PR isn't a solution to public disengagement

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Suzy Dean (London, The Manifesto Club): From all the current Westminster hype you might think the replacement of our current Single Member Plurality System (SMPS) with Proportional Representation (PR) would be a revolution akin to giving women the vote. According to PR advocates, by making our seat-to-vote translation more proportional, those that feel the current system renders their vote irrelevant will finally be tempted back to the ballot box, and new life will be breathed into our old political system. But can we assume that public dissatisfaction with the First-Past-The-Post voting system is the root cause of public disengagement from politics?

As Stella Creasy has argued elsewhere on OurKingdom, electoral reform will not restore the diminishing faith the public has in politics. Her basic premise is undoubtedly correct. Creasy, however, does seem to misjudge the reason for public disengagement: that the problem lies in people's approach to politics, rather than its content. She concludes that people simply must take responsibility and absorb themselves in politics, despite its composition.

However, political engagement does actually require something for the public to engage with. Today, the reason for low levels of engagement lies in the low quality of politics. There is broad convergence between parties on the big issues, with each party telling us we need a more extensive environmental policy, we need to give people more choice of public services and we need to unite in the war on terror. A lack of contestation, far from being a positive trait of government, has resulted in a new type of consensual politics that leaves the voter with very little choice.

In addition to this consensual approach to politics, today's main parties spend more time telling us how to run our private lives (from what we eat, to whether we breastfeed or whether we smoke) than they do inspiring us with positive ideas for change, to improve our society. The only social forecasts we receive today are gloomy ones; crime is increasing, the likelihood of a terrorist attack is on the up and our children are going to die young because they're obese. That is, if the imminent environmental catastrophe doesn't take them first.

Devoid of any positive vision of how our society may look in the future, our political parties are mired in the present. This new trend is compounded by politicians' own scepticism about the future. Parties no longer think in terms of transcending the way we now live in the name of a better society. It is this that has led to apathy amongst the public, and no tweaking of the voting mechanism is going to change it. Simply put, the problem is political not technical.

As leaders of society, politicians do have a role in opening up debate and challenging old assumptions. More importantly, politicians have a mandate to offer the public an ideal. It's not surprising people aren't inspired when inheritance tax and rubbish collections have become the core political discussions. Furthermore, it is hard to see how the public can engage in contemporary politics when avenues to challenge today's politics are largely shut down. Policy is often dreamt up in think tanks and then imposed from up on high, with little or no public discussion. This is not the kind of ground on which we can build collective forms of political association and engagement, whereby politcal parties actually represent the interests of a social constituency.

The PR discussion looks more than a little ludicrous in the absence of new parties fighting to enter the political arena. Even if they existed, it should be noted that a political change would only be felt if there was a difference in what these parties were saying. But there's little to suggest there would be, not when you consider the uniformity of the party political script. In this sense, it seems a touch far fetched to imagine that because there will be room for smaller parties one that is radically new and different will emerge. More probable is that if smaller parties do emerge, they will do so with a similar message to the larger parties, albeit with slight variations in emphasis.

There is a danger, however, of laying everything at the door of the political elite, as if it's entirely up to them to conjure up some of ‘the vision thing.' It's also up to the public too to demand more of politicians and argue over their ideas about society. However, in a society that has criminalized ‘offence' and made all things private political, it is hardly surprising that peoples' creative juices are stymied.

The solution to improving public disengagement will either come from a demand for politicians to produce a more inspiring politics or the creation of a more inspiring politics from within the public realm itself. Politicians should be the first to start these meaningful discussions instead of reducing political discourse to school dinners and smoking. Only then will there be something worth engaging with.

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