News from the New Party

Political convergence threatens democracy

In the Times, David Aaronovitch celebrates the fact that the main parties are all firmly anchored in the centre ground: 

The claim that more ideology equals more excitement never survived contact with members of the Militant Tendency, or with Tory golf-club bigots. In any case, who is supposed to be Labour’s answer to the orgasmic Hugo Chávez? Michael Meacher? As ever, such thinking proceeds from the delusion that - despite all electoral evidence to the contrary - the country really yearns for Woodleyism or (in the case of the Right) a return to the 1840s.

It is true that we are living through a period of political convergence, as serious parties agree about what the great problems are, and about the general ways to tackle them. But this is only a difficulty if you think that, say, climate change is either not a threat or quite fun, or that Britain should become a very high-tax or very low-tax economy. If you don’t think those things it is positively capricious to blame politicians for not conjuring up imaginary storms just to keep you entertained.

While these are obviously happy days in the Aaronovitch household, the outlook is less bright for those of us whose view of the world does not quite mesh with the orthodoxy to which he and all three main parties are shackled.  If it happens that you do think Britain should become a low-tax economy (we already are a high-tax economy), or that you have your doubts not about whether or not climate change is happening, but whether or not the main parties' plans for dealing with it are realistic, then where are you to turn? 

The danger when the political establishment closes ranks (which is the other way of describing "a period of political convergence") is that the people lose out.  If the prevailing orthodoxy has already been hammered out by the politicians, what recourse do mere voters have to influence the process?  The answer comes from those parts of the country where voters have already become fed up with being ignored by their political representatives: they turn to the political extremes of the BNP in some areas or "Respect" in others.  Opinion polls regularly record that the proportion of people prepared to vote for parties other than the big three is well over ten percent, and in some cases nearer fifteen.  Combined with historically low election turnouts, this represents a collapse of the political establishment on an unprecedented scale, disguised only by the electoral system itself which hampers challenges to the main parties. 

If David Aaronovitch thinks this is good news for British politics, he needs to think again.  If the main parties will not represent the British people adequately, a new political formation must arise that will avoid the political extremes, maintain a solid and coherent ideological framework, and offer the British people the alternative vision of society that the disengaged and disenchanted voters obviously want to see.  The problem with the political convergence praised by Aaronovitch is that it negates democracy by denying the people a choice.