Partisanship, democracy and local elections

I am as partisan politically as the next party activist. I would never seriously contemplate voting anything other than Labour, unless there was no Labour candidate on the ballot paper (which is highly unlikely, as I would probably be the paper candidate myself if I lived in the ward). Even though I have problems, to say the least, with government policy, and am unlikely to ever agree with the party on every issue, I believe profoundly in staying in the party and arguing my case, because there's no other platform for the mainstream social democratic left, and every time someone like me leaves the party, the voice of the left in the party is weakened further. Whatever problems I do have with the party leadership, they pale in comparison with the hatred I have for everything the Tory party does and could ever stand for.

And I undoubtedly think that partisanship is undervalued. It is often criticised on the basis that it means the interests of the country are subordinated to narrow party political concerns - this criticism has been made by numerous commentators in light of the expenses scandal particularly. However, those who attempt to provide an 'apolitical', statesmanlike alternative to the petty squabblings of party politics are usually using this veneer of neutrality to hide some agenda or another - the Jury Team, for example, are funded by Paul Judge, who is a right-wing businessman. The Jury Team claims that its candidates are independents united only by a contempt for the corruption and unpatriotic partisanship of existing parties. However, if that is the case then how can they stand as a legal political party? Why not just stand as independents? What purpose does the Jury Team label serve? If that is not the case and they are another political party, with Paul Judge's backing it does not take a genius to work out what its likely ideological stance will be. The Jury Team either stands for too little or too much. Any candidate or party standing for election must have some position on the issues, and ultimately in competitive elections the Jury Team will succumb to the competitive pressures of party partisanship and be just another party, or it will amount to nothing meaningful.

Partisansip is the price we pay for a relatively accountable democracy. Anti-party political appeals to national unity are the stuff of authoritarians who actually abhor the messy, pluralistic business of competitive elections - witness the various rumoured plots to replace Harold Wilson's governments in the 60s and 70s with a national government under a range of dictatorial nutjobs, and Adolf Hitler's blaming of Germany's problems on the partisan disputes encouraged by Weimar democracy. Yes, sometimes governments will endanger the long-term interests of the country for short-term party advantage, but the alternatives are far worse. Representative democracy is the only game in town, realistically speaking, in large, modern nation states, and despite the much-vaunted decline of the political party, no-one has formulated an alternative means of configuring competing interests and policies in a range of different areas into a platform for governing the country, and then implementing it. Parties as a basis for political organisation and government in a democracy are not perfect, but they are unavoidable.

However, there is an area in which I think there is too much party-orientated partisanship. I can't help thinking that party labels in local elections are often more trouble than they are worth. Now, I am not denying that ideological issues are at stake in local politics - although district/borough councils have been so gutted of important functions that they are nowhere near as ideologically driven as once they were. However, the problem is this. All the parties have effective long-serving local councillors who have developed an excellent relationship with their local community and have the best for their patch at heart. They have the knowledge and experience to provide useful opposition/governance and scrutiny, and to represent their consitutents forcefully. When the national trend goes strongly against their party, they often lose their seats to inexperienced candidates who do not have the experience or skills to do the best job for the people who elected them. Communities lose excellent local servants because too many people use local elections to give incumbent governments a good kicking. Sometimes candidates can buck national trends because of a personal vote, but all too often this is not enough. For example, in my home town of Chelmsford, until 2007 we had two Labour Councillors left, Bill Horslen and Adrian Longden. They were experienced and knowledgeable, and were well-regarded even by Conservatives, who acknowledged that they knew a lot about Marconi and its problems, and forcefully represented their interests. In 2007 they lost their seat to glorified Lib Dem paper candidates, who have little or no idea of the issues facing Marconi, because of the national trend against the Labour Government.

Now, this is a somewhat self-interested line of argument, it could be argued. I am a Labour activist, and Labour has suffered from this phenomenon the most (indeed solely) in recent years. However, in the long run it works both ways. In 96-97 a lot of Labour paper candidates defeated incumbent Tories and subsequently were not the best servants of their wards. It would have been better for local people if long-standing, experienced Tory councillors in basically Conservative areas had kept their seats, because they were the best, most experienced local servants at the time, so long, of course, as this was in the context of the council still being controlled by Labour (jesus, that was a difficult last sentence to write).

So, maybe it would be best if candidates in local elections were not allowed to stand under national party labels. Maybe they could stand as locally-orientated parties on the basis of a local platform, and maybe even local branches of national political parties could campaign for or affiliate to these local parties. The key point is that candidates should not be listed purely on national party labels, because they are then liable to be thrown out on the basis of irrelevant national issues, not local service. It would force voters to actually read candidates' manifestos and vote on local issues important to them, rather than voting lazily on the basis of vague national preferences and prejudices.

(Some credit must go to Tim Worrall, a Tory mate of mine, who floated the idea of reduced partisanship in local politics to me)