Identifying the devil

Tweet

The leader of the Conservatives-in-Wales group in the National Assembly has written this week about the lack of political engagement with the National Assembly, as measured by turnout in elections.  It’s true, of course, that there is a low level of participation in Assembly elections, just as there is in local government elections and elections to the European Parliament.  The only elections which regularly attract a decent turnout are those to the UK Parliament, although even in that case, there has been a falling off in turnout levels over recent decades. 

That, perhaps, gives us one clue as to the underlying cause of low turnout; there seems to be something of a correlation between the level of turnout and the perceived importance of the relevant level of government.  In fairness to Davies, he does point out that many people will feel that the low level of engagement is indeed down to the limited powers of the Assembly, even if he then proceeds to identify his own preferred cause, which is a perception that voting will not make a lot of difference because Labour will still win.  I have a lot of sympathy with his view that there is a feeling that voting will change little, although there’s rather more to ‘making a difference’ than merely swapping the ruling party, a conflation which seems to be implicit in the piece.

There was another article on Nation.Cymru last week which also talked about the extent and duration of one-party rule in Wales, and the need for an alternative to the Labour Party.  It made some sound points, but the assertion that “In a mature democracy, power will naturally swing back and forth between parties every decade or so” left me cold, I fear.  I really don’t see why, before it can be considered ‘mature’ (whatever that means), a democracy requires a periodic change of governing party, or even the existence of a viable alternative to the governing party to such an extent that all the opposition parties should come together and form an alternative government, which is the implicit thrust of both articles.

Saying that is not to dismiss the criticism of Labour, much of which seems entirely valid to me.  Wales is governed by a party which seems to be managerialist, lacking in vision, unwilling to move out of its comfort zone, and motivated largely by its own desire to hang on to power.  And the basis on which it regularly seeks re-election has no more substance than a simplistic claim to be ‘not-the-Tories’.  But none of that seems to me to be justification for an alternative which by its nature (a temporary and probably fractious union of dissimilar parties) can have no clear alternative vision, which would be motivated largely by the desire of its prominent figures to exercise power and their belief that they can manage things better than Labour, and would be united only by virtue of being ‘not-Labour’.  It’s hard to discern which is the devil and which is the deep blue sea; it’s not a real alternative at all.

The underlying issue is that Wales is getting the government for which people vote under the electoral system which is in use.  A change in that system to one based on STV would mean that Labour would be less dominant than they are currently (the implementation of which therefore requires the turkeys to vote for Christmas), but on current voting habits would still leave a large Labour group and a split opposition.  It’s possible that such a change would also lead to a change in voting habits as well, of course; it would certainly provide more opportunity for newer and different parties to gain representation in the Assembly, even if at low levels.  But the basic problem remains – Labour seem likely, as things stand, to continue to win the most votes and seats.

I say ‘problem’; but what sort of democracy is it which says that one party regularly winning the most votes in a free and open election is a ‘problem’?  The way to bring about change isn’t for disparate parties to come together to try and form a government which sidelines the Labour party; it is for parties to persuade people of the need for change.  But political debate in Wales seems to be less about alternative visions and more about alternative management teams.

To return to the question of political engagement as measured by turnout – why would anyone believe that voting for a different set of managers would inspire people to participate?