Campaign for Democracy in the UK
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Hi! My name is Steve Wallis, a full-time political activist currently living in Glasgow, but with plans to divide most of my time in the near future between Glasgow, Manchester and the Cardiff area.
At present, the campaign does not have a membership and it has been entirely funded by me. The policies of the campaign, particularly the demands we put forward, and some sort of constitution will have to be decided by a conference, which should also elect a leadership body and organise a national demonstration at some point in the future. Democracy within this campaign is also important before that conference; hence I have set up an unmoderated ‘campaign-for-democracy-in-the-uk’ discussion forum (and, like all my forums, you don’t need to be approved to join). At the moment, all the views on the website are my own, but I welcome contributions from other people – email me or send a message to the discussion forum and I’ll consider including your views on this website.
I decided to set up this campaign due to the fact that there is very little democracy in this country. I am a socialist but this campaign welcomes people of different political persuasions. In fact, many of the eleven demands of the campaign would be supported by rank-and-file Liberal Democrats. In particular, Liberal Democrats claim to be in favour of proportional representation (PR), but their leadership doesn’t campaign for it because (in my opinion) it would benefit socialists rather than themselves in the long run.
This is illustrated by the situation in Scotland where the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) has six seats in the Scottish parliament due to PR, and the Scottish Green Party winning seven. [The Greens did better largely because they didn’t stand in the constituencies, which didn’t influence the number of seats; they merely put forward lists and with the mass media not indicating much difference between them many people decided to divide their votes between both parties. The Scottish Greens are a much smaller organisation than the SSP and largely relied on the method of putting up placards in city centres asking for people to use their second vote (i.e. the PR one) to vote Green.] PR has also led to the Lib Dems being in coalition with New Labour, which many of their members and supporters are naturally in favour of because that gives them a big opportunity to influence political developments in Scotland, but that share of power will backfire when voters penalise them for the wishy-washy and right wing policies that are resulting from a coalition with the right wing party that Labour has become.
It is not just necessary to campaign for PR, but to ensure that it is a fair form of PR, where voters have the ability to indicate preferences rather than just putting a single “X”. If a fair form of PR had been used in Scotland, then the SSP and the Greens would have done even better. The unfair form of PR used in the European elections was obvious to voters confronted with a massive sequence of party lists and with only a single “X” to use. With such an unfair system, many people voted tactically – usually Labour or the Lib Dems to keep the Tories or the fascist British National Party (BNP) out. This resulted in only two candidates of parties to the left of the main political parties in Britain (New Labour, the Lib Dems, the Tories or nationalists) getting elected – both representing the Green Party (who were both elected in the previous European elections). Preferences should also be used for elections when there is only one candidate to be elected, i.e. a mayor in Britain. The system used for the Mayor of London was a half-way house, with electors being given just two votes. It resulted in the recently formed anti-war and vaguely socialist organisation called Respect: the Unity Coalition getting a higher proportion of votes in the election for Mayor than they did in the Greater London Assembly election or Greater London constituency in the European elections – but voters still had to make tactical choices (e.g. whether to vote for Livingstone, who is now back in the Labour Party, or the Greens as second choice). Nevertheless, a second vote would be a big step forward in the elections in the USA – it would have enabled people to vote for Ralph Nader first and John Kerry second, which could eventually break the stranglehold of the two party system.
I have deliberately avoided mentioning mayors in the list of demands, because the arguments for and against them are not clear cut – they present an opportunity for the electorate to vote in a radical candidate who is standing against party machines, especially one who is as well known as Ken Livingstone was when he was elected as the Mayor of London standing against Labour, but having different bodies/individuals sharing power can be considered undemocratic (like a coalition, it gives an excuse for parties or individual politicians not to implement their manifestos, just as New Labour has prevaricated over hunting due to it being vetoed by the House of Lords).
An inconsistent position of the Liberal Democrat leadership, for a party that calls itself democratic, is their support for Britain adopting the Euro as our currency. It is clearly undemocratic for interest rates to be determined by a European Central Bank, which represents the interests of big business across Europe. It is also undemocratic for interest rates to be determined by a quango in Britain, which represents the interests of our own ruling class, but at least parliament has the power to reverse New Labour’s removal of that power from any sort of democratic control. Withdrawing from the Euro-zone once Britain is in it would be far more difficult. Likewise, the limitations of the Scottish National Party’s notion of “independence” are shown by their support for the Euro.
To see the list of demands I am provisionally putting forward, click here. I encourage local groups to be set up adopting similar or identical lists of demands. I will help to set up a Welsh group based in Cardiff, probably called the Campaign for Democracy in Wales. This group will discuss what demands to put forward for more powers for the Welsh Assembly, linked to demands for more democracy in the UK as a whole. Hopefully, we will be able to organise a large demonstration outside the Welsh Assembly. For more information, visit the Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland page. In the meantime, I may be able to help set up groups in Manchester and Glasgow. I will propose that we hold a UK-wide conference to adopt a definitive list of demands and constitution for the Campaign for Democracy in the UK, elect a leadership body and organise for a national demonstration.
I have set up an internet discussion forum for this campaign. You can opt to receive messages by email or just browse or search them on the web. Visit the ‘campaign-for-democracy-in-the-uk’ discussion forum. For other related forums, click here.
I am of the opinion that Bush’s victory in the US Presidential election was a fraud – and of course the “electoral college” is an extremely undemocratic way to decide the most important world leader. The page also contains some views of mine on the situation in Iraq, for democracy not stooges of the West. For my views on these and other international issues, visit the international news & views page.
Notes: I have added an eleventh demand, about written constitutions, to the original list of demands.