UK: Disconnected Democracy

There is a sour and fractious mood in Britain. Gordon Brown, the one-eyed prime minister and long-time heir apparent to the charismatic Tony Blair, has narrowly survived a nasty coup attempt and a mass exodus from his cabinet. Yet this has been merely a storm in a tea cup compared to the humiliating gale that has just battered the political caste as a whole.

While atrocious economic forecasts rained down on Whitehall, the nation's MPs were exposed as having outrageously exploited expenses claims. Aghast, the general public were informed that members had let them foot the bill for such shameless extravagances as a spot of “moat cleaning” or “duck islands,” right down to petty claims for bath plugs or packets of cigarettes.

The indicators are pointing to a sharp decline in public trust for politicians, but the biggest loser of all has been the Labour Party. Its poll ratings are pointing at an incoming political meltdown by the next election. Yet there is no palpable enthusiasm for David Cameron's Conservative Party, as there was for Blair's New Labour in 1997: Just grudging acceptance. Britain's first major crisis of the 21st century has exposed the country as a disconnected democracy.

Financial and political turbulence

Professor Michael Hart of the University of Oxford exudes nothing of the new century, possessing as he does neither mobile phone nor email but an extravagant smoking habit. He sets the current political winds in historical context.

"Ironically, Labour governments have stuck to financial orthodoxy once in power despite claims to represent an alternative before taking office. This mixture of mistakes and disappointment played a role in the undoing of all previous Labour governments," he told ISN Security Watch. 

"But for now, Labour has weathered the storm and British governments have survived worse crises than this. The question is, looking at the continuing hemorrhage of members and respect from the major parties, whether or not the mass-party will continue to be the main vehicle for politics. The expenses scandal has only underlined this point."

UK Polling Report analysis confirms Hart's views. Since financial and political turbulence started to coincide, all three major parties’ projected shares of the vote have declined. The Conservatives enjoy a strong average lead over Labour, with 38 percent of the vote compared to 24 percent. The Liberal Democrats are at 18 percent.

For David Cameron, such predictions are good but not brilliant, considering only 40 percent takes him clearly into an expected majority of seats in the UK's first-past-the-post electoral system. For the Liberal Democrats, such results are disappointing, given the dream scenario the recent script of events presents for a third party. However, for Labour, these scores are nothing short of a disaster, pointing back to the dark years of the 1980s when it was widely believed the party would never govern again.

The startling fact is that 20 percent of votes in the polls are going to other parties. Britain has traditionally been a "two and a half party system," with the Conservatives and Labour alternating in power since 1918. These are not merely the Scottish and Welsh nationalists, but include the anti-EU movement the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), the Green Party and to a lesser extent the far-right British National Party (BNP). With the major parties faltering, there appears to be something disconnected about this democracy.

Sociological shifts

The 2009 European elections confirm this picture and saw the UK fall outside the regular pattern in the rest of the EU. The Conservatives gained barely a 1 percent increase in their share of the vote, a bad showing considering they are hostile to the EU and an opposition party likely to form the next government. But the big news of the night was that the UKIP came in second place, at 16.5 percent. Labour's vote collapsed to a humiliating 15.7 percent. The Liberal Democrats lost a little ground at 13.7 percent. Far from overtaking Labour, the party seems to be going quietly nowhere.

The shocks came with the smaller parties. The avowedly Islamophobic and racially intolerant BNP scored 6.2 percent and gained its first MEPs. European elections tend to exaggerate the support of smaller parties. However, such gains reflect underlying sociological shifts.

Professor Hart observes that "Labour and the left are keen to portray the BNP as fascist thugs picking up right-wing votes. This is not the case: They are picking up old Labour votes in working class areas and a smattering of elderly former Thatcherites."

Strong BNP showings in towns like Oldham reflect a mixture of de-industrialization, the withering of Labour as a workers movement and failed multiculturalism. Such towns are in fact bi-cultural or tri-cultural, with communities living apart, often accusing each other of receiving 'special treatment' from the welfare state.  

On election night, unknown fringe groups like the English Democrats and the Christian Party received over 200,000 votes each. The English Democrats, a nationalist party, have even secured their first mayor in the economically challenged city of Doncaster.

The even bigger story is apathy. These results look even worse for the major parties when the turnout is considered. Over 45 million people could cast a ballot. Just 15.6 million could be bothered to do so. This suggests a new European electoral pattern, in societies no longer moored to the stabilizing gravity of class voting. It will prove a steep challenge to the main parties to adapt to this more distrustful, disconnected and demanding average voter.  

Wipe-out

The European elections coincided with regional elections. Thirty-Four Councils, the basic unit of local government in Britain, were also elected that night. The Conservatives hold overall control of 30 of these, the Liberal Democrats just one, but Labour none.  Tony Blair's "New" Labour was stunningly successful, electorally. Judging by the results alone, something has clearly gone very much awry.

John Kampfner is the former editor of the New Statesman and a senior left-wing commentator on UK political life. He is more than pessimistic.

"At the next general election there is going to be a wipe-out. There will only be around 100 Labour MPs left. We are looking at results so bad for Labour, they haven't seen something like it since the party youth in the 1930s."

ISN Security Watch asked Kampfner if he felt Labour needed to ask itself again how the old vision of a social democracy could be modernized. He answered brusquely: "There is no solution. That cannot be modernized. You could do that in 1997. Not today."

The problem, Gordon Brown

The problem is Brown, but not for the reasons that commentators usually ascribe. Had the prime minister followed the advice of certain senior advisers in 2007 and held an election after taking over from Blair, he would probably have secured a historic fourth term for the Labour Party.

Hit by financial and internal turbulence, such a chance now seems lost. This reflects two changes in British politics. Some polls have suggested that the Conservative Party, traditionally distrusted in the management of National Health Service (NHS), is now perceived as better at managing its finances than Labour. Old loyalties are more fickle, while Brown's personal leadership has proved unable to adjust to opposing currents in Labour.

His premiership has been accused of being too statist and unresponsive to reform by the ultra-smooth and very 'third way' James Purnell, the attempted political assassin who almost caused Brown's downfall last month by publishing his resignation letter in the national press. For them, Brown remains too 'old' Labour, hostile to Blair's choice agenda in the public services.

Brown's PhD in Labour Party history is mocked by such political operators. Yet none of this has earned him any credit among the left of the party. For MPs like John Cruddas and John McDonnell, Brown remains Blair's accomplice in changing "their party," the chancellor to a man who last called himself a socialist in 1994. Stuck between a potential future and the past, Brown's leadership will go down in Labour history as a disconnected hiatus.

Political cross-dressing

The price of Gordon Brown's continuing ascendancy has been the abdication of any pretence to lead in a manner different from Blair in policy terms.

Peter Mandelson, the intellectual architect of 'New' Labour, now dominates the cabinet. He holds the rather Soviet sounding title of "first secretary of state," in a sprawling portfolio covering business, education, skills and even churches. Parachuted into the unelected second chamber, the House of Lords, Lord Mandelson and the unelected TV star Alan Sugar - again a non-democratic appointee to "business Tsar" - dominate this crucial sector of the economy during the recession.

Mandelson's agenda was clearly laid out in a recent interview in the Financial Times. He promised a more aggressively reformist, choice-based agenda than Labour had ever proposed before. Ironically, some of Labour's traditional terrain has been ceded to the Conservatives. Cameron's policies are greener, having changed the logo of the party to a tree. The prominent Conservative thinker Philip Blonde, styles the new agenda as "red Toryism." In an odd switching of places radicals in both parties appear to be politically cross-dressing.  

Disconnected, out of touch

The Conservative MP Anthony Steen shocked the public when the Daily Telegraph broke the expenses scandal. He argued not only he'd done "nothing wrong" in filing massive false claims, but that people were doing this as they were "jealous of my house."

Disconnected and out of touch, Cameron has tried is best to distance himself from Steen and his ilk, demanding they return the money and threatening Anthony Steen with expulsion from the party.

It has been made painfully clear in the media just what a dangerous fiscal situation the UK state has been left since the financial crisis began. As the expenses scandal started to die down, the British public were greeted to the news that their Civil Service had made plans in secret for "doomsday cuts in public services."

The figure is for a 20-percent slash in public spending. British politicians are starting to bear more than a passing resemblance to their 1970s forbears. A period in which the constant refrain was that Britain was "the sick man of Europe."