Gaming the system

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One of the myths on which British semi-democracy is built is that voters elect individuals, not parties. Most of us know that it isn’t true, as old stories about donkeys wearing the right colour rosette suggest, but the myth stems from the distant past when MPs formed or joined parties only after being elected. Myths have consequences though, and one of the consequences of this particular myth is that we have two votes in elections for the Senedd. The d’Hondt system of proportional representation, which is intended to use list members as a means of partly correcting the inevitably unrepresentative outcome of using first-past-the-post in the constituency section, doesn’t actually require that we all vote a second time for list members. It would work equally well (and in some respects, rather better) if the votes by party in the constituency section were simply tallied up and used to allocate the list members. The fact that it isn’t used that way is largely because the constituency votes are regarded as having been cast primarily for individuals and only in a secondary sense for parties.

One of the results of basing the list membership on casting a second vote is that it allows – or even encourages – people and parties to try and game the system. Parties can win list seats without even contesting constituencies, something which can hardly be considered to be a ‘correction’ to their under-representation under FPTP. It can also encourage parties to talk about ‘wasted’ second votes, because a dominant party (such as the SNP currently in Scotland, or the Labour Party historically in Wales) in the constituency section is unlikely to win many seats in the list section. In practice, it’s an extremely difficult calculation for an individual elector to make; it’s impossible to be certain about the results of the constituency vote, whatever the polls might say. And tactical use of the second vote can work both ways – it can never be limited to supporters of only one side in a debate. Results of elections to date do show differences in voting patterns between the two votes, but the degree to which the net figures are different is limited. Some of the difference will be accounted for by people voting for their first-choice party on the list in constituencies where that party doesn’t stand a candidate – and some tactical votes will simply cancel each other out.

The announcement by Alex Salmond that he has formed a new party with the express intention of only standing candidates in the list section, whilst encouraging voters to support the SNP in the constituency section, is an attempt to win what he calls a ‘supermajority’ for independence in the next Scottish parliament. Whether it works or not depends on a range of factors, including his own personal popularity (which some polls suggest may not be as high as it has been at times in the past). It’s a gamble (but then he’s always liked a bit of a flutter on the horses). At one extreme, he might just pull it off, but at the other, splitting the pro-independence vote in the list section might result in fewer pro-independence MSPs overall, and end up sabotaging, or at the least delaying, the independence project by denying seats to the pro-Indy Green Party. In the one case it would look like a triumph for a master strategist, at the other like nothing more than a failed vanity project.

Let us assume, for a moment, that it works – i.e. that the SNP pick up most, or even all, of the constituency seats on around 50-53% of the vote, and that all or most of those voters switch to Alba for the second vote, giving that party most of the list seats. Independentistas might well be delighted – but would such an outcome be fair? Winning a supermajority of 80 – 90% of the seats in the parliament on the basis of 50-53% of the vote in each of the two sections merely ends up replicating the problem that d’Hondt was supposed to solve, and disenfranchises many of the 47 – 50% who do not vote for pro-independence parties. It’s perhaps a little unfair to criticise politicians for using the rules as they stand to their advantage, and there’s a rather delightful irony about independentistas using rules imposed by Westminster against continued Westminster rule, but that doesn’t make it fair or reasonable.

Let’s put it another way. It’s an unlikely scenario, but suppose for a moment that the Tories and Lib Dems decided not to contest constituencies, encouraged their supporters to vote for Labour instead, and then carved up the regional lists between them. A movement of just a few percentage points in the polls could then turn a supermajority for independence into a supermajority against. How would independentistas feel about that, equally unrepresentative, result? As I said, it’s a highly unlikely scenario and depends on an assumption that the Tories and Lib Dems would elevate the desire to maintain the union above all else (although it doesn’t even require the complicity of Labour). The circumstances in which parties can effectively game the system to produce an unrepresentative result are rare, but they arguably now exist in Scotland, if not currently in Wales. The whole Alba Party strategy depends on that.

I certainly want to see a large pro-independence majority in the Scottish parliament – and in the Senedd – but I want that to be a reflection of a large pro-independence majority amongst the electorate, not a reflection of a flawed electoral system. Winning independence is about winning people over to the concept, not about tactical manoeuvres with election rules. If the rules can produce a flawed result, it’s time to review the rules, and either make the allocation of list seats directly reflective of the constituency votes or else, even better, replace the list with a proper system of proportional representation, such as STV. Either way, freeing the political process from the silly myths of the past is long overdue.

It's not just about tactics

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It seems all but inevitable that UKIP will have a significant foothold in the National Assembly by the end of next week.  I’d prefer that it didn’t happen, but appealing to Labour voters to vote Lib Dem in order to prevent it, as the Lib Dems have done this week, seems to me to be avoiding the real issue rather then confronting it.  The stated objective – of keeping UKIP out – is a worthy one, although whether the call is a truly honest one or just a sly means of maintaining a Lib Dem presence is a rather different question.

But the real issue that it avoids is the simple fact that a sizable number of Welsh voters seem set to vote for UKIP in constituencies across Wales.  The original purpose of the additional members in the regions was to rebalance the total membership of the Assembly to take account of the lack of proportionality in the first-past-the-post part of the election, which is exactly why UKIP are likely to win seats.  The Lib Dems seem to want to use the regional list system as some sort of separate election which can be used tactically to deny representation to a party whose support will be hopelessly under-represented in the constituency part of the vote.  It’s a strange position for a party which claims to believe in proportional representation to take.

I’d prefer a single class of Assembly members elected by Single Transferable Vote from multi-member constituencies (which is coincidentally, as I understand it, the formal policy of the Lib Dems), but if we are going to have a system of additional members as a second-best option, then I’d prefer to see that part of the election used as intended, to ensure proportionality (even if that helps parties that I don’t like) rather than see parties trying to game the system.  Such a system would probably work better if there was only one election – in the constituencies – and the proportion of votes in that election was then applied to national party lists to select the additional members.

Whatever, the real problem – which the Lib Dems seem not to want to face up to directly (although, in fairness, they’re not the only ones) - is that so many people in Wales intend to vote for UKIP in the constituency ballot.  This isn’t limited to in-migrants to Wales; many of the constituencies where UKIP have previously attracted – and are likely to attract again – their strongest votes are also the constituencies with the highest proportion of Welsh-born voters. 

It’s too easy to dismiss this as a protest vote or an anti-politics vote, but I suspect that it is an expression of an underlying current of opinion which is far more common that I’d like to believe.  Perhaps UKIP simply will disappear after the EU referendum on 23^rd June.  That would be too late to stop them making progress in the Assembly elections, but it might justify treating them as a one-off aberration for this particular election.  But even if that turns out to be true, a disappearing party is not the same as a disappearing opinion, and there’s a lot more than antipathy to ‘Europe’ behind the rise in the UKIP vote.  The problem seems to be that other parties are too afraid of losing support from electors who sympathise with much of what UKIP says (but don’t intend actually to vote for UKIP) to directly deal with the prejudices and half-truths underlying the rise of UKIP.  Treating it as a question of tactical voting simply isn’t good enough.

National lists

Tweet One of the ‘no-hope’ amendments put forward during the discussion on the Wales Bill in the House of Commons was the replacement of regional lists by a national list.  It wouldn’t be my preferred option; I’ve long been convinced that the best electoral system is STV in multi-member constituencies.  STV not without its problems (no system is), but it seems to me to be the best compromise between electoral accountability and representation of opinion.

I wouldn’t rule out a national list though as an improvement on the present system.  One step forward is better than no steps forward, and holding out for the ‘perfect’ solution shouldn’t stop us from making an improvement if we can.

There are two main positive effects which would flow from the implementation of a national list, in my view.

The first is that the election result would be more proportional than it is now.  The overall composition of the National Assembly would better reflect the range of opinions held by Welsh voters.  Based on the last election, under a national list UKIP, Socialist Labour, the Green Party, and the BNP would all have been represented in the Assembly.  (I can’t say that I’d particularly welcome representation from UKIP, let alone the BNP, but I’m not a great believer in rigging the electoral system to exclude those of whom I disapprove. Their arguments need to be countered, not simply gerrymandered away.)

The second is that it might cause a rethink about the assumption that all AMs are the same and have the same types of responsibilities.  It’s not an assumption that I’ve ever been convinced about.  They are all ‘equal’, of course, and should all have an equal voice in the legislative process, but equality isn’t the same thing as sameness.  I can see advantages in having two different types of AM – all equal when it comes to voting and selection for posts within the Assembly, but with list AMs being less encumbered with constituency casework and freer to become experts in particular fields of legislation.  Would that really be such a terrible thing?

One other thought strikes me as well.  When the legislation for the additional member system was drawn up, did the authors really think through the implications of allowing parties to put candidates on the lists and then not stand in any constituencies at all?  I had thought that the intention was to try and introduce a proportional “top-up” element to offset the result of the FPTP system in the constituencies, but if a party decides not to stand in most – or even all – of the constituencies, is there an injustice to offset? 

Crisis, what crisis?

Tweet It's another of those famous phrases which the person to which it is widely attributed (in this case, Jim Callaghan) never actually said. It came to mind today when two different journalists telephoned me to ask whether Plaid is going through a crisis, following a series of press stories over the last couple of weeks.

Well, it is the 'silly season' of course; a time when there is a dearth of hard political news. That, in turn, means that some recent events have received rather more attention than they would have received in other times, or than they merit. And in a way, I suppose that I contributed ever so slightly by stepping down as Chair.

But there really is no crisis. There is a debate to be had about Plaid's future direction, and we are having it. Some of it will inevitably be held in the public arena, but some details of party strategy are always best discussed internally, and I hope that members will try and remember that.

For my part, I will be taking part as a candidate in the hustings meetings to select the party's nominees for the Mid and West Region, and I have every intention of using the opportunity to talk to members across the Region about where the party is going and what we should be doing next. That is a healthy debate to be having; and it's one of the right places to be having it - with the party's members and activists.

Elements of that discussion will no doubt spill over into the public domain, whether accidentally or deliberately. But debate is not the same as division. Intelligent and sensible debate is something Plaid used to be very good at, and it's a skill we need to relearn.

The Other Resignation

Tweet The departure of Mohammed Asghar from Plaid's ranks was a surprise, in that the timing, method, and destination were all unexpected; but I can't honestly say that it was a shock. It had been obvious to myself and many others for some time that his views were, to put it mildly, at variance with the mainstream of Plaid on a range of issues, including our core aims and principles.

Some have asked how we could be in a position where someone who disagrees with the raison d'être of the party could be propelled into such a prominent position. At one level, the answer is quite simple - all members sign an application form declaring their support for the party's aims and objectives, and from that point on, their support for those aims is taken as read. We don't use polygraphs to test their sincerity, nor would I want to.

That, however, would be too glib an answer. Our processes for adding members' names to the approved central list of candidates have been proved wanting. Even that's no great surprise to me; NEC members in particular know that I've been banging on about that for some time. Yesterday's events merely emphasise the need for the internal discussions we are currently having about the way in which we select, train, and prepare our candidates.

Those who say that we need to look again at our selection processes are right; but change was on the way anyway. The reality has been that our attitude to selection has, in some aspects, not moved on from the 1960s and 1970s, when we had to twist people's arms to get them to stand in hopeless seats, and greeted any volunteer with open arms. On a personal level, I've been at both ends of that twisting process myself. One of the problems of success is that we cannot afford to take that approach any longer - but I'd still rather be dealing with the problems of success than those of failure.

Should members who cross the floor resign? In principle, I think that they should. It's more obvious in the case of a list member than a constituency member, since the list election is based on voting for a party rather than an individual, but even at constituency level, the idea that people win because of who they are rather than the party which they represent is something of a convenient constitutional fiction.

It's true that candidates have a 'personal' vote as well as a party vote, but by and large the extent of that personal vote is greatly exaggerated. As a long time canvasser for candidates other than myself, I can say from experience that every candidate (even some of Plaid's highest profile politicians), also attracts a personal 'anti-vote'. That is to say, whilst there are people who will say, 'I'm not normally Plaid, but I'm voting for X', there are others who will say 'I normally vote Plaid, but I'm not voting for X'. Any experienced canvasser, for any party, will understand that point, even if the candidates don't necessarily hear the same message when they knock doors themselves.

In truth, party candidates get elected because they are party candidates, not because of who they are. And whilst they are entitled to change their views, changing party after being elected means that the electorate are no longer being represented by that for which they voted.

Of course, some people end up changing party not because they've changed their views, but because they've held to the views on which they were elected, whilst the party has gone off in another direction, but that's a wholly different can of worms. A story for another day perhaps.

In this case, the situation seems to be perfectly clear – we have an elected member effectively saying that he never agreed with the platform on which he was elected. Of course he should resign.