Hoist by their own petard - why the unions are locked in to Labour

[andrewducker]

The unions are not happy with the leader of The Labour Party for stating
that he's going to stick with most of the austerity measure brought in by
the current government. This isn't actually anything new - all along
Labour have basically been saying that they'd have to do much the same,
with a little fiddling around the edges, but it's the first time in ages
there's been a major announcement about it.

So the unions aren't happy, because they want someone to stand up for
proper socialism and be more left-wing than Labour are. Which is
understandable - that's their political position. But they seem to think
that Ed Milliband doing this is going to drive away the voters. And my
question would be _where to_? In a country with a decent voting system the
unions could abandon Labour and set up their new Awesome Party Of The Left,
and then those people that agreed with them could vote for them, giving
them a share of power commensurate to their support. They would then be
able to (given sufficient support for likeminded parties) form a coalition
that would then instigate some of those principles.

Under FPTP they're out of luck. If they split from Labour then all they
can do is split the vote and leave the Conservatives in charge. If they
stay with Labour then they're just going to continue being ignored.
Labour's Left is as out of luck as the Conservative Right - neither of them
can go off and do their own thing, and neither of them can get any traction
within the party. If they wanted a voice then they should have pushed for
a Yes vote last May, which would at least have meant that union supporters
could vote for APOTL with Labour as their nose-holding option.

As it is, I shall just feel a little smug.

And sad.

Comments

[drplokta]

But under AV, APOTL would simply have the same problem on a wider scale -- it could never attract enough first preferences to get into later rounds. AV voting is not helpful to parties with extreme positions -- what they need is for several moderate parties to split the vote, which AV prevents. It takes a truly proportional system to give an electoral voice to 5% or 10% of the population who have a position at one extreme or other from the mainstream.

[andrewducker]

Depends on how extreme they were. There are places in the UK that are more socialist than others (the NE, for instance), where APOTL could take over from Labour over the course of a couple of elections. If they get 10% the first time, this gets them the publicity to organise better for the next time and push their share of the vote up.

Truly extreme parties are stuffed under AV, yes. But there are places out there where parties that differed from the UK central point wouldn't be seen as so extreme.

[burkesworks.livejournal.com]

There are places in the UK that are more socialist than others (the NE, for instance), where APOTL could take over from Labour over the course of a couple of elections.

The recent Barnsley by-election is a good example; there was a left-of-Labour candidate there running as an independent, with no official backing from the unions or anyone else, and an election budget of peanuts, and he managed to pull over 5%, more than the Lib Dem and only 700 votes behind the Tory.

[andrewducker]

Exactly. It would give them a party (so more name recognition) without the problem of central office parachuting in a middle-ground person.

[andrewducker]

I do agree that a more proportional system would be better if you want more extreme parties to have support. Which is why I like AMS (or STV).

[a-pawson.livejournal.com]

This. The SSP managed to get several MSP's elected under the Scottish system in and 1999, 2003 and 2007. Of course that was before Tommy Sheridan pretty much destroyed the party.

[steer.livejournal.com]

I've got to say, absolutely this. The voting system may slightly exacerbate the problem... but taking up an extreme position will be difficult under any voting regime. I simply don't believe any voting system which can be regarded as democracy will really change that too much.

Even if you can persuade 10% of the electorate to vote for this party and even if that gets 10% of MPs it really doesn't change too much.

[drplokta]

Try telling the Lib Dems that a party with 10% of the MPs won't get any power. It helps that their positions are centrist rather than extreme, but a party that can play kingmaker in a hung Parliament gets considerable power as a result.

[steer.livejournal.com]

Hmm... have the lib dems got any power though? I voted for them because I wanted them to have power and I really don't think they have.

[drplokta]

http://www.whatthehellhavethelibdemsdone.com/

[steer.livejournal.com]

But in general I take your point that a minority party can end up with governmental influence... though from the Lib Dem example it seems the political equivalent of taking hemlock to gain a whiff of power.

[andrewducker]

Not much will change things at the real peripheries - I mean, we have a green MSP (and have had as high as five), but it can make a difference. In 2003 the Socialists got 5% of the vote and 5% of the seats - which meant that they could have gone into coalition with Labour if Labour had done slightly better.

Heck, if the LD's had been willing to go into coalition with the SNP (as they bloody well should have done) last time around it would have changed things significantly.

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

In a country with a decent voting system the unions could abandon Labour and set up their new Awesome Party Of The Left

That's pretty much what they in fact did about a century ago, if you substitute 'the Liberal party' for 'Labour', and 'Labour party'* for 'Awesome Party Of The Left'. :-)

The parallel seems rather striking (if that's not too unfortunate a word), right down to an ongoing kerfuffle about the legitimacy and legality of trade union support for politicians and political parties.

* Dear pedants: Yes yes I know about the distinction between the Independent Labour Party and the Labour Representative Committee but this is close enough for most purposes.

[andrewducker]

I've heard enough complaints from the Tory right, and indeed from Cameron talking about what a pure Tory government would be like, to believe that they're making a real difference.

[andrewducker]

Absolutely. Showing it is possible under FPTP, it's just harder.

[steer.livejournal.com]

I've seen that before and as an ex Lib Dem voter I find it frankly a bit pathetic. Most of the stuff is things that either would have happened anyway or are extremely marginal. I mean when your best claims are "mapped out a path" and "set up a commission" and "Backed plans" it really does look a bit poor. Honestly, if you just read that site out in a sarcastic tone it explains why it will be a long long time before they get my vote again.

OK, they've got a little longer to actually do something real rather than back things, plan things and map things or delay things.

Frankly though, that site couldn't better sum up why I think they've been ineffectual.

[steer.livejournal.com]

Doesn't the extreme wing of any party alway say this though -- the labour party always complained Blair (and then Brown) were too timid, not proper labour etc. Cameron is in the enviable position of having a convenient scape goat for this. "Oh, alas, we can't bring back hanging and repatriate foreigners, these nasty lib dems you know..." (I exaggerate but you get my point.)

[steer.livejournal.com]

How does it show it's harder? You would need some data on the same happening under a non FPTP for that.

[burkesworks.livejournal.com]

Well, yes, but where is our Keir Hardie?

[a-pawson.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised they aren't thinking of doing it again, especially considering about 80% of their funds come from the unions.

[andrewducker]

Sorry, I meant that it shows that it is possible under FPTP - and I would maintain that it's harder. I've heard large numbers of people complain in the past that they couldn't vote the way they wanted to, because it would mean The Other Side got in. And in Scotland the SNP have done a fantastic job of coming up very quickly, because their supporters could vote for them in the regional vote without it causing a problem.

[steer.livejournal.com]

I think I would agree with you it's harder -- it would be interesting to see evidence. E.g. time from first creation of party to first election under various electoral schemes -- I guess you might have to control for size of electorate too. (Harder to make inroads into a vast country perhaps?)

[andrewducker]

Yeah, controlling for all the things that effect politics is going to be tricky, but I'm sure that with enough data we could get something out of it.

[steer.livejournal.com]

I don't think you need to control for all factors, just those which would bias countries with FPTP to also be "stable" in their choice of government (not tend to elect "new" parties). I have a feeling (only a feeling) that many "large" countries are FPTP.

India (at least in part), US, Russia (if you count two-round systems)...

You don't want to end up proving merely that small nations tend to both unusual voting systems and electing newly formed parties.

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

In fairness to the LibDems, their manifesto was very largely comprised of this sort of thing - it's not as if they have acted wildly differently to what they said they'd do.

(With one famous exception: there was also a woolly, vague promise to phase out university tuition fees, which they are not on track to achieve in this parliament. And party policy might be more exciting but it is emphatically not the same as the manifesto.)