Nick Clegg: We were the world’s leaders in democracy. Now it’s Germany The more you lose your grip, the more you hold on to what you know. It is a sure sign […]

The more you lose your grip, the more you hold on to what you know. It is a sure sign that an institution is in steady decline when it fixates on past glories. A belief in the traditions of the past often masks discomfort about the challenges of the present.

And so John Hayes, a jovial mid-ranking Conservative Minister with reliably anti European, traditional views, revealed more than he probably intended when he recently declared in the House of Commons, “I will not be taking interventions by anyone who is not wearing a tie, on whatever side of the house they sit.”

Yes, you read that correctly. As the country slides towards an economic downturn, as the Government stumbles cluelessly towards Brexit, as living standards tumble, as Britain’s international standing declines daily… a Minister of State truly, madly, deeply feels that whether an MP wears a tie or not is of national importance. So important, in fact, that he pronounced from the despatch box that he would henceforth refuse to speak to any tieless MP.

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As ever, Nigel Farage was available to add spleen to stupidity, condemning John Bercow (who had ruled that MPs could attend the Commons without a tie) as “a low-grade lightweight with no respect for our institutions or our history”.

‘Britain is becoming marginal in European affairs – Theresa May sitting friendless at Helmuth Kohl’s funeral said it all’

Obsessed with the small things

This is what happens when a country is cut adrift, moving helplessly towards the rocks of a “hard” Brexit. The architects of our misfortune, paralysed by the impending damage of their own prejudices, dwell instead on the minutiae of small differences.

As Britain becomes more marginal in European affairs – Theresa May sitting friendless at Helmuth Kohl’s funeral said it all – the traditionalists ramp up their infatuation with meaningless traditions. They have nothing else left. No doubt Messrs Hayes and Farage were enraged at the suggestion that Anglican Bishops should stop wearing Mitres too.

But there is something even more pernicious about this obsession with ritual and tradition over substance: it celebrates the theatre of politics over the virtue of good Government. It is the culture that produces the mendacious buffoonery of £350-million-a-week Boris Johnson, or the philistinism of don’t-trust-experts Michael Gove, or the tedious pomposity of Quentin Letts and the Daily Mail. It is a political culture of insufferable vanity and irresponsibility. They manage to be both unfunny and unserious at the same time. Quite an achievement.

‘We celebrate the theatre of politics over the virtue of good Government‘

In Germany, it’s about substance

Last week, I took part in a public debate in Berlin – organised by the excellent Intelligence Squared – loosely based on the principles of an Oxbridge debating society: one Motion (in this case, “The EU is failing Europe’s citizens”) with two sets of proponents seeking to persuade the audience to vote for or (in my case) against the Motion. It is a format derived from British public schools, university debating societies and the Houses of Parliament. Wit, entertainment and flamboyance often win the day above seriousness, substance or content.

I have done countless such debates over the years and invariably enjoy them. At their best, as in Berlin, they can be playful, fun and informative. Debating teams strike poses and argue for or against positions which might not even be a reflection of their own viewpoints. They help to sharpen the art of argument and perfect the skills of live debate. At their worst, however, they can be callow, glib and artificial precisely because people are arguing for viewpoints in which they do not really believe.

What was striking about the audience in Berlin was how earnestly they took the content of the arguments flying back and forth between the two debating teams. After the event, all the speakers were surrounded by serious minded members of the audience who continued to probe, challenge and question the assertions made during the debate. They had enjoyed the format of the debate, but they were above all engrossed by the substance of it.

No shouting

British observers – the Johnsons, Goves and Letts of this world – regularly remark how boring the debates in the German Parliament are. They have none of the rhetorical pyrotechnics of Prime Ministers Questions, none of the raucous shouting and repartee of the Commons Chamber. Instead, the debates are sober, largely humourless and staid. And to cap it all off, Members of the Bundestag are sometimes seen without ties.

Of course, much of the German political system – its emphasis on consensus and coalitions, its constitutional checks and balances, its aversion to referenda, and its prohibitions against extremism – was designed by British and American officials after the war. They imparted their knowledge of Anglo-American democratic traditions with barely concealed condescension.

‘Is it any wonder that not a single new democracy in Central and Eastern Europe copied the “Westminster model” after the collapse of the Berlin Wall?’

Harold Ingrams, a British colonial administrator who led the design of German local Government, loftily declared: “Our democracy, the most robust in the world… it is on British soil that it flourishes best but we do export it and…it grows and flourishes in diverse lands.”

But I wonder whether the complacency about our democratic traditions is now becoming a hindrance to realising our own failings? Some countries suffer from an inferiority complex. Perhaps we’re suffering from a superiority complex?

The Germans are aghast that the Brexit referendum – like a party game which suddenly goes horribly wrong – could have occurred in such a flippant and careless way without any constitutional restraint, without any super majority or minimum turn-out.

Being boring is better than being in decline

In an excoriating forthcoming book, Democracy and Its Crisis, AC Grayling charts the way that American and British democracy – insulated for so long from war, occupation and revolution – has become flabby, corrupt and hollowed out by narrow vested interests, big money and unrepresentative elites.

Is it any wonder that not a single new democracy in Central and Eastern Europe copied the “Westminster model” after the collapse of the Berlin Wall? Our neo-colonial self confidence after the war has now given way to a position of constitutional isolation where no other European democracy has followed our lead.

No wonder German observers are starting to value their “boring” conventions. Because being boring is better than being in decline.