Proportional Representation – It’s Time!

22 Jul 2016, by Dean Rogers Guest in Politics

I’ve not always been a fan of PR. I grew up in a tribal area where PR was portrayed as inevitably preventing Labour from winning back power. The strongest advocates of PR also seemed to peddle especially self-interested models that benefitted them more than anyone else and didn’t usually even seem very proportional. And compromise on PR and the fascists will get seats, I was told.

I had grasped the key lesson though – the choice of how you elect representatives isn’t and shouldn’t in itself be the principle but the best way to achieve the principled outcome required. And that’s why we need to change now!

As I’ve grown up I’ve realised the world around us is changing. It’s getting more complex and insecure. That could tempt us back to the emotional certainties rooted in tribe but that would be regressive, defensive and inevitably defeatist. The positive and progressive response is to focus on what we’re for and seek common ground with other progressives, regardless of their /our tribal background.

Politics has become more 3-dimensional with people identifying themselves by their values and ideals as well as their background and economic perspective. The old horizontal left v right axis remains but running vertical is an additional liberal v interventionist axis – one that decides how much we think state institutions should dictate law and regulation. People can find themselves in different places on different issues and choosing a one-size-fits-all Party’s more difficult. Tribal allegiance is weakening and parties find it tougher to connect with a more diverse electorate – is there a more pointless or trite slogan than One Nation in a country as diverse as the UK in 2016?

So if politicians try, because of an outdated electoral system to keep offering all of the answers to all of the people all of the time they’re all doomed to fail. As Billy Bragg wrote, “A poet with all the answers has never yet been built”. We’ve all learnt that those saying they have all the answers are exactly the people most of us try and avoid! The risk‘s that as some people increasingly gravitate towards extremes, the mainstream leaders disproportionately talk about what they’re against, defining themselves by who and what they are not for. They concede the agenda. The extremists then get more attention, as the mass mulling around the middle feel unserved and politically homeless. Disenfranchised, many stop participating and the extremes start to take power in the broken system – a lack of PR gives the fascists more than a voice for the rest to rally against, it risks giving them power!

In a divided, diverse and complex society we can’t go looking for the Great Pretender with all the answers. We have to re-engage with each other. We have to start by honestly saying what we’re for and building alliances from there. We can’t have all the power but we must always have a voice – some power is better than none.

PR isn’t the only change needed to repair our creaking representative systems – I look forward to debating what structures can support re-engagement in communities to facilitate social enterprise and local responsibility – but it’s a critical start…the scaffolding and repointing that stops the walls from falling down.