There is a gap in the political market: where is the party of technology? The conversation has been overpoweringly negative – but tech has the power to change our lives for the better

When Westminster isn’t consumed by managing crises of the present or re-fighting battles of the past, politicians like to talk about how to ensure they dominate the future.

Unfortunately, one downside of regular elections is that such concerns are often quite short-termist. The most distant horizon to which many politicians are able to look ahead is the next election – or perhaps the one after that, if they are feeling secure in their seat.

Pauses in the struggle over Brexit are rare, but when MPs are able to come up for air – perhaps after a hearty New Year’s Day lunch, for example – they will likely be thinking about the relatively near future.

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What can be done swiftly to demonstrate that we are making the most of the new powers Westminster regains from Brussels? Might it be possible to sign trade deals, and who with? How can public concerns about the NHS, railways, illegal immigrants crossing the Channel, and warning lights in the global economy be addressed? Can my party – Labour, Lib Dem or Conservative – get a new leader?

Most importantly, can some or all of these things be achieved before the next election?

‘It is a huge mistake to view technological change solely through a negative lens’

The longer term

Those are good questions, but together they leave little room to consider longer-term political issues. Two risks arise from that oversight. First, long-term issues can eventually become crises if left unaddressed. Second, if one party fails to consider them, then they hand an opportunity to their opponents and competitors to steal a march by getting in on big topics early.

Take tech policy as an example. Our world has already been transformed by technological innovation. But the changes wrought in the last decade – socially, economically, culturally and politically – are minor compared to those coming down the line. New technologies, innovative new applications of existing technologies, and the continual growth in power and fall in price of the hardware required to deliver both, mean that the pace of change is accelerating.

And yet no side of British politics has yet staked out for itself a position as the party of tech.

Negative and reactive

Almost every prominent policy and speech on the topic, from all sides, has been negative and reactive. How to get more tax out of tech firms. How to restrain new market entrants from out-competing traditional rivals. How to snoop on the users of various communications platforms, or forbid consumers from having access to channels which are encrypted securely. How to censor and restrict the ways in which people speak online. How to guard against voters talking primarily to one another, without the supposedly moderating influence of their self-appointed betters.

Readers might think some, or maybe even all, of the above proposals are worthwhile. We should certainly be alive to the potential risks of new and disruptive technologies, not least where laws become obsolete. Our tax rules, for example, were designed in a time when the location of a business transaction was obvious. Now that someone in India can click an advert served through a firm in Ireland to buy a product from a company in the US but which is made in China, the law needs updating.

‘ Who will be the first to stand up for the interests of consumers in getting more information, better competition and lower prices through digital markets?’

However, it is a huge mistake to view technological change solely through a negative lens. New technologies are enriching, transforming, and saving lives every day.

Sometimes those positive changes come about in a way that disrupts – even destroys – older ways of doing things. That inevitably provokes anger, as well as vocal campaigns by vested interests. But a politics which focuses only on such nostalgic protectionism would be doing a dis-service to the many, perhaps less loud, people who stand to gain from costly, ineffective cartels being broken open.

Change is coming, whether we like it or not

Trying to preserve a country in aspic does not pause time, it just means the rest of the world gets ahead while the hold-out lags behind, at an ever greater cost. Like Trump’s beloved trade barriers, rejecting technological change might win temporary praise but will only do mounting damage in the long-term. On the same basis, a political party that clashes with the way in which the electorate increasingly choose to live their lives consigns itself to irrelevance.

There’s a gap in the political market. Who will be the first to stand up for the interests of consumers in getting more information, better competition and lower prices through digital markets? Who will champion the right to speak freely via media that offer the greatest opportunity we have ever had to communicate with our fellow human beings? Who will tell the lumbering giants of the past that neither their history nor their well-funded lobbyists buy them a right to limit the future of our economy? Who will tell Whitehall that it does not have a right to spy on the communications of innocent citizens without due reason for suspicion?

Whoever does so will be truly ahead of the game.

Mark Wallace is executive editor of ConservativeHome.com