UKIP members of Parliament

By members of Parliament I do not mean just MPs but peers as well who are members though not of the elected House. I am not going to argue in this posting about the need for a non-elected House as well as an elected one in order to keep some kind of a constitutional order even now when we are members of the European Union and, especially, once we are out of it.

As we saw in the General Election in May UKIP came third with 3,881,099 votes that constituted 12.6 per cent of the vote in a turn-out that may have been the highest since that fateful 1997 election but was still only 66.1 per cent. For that UKIP got one seat and there is a great deal of understandable dissatisfaction around.

It is impossible to discuss matters rationally with most members of that party as too many of them belong to the Farage Cult but the truth is that UKIP conducts elections and political campaigns as a Continental party - it is all about the party and the leader not the local candidate. These may crop up from time to time but they are given less pictorial space on UKIP leaflets than the Dear Leader. All too often one does not even know who they are. I consider myself to be something of a political geek but I did not know who the UKIP candidate was in my constituency until two days before the election.

We are getting some (ever less) traction in the demands for an electoral reform to some form of PR system but that is not very likely to happen any time soon. It is, as it happens highly entertaining to hear the left-wing anti-austerity demonstrators shouting for it. Had we had PR this time round we would have now had a Conservative/UKIP government with possible support from the DUP though, obviously, there is no reason to suppose that people would vote exactly the same way under a different system. Now, I could actually live with that government but what would the lefties say? They are convinced that UKIP is the epitome of all that is right-wing and, therefore, evil. (Actually they are not either but a rather muddled statist, socialist and protectionist party who seem to have morphed themselves into the Labour Party of the 1950s.)

The point is that four years ago we had a referendum on the question of the electoral system and the people of this country voted quite decisively in favour of keeping the first past the post system. Is UKIP recommending that we should keep asking people over and over again at not very long intervals until we get the answer they want? There is another organization out there that takes the same attitude and the fact that UKIP and it (let it remain nameless) have a similar attitude to the People's Voice, despite being the "People's Army" proves what I said above: UKIP is essentially a Continental party in its political behaviour.

Which brings me to the question of House of Lords membership. There are now three UKIP peers and not one of them was appointed as such - they left the Conservative Party and lined up under UKIP colours. The question is should this be rectified or should we go on acquiring endless Lib-Dem peers even though their support in the country has collapsed. This is of particular interest since the Lib-Dems have long been in favour of an elected Upper House or, at the very least, one that somehow reflected electoral preferences. Will they now resign most of their seats and let UKIP have them? Is that a squadron of piglets I see taking off?

Lord Pearson of Rannoch has been asking questions on the subject as can be read on page 7 of this document.

Question no 1 was:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they plan to address the disparity in representation in the House of Lords between the Liberal Democrats and Ukip, in the light of their respective shares of votes in the recent General Election.

Question no 2 was:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they plan to recommend more Liberal Democratic peerages to Her Majesty the Queen; if so, why; if not, why not.

Question no 3 was:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they plan to recommend any Ukip peerages to Her Majesty the Queen; if so, why; and if not, why not.

As it happens the Labour peer, Lord Campbell-Savours also showed himself interested in whether there are going to be any more Lib-Dem peers:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether the proportionality objective on appointments to the House of Lords as set out in the agreement made by the governing parties in the 2010–15 Coalition agreement remains an objective for Her Majesty's Government over the next five years.

A good question. The situation has changed somewhat.

HMG is not committing itself to anything as Baroness Stowell of Beeston made clear:

Appointments are a matter for the Prime Minister. Any appointments will be vetted for propriety by the House of Lords Appointments Commission.

Something of a conundrum for the PM, I would say, given those electoral results. Of course, he could appoint lots of Cross-Bench peers or, even better, declare a moratorium on any more appointments for the rest of this government's existence but, somehow, I do not think he will do either of those.

So, any suggestions as to who should be the first appointed UKIP peers?

OK, let's discuss

There have been so many comments and analyses of those election and referendum results that I see no point in doing more than adding a few thoughts that might be interesting to discuss. I was going to post a link to UKIP results but as of Saturday afternoon, the website had not been updated and the news items were still about what had been said during the campaign.

By Saturday evening there was a piece about Young UKIP's results but still no proper tabulation of all candidates, votes and positions. For the time being, therefore, we shall abandon that subject, mayhap to return to it when whoever runs UKIP's website gets his (or her) act together.

It is always difficult to write about local elections and draw any conclusions from them because the results tend to depend on .... well, local conditions and circumstances. Of course, by now we all know that the party that suffered the biggest defeat was the Liberal-Democrat and it couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of people. The supposed anger with the Cleggeron Coalition policies did not really direct itself at the Conservatives who lost very few seats and actually gained some councils. Possibly the reason is that those who support the Conservative party in local elections, that is the absolute bedrock are unlikely to be annoyed about the supposed (but never actually happening) cuts while the Lib-Dim supporters are truly angry with what they see as a betrayal of their principles even if no-one can really understand what they are.

Labour did well but, as we have been reminded, not as well as they did in 1981 under Michael Foot, easily the most disastrous of their leaders.

In other words, this election leaves the same feeling as last year's GE but on a smaller scale: nobody is that enthused by any party.

Which leaves us the unwanted and unneeded AV referendum that was won by a 69 per cent to 31 per cent on a higher than expected turn-out by the NO side. While their campaign was nothing much, the YES side had an even worse one. The real entertainment came with the Prime Minister and his Deputy pitching into each other, rather like Tweedledum and Tweedledee when they decided to have a battle.

Of course, there is an argument to be made for ignoring the whole thing as it really does not matter how we vote for the puppets in the House of Commons, given how much of our legislation comes from the European Union and cannot be rejected even if it actually goes through Parliament, which is not always the case.

All true, but there are still certain aspects of our politics that are domestic and they are often the most intractable ones - education, health and welfare spring to mind. Furthermore, we need to look forward to the day the EU collapses (I am beginning to be cautiously optimistic that it will happen on my watch) and we shall be left with an appalling mess but, at least, we shall still have a workable parliamentary system. Unless, the Boy-King decides to do away with it in some other fashion.

So it is not just because one cannot help rejoicing at the discomfiture of what must be the most hypocritical party in British politics and of all those rent-a-celebs that makes one feel pleased with the outcome. No matter what system is proposed, the one that says people vote for their MP directly and not through a party list is the best one.

Furthermore, the proposed AV system was not exactly going to be helpful to smaller parties, no matter what the Leader of UKIP said (and I suspect it did not help the party much). Some sort of a top-up system would be better for that. What we voted on had one aim only: to make the third party politically stronger than its support warranted, something the Lib-Dims have achieved already, thanks to Cameron's pusillanimity.

What of democracy? This was a question we discussed on a programme I took part in earlier today at ... yes, you guessed it .... the BBC Russian Service. (I suspect my opinions are better known in Russia than in Britain but I am not sure what I can do about that.) Unfortunately, there was no time to go into the subject in any depth but my answer to that is straightforward.

Democracy is not simply a question of votes and government by the majority though, clearly, without that it cannot exist, which, again, makes the AV system suspect. Beyond that there are rights of the minority and individual liberties, both sadly forgotten nowadays by successive governments in this country. After all, what was the attack on the hunting community and, beyond that, on the people who take field sports seriously by the Labour government but an affirmation of the principle that if you are elected you can do anything you like?

It was pointed out to me by a supporter of AV that the only way minority rights can be protected is by them all being separately represented in the Commons. Or, I think, that is what he meant. Certainly he tried to argue that those electoral districts that voted predominantly YES, such as Camden, Islington and Hackney in London, parts of Edinburgh, Oxford and Cambridge had a bohemian population as well as areas of diversity and poverty. Therefore, he argued tentatively, they may be more concerned with minority representation.

Ahem, I responded, my own borough, Hammersmith and Fulham, is very mixed in population. Are you suggesting the people of Islington are really more concerned with minority rights and representation than the people of Hammersmith?

Democracy can exist seriously only if all of us, those who vote and those who are voted in, accept certain principles that go beyond elections while also knowing that legislatures and governments have to be accountable to the people, often in the light of those principles.

I have just finished reading Peter Whittle's new book Monarchy Matters, which deals, just as the title suggests, with the role of the Monarchy in Britain's present and future. One of his themes is the Monarchy's importance as the symbol of something far bigger than transient political or cultural ideas, one that links past, present and future. I am glad to say that Peter (yes, yes, he is a friend and a colleague) writes exactly what I have always said and did even during the broadcast of the Royal Wedding: the whole fuss over Diana showed how important the Royal Family was to so many people in this country.

Writing about the commemoration of the sixtieth anniversary of VE Day (appropriate as we are commemorating the 66th tomorrow), Peter says:

Those who turned up that day could cheer and clap if they wanted, in the sure and certain knowledge that cheering and clapping would not be seen by some central political figure as signifying approval for a policy or a particular course of action. They could be there in the knowledge that their reaction was not about to be manipulated. On occasions such as this, the monarch is the personification of the state and of the country; by virtue of the monarchy's hereditary nature, the Queen is also the living, breathing emblem of the full sweep of Britain's history. Can the French president, riding in the Bastille Day parade on the Champs-Élysées, truly occupy such a position and have the same resonance in the eyes of his compatriots, half (if not more) of whom probably voted against him?

When the monarch lays a wreath at the Cenotaph in Whitehall on Remembrance Day, the politicians (prime minister included) are well off to the side, awaiting their turn. They are there representing the government, the opposition, and so on. As such, the Queen barely acknowledges them. She is there on behalf of nobody but the people. We might vote for David Cameron, or be supporters of Ed Miliband, but we do not want either of them ot be laying wreaths in memory of the dead on our behalf.

As it happens, we do not vote for David Cameron or Ed Miliband but for our MP and that is the system that is likely to continue for the foreseeable future.

It is interesting to watch the efforts politicians make to usurp the Queen's position: all that talk of Blair being the head of state, of Cherie Blair being the first lady, Blair trying to take a leading role in the Queen Mother's funeral and, more recently, David Cameron appearing in the Mall to talk to the people who were lining up for Prince William's wedding. On a slightly different level it, too, is an assertion of the principle that if you have been elected you can do anything, which is not the principle of true democracy.

AV or not AV

My, my, how times have changed. AV used to mean Authorized Version, the glorious King James Bible, the only good thing ever produced by a committee though they did have the advantage of living at a time when the English language was at its most beautiful. Oh dear, I digress.

AV now means Alternative Vote and is that funny system that the Cleggeron Coalition is trying to substitute for the present First Past the Post, which has many faults but is, at least, clear and understandable.

Alternative Vote, on the other hand, is completely incomprehensible and, as a recent paper by Policy Exchange shows, not particularly better on the various counts, such as fairness and proportionality that opponents of FPTP have been campaigning for. It is also the funny system that produced that very strange result in Australia not so long ago.

So far this blog has kept out of the discussions (such as they are) apart from the odd snide comment because it seemed completely unimportant how we elect our powerless politicians while they can do nothing but implement EU legislation. However, this evening I attended a discussion of the whole issue with various arguments presented for and against; it occurred to me that it might be a good thing to have some kind of a working constitutional structure albeit one that needs reforming in various ways or restoring to previous versions for when we are rid of the European incubus.

However, the first thing to note about AV is that it is not popular in the world and is not one that anyone in this country wants or has argued for. It was not mentioned in any electoral manifesto, not even that of the Lib-Dims. The idea just suddenly appeared. The Cleggeron Coalition decided that they would push legislation through Parliament, using up badly needed parliamentary time to have a referendum on the AV system. After that, badly needed time and, especially, badly needed money will be wasted on campaigning and the actual referendum. On past experience it might have to be re-run if the result is not quite what the government wants though we don't actually know what this brokeback government does want.

On top of that the referendum, assuming the legislation goes through in time, will be held at the same time as some but not all local elections are held as well as those for the Scottish and Welsh Assemblies. This sort of thing should not happen - referendums should not be mixed up with elections as that makes campaigning and reporting well-nigh impossible. Turn-out is likely to be very patchy because some places will not have any other elections. London is one of them and that is a lot of voters.

So what are the arguments for AV? I listened to them this evening and they are as follows:

1. It is better than FPTP in various unspecified way mainly because FPTP has many faults. (Those faults are undeniably true but there is no evidence whatsoever that AV of all systems will correct them.)

2. Single member constituencies elected by FPTP have been the norm in Britain only since the 1880s, introduced mainly because the newly formed parties found it hard to control their members and electorate any other way. (That is an acceptable argument in general. What we have now is not written in tablets of stone and can be changed. But AV is not necessarily the way we want to change it. Perhaps a return to multiple members or an introduction of real primaries rather than the farce of the Conservative ones might be thought about.)

3. We must move away from FPTP and even though AV is not what we want it is a step forward in the way granting women over 30 suffrage was a step towards equality in voting. (This is complete nonsense. Widening the suffrage to women over 30 after the First World War was a step in a clearly defined direction as is every step in the widening of suffrage from the Second Reform Bill onwards. AV is not a transitional step between FPTP and complete PR but a step into a completely different direction.)

4. We must move away from FPTP and let AV fail so we can move on to what we really want which is proportional representation of some kind as there are many varieties. (Another non sequitur. In the first place, what on earth makes these people think that AV will be considered a failure by those who have a vested interest in keeping it. We lose FPTP and acquire a system nobody wants, nobody likes, which is going to be a complete failure and we shall be stuck with it.)

5. We must move away from FPTP and vote in AV in order to change it eventually to PR. (That's going to play well. Why don't you vote for this so in a few years we can change it all to something completely different that you did not vote for and might not want? I wonder why this sounds so familiar?)

Thus, I remain unconvinced that there are any merits in AV at all. In any case, what does it matter how exactly the chairs are arranged on the deck of the Titanic?

Titanic, chairs

The big news of the day (well in Britain as I doubt anyone else cares) is that next May (assuming the Clegeron coalition survives that long) we shall have a referendum on whether we want a first past the post or an AV (alternative vote) system for General Elections. Of course, the idea that this is a free for all referendum is nonsensical. I know people who do not like either of the systems and their opinion will be of no interest. The Clegerons have decided that in order to keep the pathetic Lib-Dims and the no less pathetic party formerly known as Conservative in government while people refuse to vote for them they need the AV system.

My attitude was simple: and it matters because ....? Oh wait. It doesn't matter. After all, who cares how we elect the ever more powerless regional government in Westminster if we have no say in whether we want the overwhelming majority of our legislation to come from the EU?