The Null Candidate
Warning: Rambling ahead.
Writing, as I am, whilst listening to the results slowly coming in to the local elections in Britain this week, I am once again reminded of what appears to me to be the underlying problem with British politics today — elector apathy caused by having three economically centrist parties that few still trust. As our economy continues to contract, centrism isn't going to have the dashing feel of the politicians doing lots of new things to help; instead, they are seen to be just taking cheap shots at each other from the dispatch boxes1
With a projected turn out of only 32% — the lowest since 2000 in local elections2 — it's important to understand why people are not voting. Back in 2001, voting figures in the General Election crashed almost 12 percentage points to their lowest levels since around the time of the First World War3, the low turnout was attributed to people considering the result to be a foregone conclusion; today, the conclusion — although somewhat odd due to the discrepancy between the popularity contest of the Mayoral election and the party politics of the London assembly — was predictable. Nevertheless, with the sheer amount of distrust, the feeling that people might well have actively chosen not to vote does come to mind.
The oft-quoted line that more votes were cast in the Big Brother final than the General Election4 reflects, perhaps most of all, that people vote where they think they can make a difference. The ‘my vote won't make any difference’ syndrome5 may will be being replaced with me feeling that ‘my vote won't get me anything I care for’. However, the BNP lost all of their council seats6 and vast gains were made by the mainstream Labour party, which even claimed ground from Plaid Cymru in Wales — events that do not really seem to be consistent with a desire for fresh thinking. The high rankings of the Green and Independent candidates in the mayoral elections, and a swath of second places for UKIP (who achieved an average 13% of the vote in wards where they fielded candidates) are closer to the kind of reaction one would expect.
However, I still feel there is a case for having a clear way of voting for no-one in an election. It also turns out that I'm not alone: the No Candidate Deserves My Vote party7, founded in 2000, fielded a number of non-candidates in an attempt to make this possible. The Electoral commission went on to even do a study looking into the possibility of adding this as a permanent option to the ballot papers8. The findings showed that not voting was often an active choice, and that about a third of people who did not vote would have considered doing so if a no-vote option was made available.
What such a system would really mean then remains the problem. With the fuss kicked up over the coalition having no mandate at the last general election, perhaps it might almost be time to look at the mandate and conditions of governance that applies to MPs — something that was also being talked about at the general election. The Right to Recall debate has ended up where it one would expect it to end up: a debate over bureaucratic process in the event of illegal action, a far cry from the popular delusion that it would allow for public accountability in the case of moral issues and election promises9. Further to that, any kind of restriction on the power of a delegate is a cap on the power of the people that delegate represents; if a constituency can't find someone their willing to send to parliament, then they will not have a voice in parliament.
So, what is to be done? The key people in representing our local interests and governing the entire the country are, currently, the same people; thus undermining one undermines the other. Without power over them, messages are almost pointless — “public pressure” is something that has had no meaning in this administration, with a grand total of two secretaries of state resigning from a series of scandals10 — so voting for the null candidate is only worthwhile if you have some base trust in the other candidates that they give a damn about your opinion, which is a pretty big step on the route for them being worth voting for.
Oddly, I feel that we have something of the opposite problem to that noted in the Solomon Islands back in 200811
An[...] underlying cause of political instability and poor governance, in my opinion, is our electoral system and its related problems. It has been identified by a number of academics and practitioners that the First Past the Post system is such that a Member elected to Parliament is sometimes elected by a small percentage of voters where there are many candidates in a particular constituency. I believe that this system is part of the reason why voters ignore political parties and why candidates try an appeal to voters' material desires and relationships instead of political parties. [...] Moreover, this system creates a political environment where a Member is elected by a relatively small number of voters with the effect that this Member is then expected to ignore his party's philosophy and instead look after that core base of voters in terms of their material needs. Another relevant factor that I see in relation to the electoral system is the proven fact that it is rather conducive, and thus has not prevented, corrupt elections practices such as ballot buying.
With the use of whips in both houses, and rebellions normally treated with great surprise, it seems as if Britain, in fact, has the reverse issue, with the individual candidates rarely being noticed over the name of the party. The notable exception this week was briefly mentioned earlier — Boris Johnson — who was elected...because. The personality contest in that race was taken in much the same way as at the last general election, with the Prime Ministerial debates; the strong feeling that the election was purely to elect the Prime Minister whilst, although unlikely in reality, Britain has no formal requirement for a Prime Minister12.
Electing the face of Britain is important; David Cameron probably makes a marginally more interesting personality to present to the world than Gordon Brown; and it might be time to look at have a Prime Ministerial election up with the other ideas of what to do with our political system.
- 1 ↑ Whilst Nick Clegg is wandering around trying to figure out how to completely break the lords
- 2 ↑ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17946745
- 3 ↑ http://www.ukpolitical.info/Turnout45.htm
- 4 ↑ I don't recall which year this relates to, and it should be noted that people were able to cast multiple votes in Big Brother. As were people under the age of 18, etc. etc.. I don't know how many unique votes were cast; nor, realistically, do I care.
- 5 ↑ Interestingly, it should be possible to model the effect of these people, under a two party system, as a random walk with weighted probabilities of which way they would vote and a good estimate of their number
- 6 ↑ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/vote2012/council/gb.stm
- 7 ↑ http://www.nocandidate.org.uk
- 8 ↑ http://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/poll.aspx?oItemId=1280
- 9 ↑ I'd personally love to see that happen — a world where the person who promises most gets voted in, and then can either lose their seat, or keep a promise. I'd give it about 10 years for the country to actually begin falling apart under the weight of its own stupidity.
- 10 ↑ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cameron_ministry#Changes_since_12_May_2010
- 11 ↑ From a transcript of Sir Peter Kenilorea's opening address at a conference on "Political Parties and Integrity Reform", Honiara, August 30, 2008, as published in the Solomon Star
- 12 ↑ It's a position that has some what evolved by itself