I was speaking today at a seminar, organised by the Magna Carta Institute of Brunel University, on the European Parliament elections.
What is notable about the elections is the extent to which they attract relatively little attention (nothing on them that I could see in this morning’s Times or Daily Telegraph) and what attention they do receive is very much couched in the context of domestic politics. To what extent will the main parties suffer at the hands of smaller parties? What impact has the expenses scandal had on voters’ intentions? There is very little, if any, attention on policies to be decided at the EU level. Which party, for example, has the best policy on encouraging the knowledge-based economy?
Some people will be voting on the basis of their basic attitude toward the EU; more will be voting on the basis of domestic politics; and even more won’t be voting at all. It was ever thus, but in this election I have been struck by the absence of references to specific policies. They are in the party manifestos, but they don’t appear to be spreading much beyond them.
That is exactly my experience, unfortunately.
It hasn’t been helped though by what seems to be a lack of effort on the part of those standing for election.
None of the candidates standing in my constituency is an incumbent so I would think there is everything to play for, but so far I’ve received only two fliers (Conservative and Plaid Cymru) and seen placards for one party (Labour).
In the absence of any information, I suppose I have to assume the candidates will toe their respective party lines, though parties’ policies are hardly obvious either.
Anyway, surely the best way for the main parties to avoid losing votes to smaller parties is to make the election about policies, isn’t it?
What’s particularly disheartening is how little of the contents of the election leaflets the various parties have sent actually relates to EU business. The Labour one, for example, is all “Gordon Brown is working to safeguard your family’s income, David Cameron would tax the rich less and cut services”, whilst the Conservative one is full of “You hate Gordon Brown, so vote Tory”.
“It was ever thus, but in this election I have been struck by the absence of references to specific policies. ”
Lord Norton, I’m surprised that you are surprised, if you get my drift..
The whole European Union project has been designed to be as difficult to understand, be as poorly communicated, and to be couched in as much obfuscation and distance as to make the whole creeping anti-democracy march imperceptible to the ordinary voter.
Do you honestly think the ‘average voter’ would have gladly given up control of our border security ? Do you think parties would have gone large on a big manifesto commitment to reduce the amount of democratic control and sovereignty which Westminster had ?
Indeed, do you think surrending monetary policy and national currencies would ever have happened if the old ‘Common Market’ had been so ‘up-front’ about its end objective at the outset.
Of course not. There are two reasons the papers don’t cover this.
1/ The old ‘if voting changed anything, they’d abolish it’ adage. Nothing which happens at ‘voting’ level changes a damn thing in the EU. Witness the supine Parliament endorsing a Lisbon treatment none of us approved and which none of us wanted. When it is voted down, the votes are ignored. So if that little notice is taking of the votes which do occur, why bother covering the Euro elections, when they could cover something which does matter, like what the Americans are deciding.
2/ Many of the people at the ‘top table’ of Bilderberg and the other ‘think tanks’ like the Council of Foreign Relations have media interests and political interests. Sometimes these overlap so why would they rock the boat by pointing out how fundamentally anti-democratic the EU is, and how it is geared in many instances to helping multi-nationals gain global dominance.
I don’t want to go down the road of US unbridled, unregulated capitalism, but the undemocratic and still badly regulated EU is hardly a template for improvement either. I hate to say it, but the idea about handing ‘power back to the people’ is sounding less like a soundbite, and more like a plan of action..
The absence of EU-focused policy does at least seem less apparent in local canvassing and mail-drops. I’ve received several through my door so far, with themes running as follows, in order of when I received them:
UKIP: Predictably EU-bashing slogans along with meaningless invocations of Churchill, et al. (The “He’d get our money back!” banner being the most crass).
Green Party: Largely outlined party policy, local candidate was named but nothing specific about them.
Conservative: “Vote for Change” is the slogan which says it all, really. Purely attacks Labour on the basis that change is needed in Westminster. The only EU-related policy is the referendum position, the other policies listed are domestic issues. Regional candidates are listed but doesn’t even tell me who my local candidate is, let alone anything specific about them.
Liberal Democrat: The most detailed I’ve seen and very local-candidate focused. Lists specific EU policy backings by the local candidate. Could have been an excellent leaflet, but sadly spoiled by the usual Labour-bashing over the war and ID cards, complete with photo of Brown shaking hands with Bush to infer guilt by association. Glibly tars the Conservatives with the same isolationist brush as UKIP.
Conspicuous by its absence is anything from Labour; not sure if this is just in my area or not. Nonetheless there is a definite focus on real policies outside the national media forum, even if it’s not from the bigger parties.
You may have had a leaflet from Labour, but it (to the extent that the Scottish ones are comparable) looks nothing like the usual Labour leaflet (all traces of red and yellow are gone from the front page and the FSC/paper source logo is more prominent than the Labour one). Mine was also hidden in a budget supermarket flyer along with a BNP flyer. None from the other parties yet…all very low key this election – even more so than usual EP elections. Given the current climate of ill will I would think it likely that we are in for some odd results, as for example in 1989 with the Greens getting 15% of the vote. This time though, it will matter more given the electoral system.
Which party, for example, has the best policy on encouraging the knowledge-based economy?
To answer your rhetorical question:
The Greens, because they are against software patents and other abuses of intellectual property law, and for open source software.
My dilemma is exactly this – I have no idea what the parties are going to push for at the EU level. I’ve tried finding the information on the main party websites but I’ve had no luck, only a broad outline of their attitude to the EU.
Perhaps someone could post direct links?
We are still, I am afraid, a very insular island nation, and the media is much responsible for this. There is appallingly little coverage of EU affairs in general in the UK media, and much of what there is is derogatory. Having said that, I have visited Strasbourg and discovered the European Parliament to have very few powers compared to the Council of Ministers and the Commission, so not a lot appears to hang in the balance.
Lord Norton,
You might be interested in this project which we at Unlock Democracy have been working on.
http://www.votematch.co.uk
Will be in touch over the PPEB.
Regards
Matt
And some background on how the European Community works…
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/factsheets/default_en.htm
United we stand divided we fall?
I would recommend people do what I did and sit down with the BBC in two tabs (one for a list of which parties are standing in your local area and another for the key to the parties) and look up the policies of each party in a subsequent tab.
Because the EU adopts a peculiar style of political wrangling; namely, trying to reach consensus and compromise behind closed doors, there is little of substance to be seen in parliamentary debates. Sadly this also seems to lead to convictions becoming muted as policy platforms are distorted by compromise. Within such an environment it is difficult for the public to feel as though their views are actually finding traction or defenders in policy negotiations. By putting compromise before conflict and shying away from genuine transparency the institution becomes less liberal, in the true sense of the word, because persuasion isn’t aimed at rather it is all tit-for-tat policy support.
Is it any wonder then that voters care only about a referendum and the ability to abolish their role in the whole project? What started out as a currency and trade agreement is gaining ever more sovereignty and looks increasingly like a very undemocratic state everyday. Despite Lord Norton’s complaints about referendum’s lacking the necessary precision to reflect the voters’ will, surely an empty election like this is far worse.
Thanks for all your comments, which provide useful reinforcement of the point about the extent to which it is a policy-free election.
Adrian Kidney: You will see the suggestions from other readers. though the suggestions rather reinforce the point that it is not easy for anyone simply to find out what the policies of the parties are.
Stephen Paterson: The European Parliament is becoming a much more significant player in the EU. When it was the European Assemlby it had no powers to affect outcomes, but since then the introduction of the co-operation procedure and the co-decision procedure has significantly changed the situation. Most issues are now resolved under the co-decision procedure, effectively making the EP a partner with the Council of Ministers in the legislative process.
B: There is certainly a need for greater transparency. The situation is one faced by many legislatures, where many decisions are made in committee behind closed doors. The dilemma is one of efficiency versus transparency. The more open the proceedings, the less willing the parties are to negotiate deals.
Tom some minds efficient government is the worst kind; they actually get things done. But perhaps I am just betraying a certain American style of political thought.
Here is something I don’t understand though. The lords never blocks legislation that is part of the party manifesto. Thought they can, by convention they do not. But the Lisbon Treaty was part of the manifesto; it was specifically promised that a referendum would be held on that very document. But when it came to the lords there was no real effort to block it. It appears then that the convention is a form of deference to the party in power, not an expression of the legitimacy conferred on the manifesto by the vote of the people. Why didn’t the lords step up and refuse to pass the treaty? It would seem that one of the most basic oversight functions, in terms of preserving the legitimacy of policy that emerges from the voting booth, would be served by the lords refusing to pass legislation that ran counter to the manifesto as well as not interfering with legislation that made up the manifesto of the winning party.
In other words, if the manifesto is so important that it can’t be interfered with by the lords, then is it not so important that the party also shouldn’t interfere with it?
B: There was no commitment to a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, but rather to a referendum on the Constitutional Treaty. The Government argued that Lisbon Treaty was not the same as the Constitutional Treaty and therefore a referendum was not required. There was an attempt, during the passage of the Bill in the Lords, to provide for a referendum but it was not possible to mobilise a majority in favour of it.
The Salisbury convention, as you say, does apply to Bills promised in a Government’s manifesto, though by extension is mostly applied to Bills in a Government’s programme. We thus do not divide against such Bills on Second Reading. Our main work is in scrutinising them in detail and making amendments to them. The number of amendments can be extensive.