votes are increasingly crucial to swing elections.

Their opposites are the libertarian free trading globalists who want to open up Britain even more finding flows that go far beyond Europe and reach even further into every part of our national infrastructure including those services still in public hands. Place and time collapse and blur. Their world is one where Britain (at least its major cities) thrives as a global broker of powerful flows of goods, services, knowledge and money. A world where there are few if any protections only opportunities, where corporations rival national governments, and if you rise to the top you must be the cream.

Sitting slightly in between these positions are the Atlanticist and Anglospherists. They value close connections with former dominions such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand and above all the special relationship with the USA. They are the twins of remainers in that they too take advantage of the space flows but differ in that their globalism is rooted in a commonwealth identity, tinged perhaps even with a nostalgia for English-speaking empire.

The Eco Coalition

It’s worth mentioning one other grouping that is increasingly significant but doesn’t weigh too heavily on the present remain/leave organising binary of Brexit politics.

This is the radical green movement, the protectionist but progressive globalists. They are the antithesis of the free marketers: seeking commons not capital in the space of flows. To them the world is both routed and rooted by its materiality: a space where biological, ecological, social and informational systems intersect and where place and flow intermingle.

They are idealistic, mostly young, small in size but growing. They want both connections and protections for all at planetary scale but struggle to find a route to power through traditional local, national, corporate and multilateral structures so their influence, whilst increasing, remains diffuse.

Finding a Majority

To govern the United Kingdom you need a majority. Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn have each attempted to form a majority that negotiated leave and remain, space and flows by trying to unite remainer democrats with the nationalist precariat (in May’s case with the commonwealth and in Corbyn’s case the climate coalition) with visions for one-nation centrism and radical socialism respectively. So far this hasn’t quite worked.

Boris Johnson’s strategy is different: focus on holding the leave coalition together as long as possible by talking about the future as little as possible beyond immediate objectives to get Brexit done and invest modestly in the key areas of health, education, crime and defence that may also appeal to wavering Conservative remainers.

Despite having very different motivations, these three groups In the leave coalition have coalesced effectively around one short-term aim, leaving the European Union, and are prepared to work together to achieve it. We’ll find out soon whether this focus proves to be electorally successful (again).

If Brexit is achieved though, their unifying force dissipates and it would be interesting to see how the differences between them can be reconciled and how both the rooted and routed can be satisfied.

If not, what will win out: the space of place or of flows?

On the struggle ahead

/ Alison Pope

It’s fair to say I’ve spent much of this week dismayed.  I feel saddened that it is principles rather than blatant wrong doing that are now seen as the barrier to success.  That what matters ever more fiercely is who you know not what you know.   That we seem to have become a nation more fervently intent on abandoning a confederation of neighbours our representatives have helped shape in the hope of favour from a more remote federal union where our emissaries are unelected and we cannot hold power to account.

It’s a very feudal form of democracy.

There’s a debilitating impasse at the centre of our politics and the hard right have grasped their opportunity to smash through it with their new mythology of Global Britain.  The far right succeed when they are allowed to by a weakening of representative democracy. Such politics only becomes seductive to beyond a tiny minority when people despair of all the other options.  It is a politics of last resort.  The far right’s ability to get a grip on power can then become terrifyingly absolute.  We cannot let that happen.  We cannot languish in the politics of despair and protest.

Despite my opposition to their politics I cannot help but acknowledge their ability to persuade.  They are successful because they have a better story, even if it’s a fairytale.  They are successful because they have persuading enough people that this is their story too.

There are things to learn from this.

The Power of Hope

We can criticise this axis of cronyism all we like, but it won’t change anything unless the many factions to the left of this hard right government tell a better story about their vision for Britain.

The stream of outrage, the cataloguing of wrong dong and the calls to resist are all cathartic but aren’t creative or compelling enough to persuade.  The terrain for the upcoming struggle is the pathos of hope.

Logos, ethos and the pathos of fear have all proved ineffective. We shouldn’t abandon these but the left needs to find a louder narrative of possibility again.

To compete we need to be as good at communication as the populist right are.  Only without the corruption.  We can build a network as powerful through community and cooperation, through scale rather than wealth or privilege.  We need not (just) the politics of resistance or a list of popular policies but our own mythology of hope.

We need a story that helps people to imagine there are better choices.  A story that inspires joy and confidence.  A story of opportunities to build something together, to be something together.  A story that draws people in and they want to tell to their family, friends and neighbours.

The Disappointments of Labour

Labour had the pathos of hope, in 2017, but have somewhat carelessly lost it.  I think their Leaver base would have forgiven Labour continuing to advocate for Remain (their referendum position) if they had continued to tell the great story they were weaving about their alternative to the status quo.  It is not undemocratic for an opposition to continue to oppose and to make different arguments about the direction of the future.

I still think Labour made a tactical error here, alienating too many of their pro-European base whilst muffling their narrative of hope and diminishing their policy platform that appealed to all their supporters.  Their message now only reaches their hard core and their support has retreated as their vision has shrunk in potency.  More to the point the hostility of their delivery is alienating.

Labour continue to acquiesce to a flawed referendum rather than advocate for continued scrutiny of that decision.  Yet Labour also continue to call for a general election despite coming second in 2017.  We may have a hung Parliament and a minority administration but Labour’s gains do not hide the fact they are not the largest party and seem unwilling to work with others to form a viable alternative government in this Parliament.  Nor do they seem inclined to even use all the talents across their party.  Why must the will of the people in a referendum be respected but not their will in a general election?  The repeated refrain calling for an election without changing the narrative sounds increasingly forlorn.  Their moment may still come and their approach revealed as political genius but it too often leaves me thinking if not now then when?  It fess like Labour are simply reacting to rather than shaping the political moment.

Labour could have, could even still, choose a different path.  They could have forged a socialist alliance across Europe as part of PES whilst the EU provided enough of an establishment veneer to allay fears of revolutionary socialism in one country amongst the more moderate centre left.  It feels like the European Parliament elections, that symbolic failure of Brexit was the moment to pivot and embrace the possibilities of European socialism.  I’m sure many of us might have returned to the mood of 2017 and swung behind a European left energised by Frans Timmermans and Jeremy Corbyn.  Instead their hesitance and reluctance to consider any alternative to the strategy they have become wedded to created space for the Liberals and Greens to surge.

How do Labour inspire now?  We all know that Labour have appealing policies that could command support.  It’s the package that’s lacking.  Mired in constructive ambiguity and accusations of anti-semitism and communicating in an increasingly petulant and tetchy way.  This is politics with a scowl not a smile.  It’s no wonder many will overlook the failings of Boris to grab at the optimism peddled by Prime Minister Johnson and his Vote Leave machine.  The left equivalent has soured and needs a refresh.

The Mediocre Vision of the Centre

Many centrists are coalescing around the Liberal Democrats rather than the many attempts at launching a new party for the middle ground.  Their message of Stop Brexit is at least clear and succinct enough to resonate but it begs the question, what then?

So far their vision is incredibly conservative, more so than the newly radicalised Conservatives.  If there is a party of the status quo it is now the Liberal Democrats and they expect to attract moderates from both the centre left and centre right as a result but it is hard to see them attracting any leavers or socialists from the populists wings.  The restoration of the status quo is not going to attract that constituency who decisively rejected it.

The politics of neo-liberal globalism are tired and demonstrably unfair.  If the liberal centre is to Stop Brexit they need to explain what lies on the other side.  It can’t be to Remain.  It has to be renew, but so far there are few signs of what that renewal might look like.

There are so many questions we’ve failed to answer with panache.  What does it mean to be an EU member, now and in the future? Why is it best for Britain? How would things change?   How do people get their voices heard?  How do people get to make decisions about their own communities when power feels so remote? How do we be British, European and globalist?

The answers to these questions don’t come easily to me  despite looking closely for them, because I’ve heard too few conversations that really deliberate them in a representative way.  Surrounded by more radical and transformational alternatives, the moderate challenge is to find inspiration from within a system no majority no longer support.  It’s a rearguard action that lacks a future direction.

The Potential of the Green New Deal

The best possibility I can see  for a new mythology on the left that can compete with the Global Britain of the right is the emerging narrative around a Green New Deal.  Which is probably why its proponents are facing such fierce attacks from right wing populists.

This idea takes on two of the biggest challenges we face, a rapidly deteriorating environment and automating economy, and attempts to solve them through a transformative political economy of sustainability and social justice.  It’s a story about healthier and happier people connected and enriched by stewardship of their shared planet.

It’s the kind of bold, radical and co-operative vision the centre left needs, but it remains too technocratic at the moment to have broad, emotional ‘gut’ appeal.  However, momentum is gathering and with growing cross-party support it could urgently be developed into an alternative vision of a fair, creative, inclusive and connected country, infused with imagination, optimism, kindness and compassion that tells an inviting, joyful story about the green and pleasant commons of Britannia United.

We should not stop holding the government to account or pointing out the flaws of the populist right but we do need to spend less of our energy on demeaning arguments and tetchy tribalism and devote more of our efforts to the common ground of designing, negotiating and communicating an alternative vision that amplifies the world we want to see.  The story of us.

Our future: a question for the people

/ 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

/ 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 →

Vote for Policies 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