Why I'm Excited by the Rise of the Greens

For the first time in quite a few years I am coming to the view that, far from gaining an overall majority, Labour may actually not even be the largest party following this year’s general election.

No matter how great our loathing of the austerity project forced upon us in the name of “reducing the deficit” by the ConDem government, and how unscrupulous Labour has been in positioning itself as the natural opposition to this government’s policies even though in the small print it is pledged to continue them, the various factors which come into play are beginning to conspire against Her Majesty’s opposition in a very serious way.

Of course it is difficult, even for expert psephologists (which I am certainly not) to get a handle on this year’s contest because it will be a contest unlike any other, in which the date of the election will have been known for years beforehand and the campaigning period will have been uniquely long. It could be that come May the country will be so fed up with politics that the election itself will be more poorly supported than usual. Or conversely, the intensity of the debate might just drag a few more souls along to sign up to the ritual in a way that keeps the system limping on with its credibility retained, at least for another five years.

THE GREEN SURGE

I am excited, if it is possible to be excited by anything that occurs at the circus that is British politics, by what has become known as the “Green Surge”. That is the emergence of a party which would appear to have been in relative slumber for as long as Rip Van Winkle as a serious player at the contest to come. This week the Green Party announced that its membership had surpassed those of both UKIP and the Liberal Democrats, and was growing at a rate of 500 per day. For the benefit of any Martians or recently released solitary confinees who may be reading this, this is the party which the powers that be have decided should be excluded from the forthcoming televised election debates in which Nigel Farage and his party are to participate.

I am not a member, nor a doctrinaire supporter of the Green Party. For many years I have prided myself on my independence from the whole shebang and have stood in elections as an independent in which the Greens have been listed amongst my rival candidates. I served for twelve years as a local councillor, three of them as a member of the borough executive, without once feeling the need to be involved with any political party and I remain of the view that the adversarial party system lies at the root of most of the problems which afflict our politics. I have long foreseen with a sense of impatient expectation the demise of the establishment parties and look forward to seeing their woes compounded on May 7th, or whenever the results of that contest become known to us. It would appear that, for the short term at least, my erstwhile belief that voters would turn their backs on party politics entirely has proved to have been overly optimistic in that they would seem to be looking to smaller parties instead. I’ll settle for that, for now at least.

The Green Party has positioned itself firmly to the left of the Labour Party, a development which I believe has come about organically rather than having been a mere tactical ploy. Speaking personally I dislike labels, which serve to slot free-thinking human beings into neat pigeon holes when surely the need to retain freedom of thought and of action should be of paramount importance. Nonetheless, with the Liberal Democrats having their fingerprints over far too much of the malign and inequitable legislation that has issued forth from David Cameron’s government under cover of tackling debt which has conveniently been blamed entirely upon its predecessor, I feel the Greens to be very much the most likely recipients of my vote, and my support, at the coming election.

It isn’t that I blame the Lib Dems for having gone into coalition. I do believe that, at the time, it was the correct thing to do. But the inescapable conclusion for me is that over the four and a half years in which they have ostensibly shared power with the Tories they have allowed their partners far too much freedom in which to shape the government of this country in their own image. I know from personal experience that in coalition the big parties are pre-programmed to take much and to give little, possessed as they are with an overwhelming sense of entitlement and being so very quick to forget the reasons for them having been compelled to enter into coalition in the first place, viz. that they failed to win enough votes or enough seats to be able to form an administration in their own right.

SINCERITY

There is an added attraction in voting for a minor party and that is that, on aggregate, there is likely to be more sincerity to be found within its ranks. People who enter politics in the hope of self-advancement above all else will naturally be drawn to the big establishment parties where there are jobs aplenty and hundreds of “safe” seats up for grabs. That is not to say that nobody joins such parties with honest intentions, but simply that those who have will quickly find themselves in competition for office with those whose speciality it is to tread on the heads and stab the backs of others in the uncompromising cause of the advancement of self.

As well as being a socially progressive party the Greens have the added appeal, to me, of being committed to devolving democratic participation to the people. Many of its adherents describe themselves as being of the “libertarian left”, which contrasts favourably to many like me with the authoritarianism, left or otherwise, of the Labour Party.

Of course the Greens are not the only minor party whose involvement is likely to impact significantly upon the outcome of the election to come. Much publicity and speculation has been heaped upon the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), which in recent years has both topped the national poll at the European elections and won (or in some senses retained) two parliamentary seats at by-elections. As a consequence of its high profile and its clear impact upon our current body politic UKIP has been invited to the televisual ball from which the Greens have thus far been excluded.

Whilst I welcome the role that UKIP is destined to play in further helping to undermine the two-party hegemony, my problem with them is that I don’t actually support their policies. It is true that UKIP has called both for local referenda and for the recall of under-performing MPs, both of which I have no problem at all in endorsing, but it is undeniable that the party’s main policy planks are centred around a lazy xenophobia which would threaten the gains made by working people in the UK in terms of employment protection through its policy of withdrawing from the EU, and take us backwards as a society which respects cultural diversity within the confines of a cohesive whole.

SCOTTISH NATIONAL PARTY

The other smaller party which is likely to play a major role in shaping the character of the next Westminster government is of course the Scottish National Party (SNP). I use the term “smaller” here in an entirely UK context, as in Scotland the SNP is by far the largest party in terms of membership, has a majority at the Scottish Parliament and is expected to win the largest number of Scottish seats in May, mostly at Labour’s expense. Its membership in Scotland alone far exceeds those of the Lib Dems, Greens or UKIP throughout the UK and, if projected proportionately, it would by some distance be the biggest party in British politics.

It is for me a richly amusing irony that in spite of having been edged to defeat in the Scottish independence referendum by an unholy alliance of the three UK establishment parties invoking all the international and media power at their disposal, the SNP emerged when the dust had settled as the clear political beneficiary of that campaign in its aftermath. Scotland’s left-leaning electorate has found it particularly hard to forgive a Labour Party which joined with the Tories to deny them their right to self-determination for no other reason than that the union serves the party interest at a UK level. The humiliating and shameful spectacle of Gordon Brown, the son of Alba who grew into a British establishment politician, making promises to his fellow Scots which immediately after the event he admitted he was in no position to deliver, in exchange for their acquiescence, will live in Scotland’s collective national memory for a very long time to come.

Most opinion polls suggest that Labour will now lose a significant number of its Scottish seats to the SNP. It is going to be exceptionally hard for Labour to reverse this process over the coming few months. Having been stitched up once the Scottish people won’t, as the song goes, be fooled again. By ruling out the possibility of any deal with Tories post-May the SNP has very cleverly trumped Labour’s likely strategy of trying to convince Scottish voters that a vote for the Scots Nats is a vote for the Tories. In the wake of the referendum and of Labour’s betrayal it will be a brave Labour politician who attempts ever again to append the label “Tartan Tories” to the SNP. The Conservative vote in Scotland, modest though it is, is unlikely to be too much affected by the events surrounding the referendum as it is by definition a unionist party anyway. In opposing Scottish independence the Tories were at least acting according to principle.

To win even a larger number of Westminster seats than the Tories, let alone an overall majority, Labour needs therefore not only to overtake the Conservatives south of the wall, but also to gain enough seats to offset those which are likely to be lost to the SNP. Failing this, the party may still have the option of entering into an agreement with the SNP, allowing it to form a government. This could happen even if Labour is not the largest party in parliament. But the SNP will demand a king’s ransom. Any success for the Greens, who are pro-independence, elsewhere in the UK could strengthen the SNP’s hand still further if called upon to join a rainbow coalition.

SCAREMONGERING

One of the many things which unite the two major parties is their dependence upon scaremongering as a means of hooking in what they perceive to be their straying sheep. A vote for anybody other than Labour is a vote for four more years of Tory austerity, Labour tells us, with the curious inference that Labour austerity will in some undefined way be an altogether more enjoyable experience for us. It’s a two horse race, the Tories insist. A vote for anyone except the Tories will plunge us back into debt and consign us all to eternal damnation. Yawn.

The desperation of the establishment and its need, above all else, to preserve the old duopoly has led to some amusing sideshows. Presently the Prime Minister David Cameron is refusing to take part in the forthcoming televised debate unless the Green Party is involved too. Correct though his position is on this, does anybody seriously believe that it is one inspired by altruism towards the Greens? Rather than one taken by a politician who sees the Greens as being a potential thorn in Labour’s side, unlike UKIP, which will be a bigger thorn in his own?

And what should we make of “progressive” Labour’s implicit endorsement of the decision to include the hard-right UKIP but not the Green Party in the TV debates? Possibly the same as I made of the same party’s much-publicised alliance with UKIP in my own little part of the world during the local elections of 2014, in opposition to a moderate independent residents’ group. Namely that here is a party devoid of any semblance of scruple, a party which will say or do anything in naked pursuit of organisational power at all costs. The same party which, like the Tories, is currently trying to out-UKIP UKIP on matters of immigration.

UNITY COALITION

For all the permutations and possibilities there is of course one potential coalition which certainly would achieve an overall majority and which, politically, would make perfect sense. In case anybody thinks my argument is far-fetched, the Guardian covered it recently in an article by Ian Birrell entitled A Tory-Labour unity coalition may be the only way forward after 7 May. The subject matter speaks for itself. It is an unavoidable truth to any who care to scratch and look beneath the surface that of all the parties which are likely to have any meaningful impact at the election, the two with by far the most in common are the Conservative and Labour parties. For this reason, Birrell argues, it would be a logical step for the two major parties to come together in a unity coalition in order to avoid a “constitutional crisis” (which evidently would be the outcome of voters having the audacity to support parties outside of the big two in significant numbers).

Of course if could never happen. The reason is that the voters, supporters and members of neither party would stand for it. Whatever the similarities between the two major parties in practice, preserving the façade of “British democracy” depends entirely upon maintaining the illusion of choice, and it is simply astounding how many otherwise intelligent people still buy into the notion that these two organisations represent two distinct social constituencies and bodies of opinion in the face of increasing evidence that the real power is wielded behind the scenes and that British governments of whatever hue are merely the public faces behind which lurks an amorphous and entirely self-serving financial elite.

Although they will get my vote I am not convinced that under First Past the Post, and with all the forces that are ranged against them as well as against the other small parties, the Greens will increase their representation in Parliament by much if at all. Ditto UKIP. The SNP will certainly inflict some damage on Labour. But the system parties will still occupy the overwhelming majority of the seats on the green benches.

The challenge to their near-monopoly will be in terms of credibility, with a heftier share of the vote going to smaller parties than ever before as well as individual outcomes within the constituencies being thereby affected. It is beginning to happen, at long last. Aslan is on the move.

Honest Politics and the Common Good

If we have lost trust in our politicians and political parties, how are we going to govern ourselves? What might reform and rejuvenate our politics?

Recently I went to a talk in London by veteran American campaigner Jim Wallis, and I think his proposal of a return to the old concept of ‘the Common Good’ could be the fifth thread of possibility for a faster revival of Independents in local and national politics.

Independents are able to speak out, but have often not been listened to because people do not know what they believe or what they stand for. Independents are not a political party, they do not have policies.

But over the last few years, as the Independent Network has discussed and experimented, four threads of possibility have emerged:

Honest Politics – we have set the Bell Principles as the standard by which we believe Independents should act in local and national politics.

It’s the Person not the Party – we encourage candidates to promote their campaign by getting prominent local people to endorse them, write about them, commend them: in this way, rather than the Independent Candidate asking to be believed and trusted on their own assessment of their own competence, the Candidate is calling on independent evidence from known trusted sources.

Improve the Election Process – Political Parties have the benefit of members who can deliver leaflets, so the election process is weighted against the small parties and Independents. Very often people will vote by post without seeing many of the candidate manifestos. Independents can set better standards by setting up a website and posting up all the candidates’ manifestos, by working with other candidates to share deliveries, by persuading more voters to vote by post only after looking at all the candidates, and to campaign for manifestos to be included with postal voting forms.

The Party Party – a Political Party is also a social network, where people enjoy working together on a shared interest. Many enjoy talking about politics, but do not like the idea of commitment to any one political party. ‘Politics for All’ meetings are a way of inviting anybody (including members of all the political parties) to a social event that will include wide ranging debates on local and national issues. Through such meetings, people with an interest but no commitment can find out how to get involved.

None of these four threads address the issue: but what do Independents stand for or believe?

Perhaps Wallis’ revisiting of the Common Good as a rallying point for political activism is a possible fifth thread that would make up a platform for Independents under the banner of Honest Politics and the Common Good. Wallis does not advocate utilitarianism, the greatest happiness of the greatest number, as Bentham put it. The Common Good has to take into account individual rights and the rights of minorities, so for an Independent Politician there will need to be constant listening and negotiation.

The Independent politician will need to be a leader and an advocate, a person willing and able to argue the case for a minority against vested interests and big business, a person able to persuade and inspire. Politics is not a clean game. It is messy and by its very nature requires compromise and fudge. Maintaining personal integrity is a major challenge for an Independent politician, and so having an over-arching vision of the Common Good will help set a framework and a compass when in situations with conflicting demands.

So how do these Five Threads of Possibility sound to you?

• Honest Politics • Person not Party • Improve the Election Process • Politics for all, we know how to Party • Our Policy is the Common Good of our nation and community

All of this works best at a local level – Parish, Town and District Council. When it gets to County, National and European levels, there is a need for political parties that are shorthand for a specific type of policies. However, as coalition becomes more likely, the Independent or group of Independents all focused on the over-arching Common Good can have great influence, out of all proportion to their numbers.


Reproduced with acknowledgements to Independent Network

Peter Hain and Labour Could Not Be More Wrong

Apparently the former Welsh Secretary Peter Hain will attack independent councillors at today's Welsh Labour conference in Cardiff, saying they have "no manifesto, no plan and no clue - many of them (are) closet Tories".

Well, we can safely titter about the "closet Tories" reference from a spokesman for a party that introduced tuition fees, wanted to privatise the Royal Mail and recently all but backed the current government's austerity programme, but it is the "no clue" suggestion that intrigues me. It is, of course, a classic expression of the more or less universally held view amongst Labour Party apologists that politicians in general and Labour politicians in particular are "experts" in a field of activity that is too complex for "ordinary" people to grasp.

Let us consider one local example of how the "clueless" independents measure up to the Labour elite. The proposed closure of the St. John's Community Centre.

Now I'm not going to take a personal swipe at the Lead Member, who is also a ward member for Syon in which the Centre is situated, because I believe he genuinely worked hard on behalf of local people to achieve what would appear, at least for now, to be a more or less satisfactory outcome for the Centre and for the community that uses it. But maybe we should take a closer look at quite how this successful outcome was delivered.

First the impending closure is announced "subject to consultation". An economic case for closure, of sorts, is mooted. It is, apparently, losing money and the building is in need of repair. Fellow Labour councillors protest that the closure is necessary "to protect frontline services" (which in the view of the community the Centre is). Residents, organised by former independent councillors, march in protest. The Lead Member attends the march to find out what is going on and to meet and take questions from members of the public. The Lead Member then promises to go back to his officers and find out more information (during the course of all this activity it was brought to the Lead Member's attention by the community itself that former independent councillors had managed to set aside £250,000 precisely to fund the required repairs, a fact that not only officers but apparently also his own party colleagues had not bothered to share with him). Unable to get a response from his own officers, he is compelled to make a Freedom of Information Request to get an answer out of them. He gets an answer. There is, after all, no economic case for closure. The Centre will not be closed after all.

Compare this with the actions of independent ICG councillors during the previous administration.

Officers proposed the closure and sale of the property to the Conservative Lead Member, who presented it to his ICG colleagues for consideration. The ICG said no. Discussion over, proposal shelved.

The point of this post is not to suggest that the Labour Lead Member is in any way less talented, nor indeed less committed, than the ICG councillors who proceeded him. It is to demonstrate that councillors whose first allegiance is to a political party cannot, with the best will in the world, compete with decent independent councillors, because their hands are completely tied by the very system of which they, by their own choice, are locked into.

Peter Hain, in other words, is talking complete and utter tosh. But then what does he care? His concern begins and ends with achieving political power for his organisation. For him, as with them, that is the end as well as the means.

The people of Wales suffer as a consequence. But then what does it matter? They don't have a clue, after all.

Can the Old System Survive Social Media and the Age of Mass Communication?

This evening a new poster at the Brentford TW8 community forum expressed the desire that more independents should be elected to Parliament but regretted that, in his view, this will never happen.

I responded to the contrary but feel others may wish to contribute to the debate, which they can do either at the forum or through the Comments section below.

My post on the forum is reproduced verbatim:

"The party system has changed surprisingly little over hundreds of years. The Tories have become the Conservatives, the Whigs have become the Liberals, the latter (largely) merged with the SDP to form the Liberal Democrats and about a century or so ago the Labour Party joined the private members' club and, after a short time as the third party, replaced the Liberals as one of the two major forces in parliamentary politics.

"But in terms of form and substance, it has been the same old same old for centuries.

"However one should never underestimate the power of the Internet. The 'net is probably the most significant invention in the history of man since the wheel. It completely transforms our ability to receive information, and in some cases at least it gives us a chance to better understand that information which we receive.

"The UK and western news media still pumps propaganda quite relentlessly at us, but if we want another perspective Russia Today and al-Jazeera (just to give an example) are just a click away. "Little" people like you and I, with just a modicum of Internet savvy, can spread our own news and views virally through the use of social media, blogs and forums.

"What has this got to do with anything? Well it means both news and opinion will become increasingly more difficult for the political establishment to channel in the direction in which it wishes it to go. Okay, our governments are still conducting wars under false pretences and are by and large getting away with it but a significant - and more importantly, growing - minority are beginning to ask questions.

"Far fewer people blindly follow the official line of their favoured party than was once the case (although as you can see from this forum there are still those who do).

"What has this all got to do with anything? Well it is my view that the political system as it is currently configured cannot survive a cultural sea change as radical as the one we are currently undergoing. Either our "democracy" has to adapt and embrace more real and meaningful public input on a truly massive scale, or else it will reveal itself to the majority for what it has always truly been and die.

"Independents of one kind or another will dominate our politics within a generation. Most reasonable people would regard this as a positive development. Those who don't either have a selfish personal stake in sustaining the inequalities and injustices of the current system or else they are simply stupid.

"This forum is blessed with some fine examples of both."

Some further thoughts from last Thursday

Trying though I honestly am to get a real life, I have to admit that I still find myself dissecting last week's local election results and looking for pointers to where the borough might be heading when "real" voting conditions are restored in 2014.

One interesting number that keeps coming back to me is 8816. This is the minimum number of voters who opted for independent candidates in preference to any of the established parties. This figure was reached by taking the highest independent vote in each ward in which non-aligned candidates were standing. In practice of course, because not everybody votes in blocs, it is likely that at least 10,000 voters in Hounslow placed at least one cross beside the name of an independent candidate. I would venture that is the most ever.

Then there was a minimum of 8336 voters who supported Green Party candidates. And if we want to think outside the "big two" as opposed to the "big three", there is the small matter of at least 11,824 voters backing the Liberal Democrats in spite of the fact that they were not contesting every ward.

As "third forces" go, the support of 30,000 - 35,000 voters in the London Borough of Hounslow is not a bad base to be starting from. But of course it should not just be assumed that every Green voter would have supported ICG candidates in the absence of a Green, nor that every ICG voter would have opted for a Lib Dem, and so on. If we are to think in terms of a third power in Hounslow politics to challenge the sterile hegemony of the tired old parties (and I should stress it is no more than a thought at the moment, I still believe the new administration should be given an opportunity to prove itself), we must explore what unites those of us who choose to think outside the establishment box and who consciously take the more difficult path towards realising our aspirations.

This is something I intend to research over the coming months, if only to keep a promise to those caring souls in my community whose new-found freedoms were so prematurely dashed, at least for the time being, by the "Gumby" vote herded out last week by the media circus that was the general election.

For the benefit of younger voters (and councillors) who are too young to remember the Gumbies, the following amusing little clip pertains:

"It's ironic that the outcome of a local election should be determined by a group of voters with no interest in local elections"

That was my soundbite when I sent off a press statement earlier trying to explain how the ICG came to lose all six of its council seats in Isleworth and Syon wards at last week's local elections.

It wasn't, in my view, an unreasonable thing to say. In 2006 I had topped the poll in Isleworth with 1240 votes, this year in the same ward 1741 votes was not enough to get me onto the scorescheet. The general election increased the turnout in Isleworth from 37% to over 62%, and in Syon from 36% to over 58%. Obviously an increase in turnout is good for democracy inasfar as it goes, but if the cause of the extra numbers is that the additional voters are in attendance for a reason other than to vote in a local election it does mean that the local election result is essentially being decided by those who don't really give much of a toss about local community business. That most of those fitting this description would appear to have been Labour voters could be argued to vindicate the ICG's whole raison d'etre.

No matter, we have six new Labour councillors on the manor - Mindu Bains, Ed Mayne and Sue Sampson in Isleworth and Steve Curran, Theo Dennison and Jason Ellar in Syon, and I wish them every success in their new roles over the next four years. They are all new councillors which hopefully means they will bring fresh enthusiasm to the job, and in the case of two of them at least they bring extreme youth as well. Jason is, I believe, the youngest councillor ever to be elected to the London Borough of Hounslow, and I'm just too kind to ask how he intends to juggle his casework with his homework, or whether he'll have to be home from meetings by nine o'clock!

All joking aside, I am naturally being asked where the ICG intends to go from here, and whether we'll be looking to try to recapture the seats in 2014. The simple truth is that I don't know, and much is likely to depend on how the new councillors engage with the population that we as a local community group still serve and the approach the new administration in general takes to the whole area of Community Empowerment. If they take advantage of our contacts, our insight and the relationship that we enjoy with residents active in the community to try to create their own bond of a kind that is beneficial to the community they will have our support and assistance. If, on the other hand, their approach will be to treat local residents and their organisations as conquered serfs they will find in us a formidable adversary.

The is little doubt in my mind that, but for the extraordinary conditions created by the holding of the general election on the same day as the local elections, we would have comfortably held all our seats in both Syon and Isleworth. Good sitting councillors of the caliber of John Connelly, Peter Hills and Linda Nakamura were absolutely annihilated in their respective wards, coming in fourth behind the three major parties, each of them coincidentally taking about 14% of the poll. Even the excellent Andrew Dakers, standing for the Liberal Democrats in Brentford as well as representing his party in the parliamentary contest, was beaten down into third place.

The ICG, by contrast, were still knocking at the door in defiance of the artificial turnout, and of all logic. We came second in both Syon and Isleworth, in the latter failing to hold a seat by just 78 votes. In Isleworth we took over 29% of the vote, in Syon nearly 25% in spite of the unhelpful and pointless intervention of a full slate of Green Party candidates and one from UKIP. Our percentage of the vote in Hounslow South, where we have never held a seat, was roughly equal to those of the defeated independent councillors in Hounslow Heath, Bedfont and Hanworth.

The ICG's Committee will be getting together shortly to assess the situation. I cannot second guess the outcome of that meeting, but the mood is not one of defeat but of acceptance of the freak conditions which fired this eccentric result, coupled with a cool determination to defend everything we have built in our community, to ride the storm if a storm is to be, and to mobilise residents to resist any attempt to dismantle what they have built should such an attempt be forthcoming. Colleagues also however seem to have a genuine desire to give the new regime a chance before jumping to any conclusions and, if needs be, to redeploy the organisation into a supporting role outside of the electoral arena.

Meanwhile it feels odd not being an elected member after twelve years of continued service. I was going to go to the office today to do some constituency work, then realised that I no longer have any constituents nor for that matter an office! I'll get used to it, and four years will pass like it is no time at all.

It has been suggested elsewhere that the ICG "paid the price" for having entered into coalition with the Conservatives. The election results don't support this theory. Neither John Connelly nor Andrew Dakers had ever been in coalition with the Tories, whilst Peter Hills and Linda Nakamura severed their connection some time ago. Yet all of them were defeated more heavily than we were.

Do I have any regrets about the coalition? Well, I don't regret entering into it. Having been elected to office to make a difference I feel we had a duty to place ourselves into a position that enabled us to do that. My one regret is that, once it had become obvious to us that chief officers were prioritising Conservative objectives over ours, we didn't - I didn't - do enough to rectify the situation. Vague promises that our complaints would be "looked into" as they stalled for time (as we knew they were doing) stretched things out until they were effectively timed out and we comforted ourselves with the knowledge that we would deal with it all after the election as a condition of any new coalition agreement. Which would have been fine had we had the opportunity.

Lots of questions will be asked, and answered, over the weeks and months ahead. As long as we remain solid, as we intend to, the long-term future of our community will remain entirely in its own hands.

Cleggbama and me - witnesses at the birth of this new Coalition of Hope

by Suzanne Moore, Independent parliamentary candidate for Hackney North and Stoke Newington. Reproduced with acknowledgements to Mail Online.


Do you remember the time long ago before Cleggbama walked amongst us?

Amazingly it's less than two weeks. This Election was shaping up as deathly dull, with Brown and Cameron both flatlining.We sat through the near-death experience that is Brown's campaigning and watched bemused as Cameron failed to hide his exasperation that he just wasn't being handed what was rightfully his.The depressing arguing over cuts and the 'disappearing' of all significant women except dutiful spouses - now cast as fashion-conscious carers - made it even harder to engage.

My own frustration with the lack of choice bubbled over and my solution was to stand for Parliament myself as an Independent. Party politics had produced this stasis.

Rash, I am sure, but my form of direct action.

Even I, though, am not daft enough to think individuals can shift the system, simply that we can draw attention to its flaws. This is something most Independents have in common.

Having already expressed my preference for a hung parliament, my feeling was that the electorate was also in no mood to give one party a mandate. Such an outcome would be a way of ticking a 'none of the above' box.

This was before the TV debates. It's not that people just changed their vote on the basis of 90 minutes of telly, more that an attractive, articulate figurehead had been found for their rumbling discontent.

The Lib Dem leader was an unknown quantity. No more. Now we know his freshness makes both Brown and Cameron look stale.

He looked directly into the camera and connected viscerally with people's desire for a more direct form of democracy.

Arcane arguments about constitutional reform and proportional representation rarely excite.

But something happened visibly in the first debate: we could see the leaders of the two main parties were working overtime to maintain the status quo that Clegg was challenging.

Indeed the forces of conservatism on both sides have been ambushed by the urgency of those who now scent meaningful change. The Tories don't want substantial parliamentary reform and Labour only talks desperately of it in the dying days of its administration.

The Lib Dems may be wobbly on many issues but this is not one of them. It is wrong to suggest all have fallen in love with this party or that the Lib Dems are completely different from the main parties.

They are not. They are not clean on expenses, nor above using very dirty tricks when campaigning.

Surely the surge towards Clegg is happening because so many have felt locked out of the two-party system for many years. This sea change has been called a Diana moment and therefore irrational. But just as the outpouring over Diana reflected changes that had already happened and marked a break with a more buttoned-up past, so the Lib Dems' sudden popularity reflects years of the electorate feeling ignored by its leaders.

It doubtless helps, too, that Clegg embodies an energy and modernity that makes the twoparty system appear lethargic and creaky.

The prize now will go to those who offer actual change.

Brown can offer only more of the same as he floats among the wreckage of the latest job figures and lack of growth.

Cameron cannot hide his look of dismay that a new kid on the block may steal what is rightfully his. It's not in the script, yet it is written all over his face.

The unscripted Clegg, meanwhile, makes his success look entirely natural. You have to pinch yourself to remember that only weeks ago his party was deemed entirely unelectable.

The true measure of the Lib Dem insurgency is the reaction against it.

The unsettled mewlings about a hung parliament causing the end of civilisation as we know it emanate from those who have complacently invested in a Tory victory.

The City - that bastion of fairness and accountability - won't like it, they complain. Oh dear.

Well other countries cope and, actually, not all City people feel the same way.

Two unpopular wars, economic meltdown and huge inequality is the result of a party with a large majority. It is hard to imagine in what way a hung parliament could do worse.

I am biased obviously. I am not a Lib Dem but I share absolutely a sense that something has to shift and am excited to think it might. Standing as an Independent is part of pushing for a shift.

In my constituency other Independents have also come forward. Some good, some barmpots. I now find myself up against 'A Ripperologist'.

Well what did I expect? A clean fight? But what motivates most Independents is the same despair with our political system that Clegg is tapping into.

The practical problem for Independents, as I am finding out to my cost, is that without the teams and money that the big parties' machinery offers it is virtually impossible.

Last week, standing at a borrowed table wi th our lovely little flyers, we watched in awe as a bus pulled up.

Out got the sitting MP (Diane Abbott) and several of her staff.

They glared at us, dispensed their expensive literature and drove off. They must have stayed for all of five minutes.

Labour take my area, Hackney, for granted and clearly don't like being challenged in any way. Still they have the money to do wham-bam-thankyoumam campaigning.

No one at the top should take voters for granted. Something is shifting from the bottom up.

Brown is incapable of delivering the kind of change now being demanded.

Cameron provides only a change of leader and direction but no deep structural change of the institutions.

So forming now before us are two new coalitions.

On one side are those who want to reinvent the wheel of democracy, on the other those vested interests who like things just the way they are.

We have the progressives in the shape of Lib Dems, some Greens and many Independents now arrayed against the conservatives (small c) of the big parties. This is bad news for Labour, but they have had their chance.

Having been fed a politics of fear, something organic and long repressed is somehow manoeuvring us towards a politics of hope.

It is this coalition of hope - not Clegg himself - that is important. Such a moment may pass. But we shouldn't let it.

To witness the birth of a new political era would count as victory for many of us.

New movement gives Independence real meaning

Nearly twelve years ago, shortly after having been elected to the London Borough of Hounslow for the first time as its first ever independent councillor, I attended a meeting of the Local Government Association Independent Group of councillors at the Connaught Hotel in Bournemouth.

To be truthful the reason for my attendance at the meeting was a combination of natural curiosity with an opportunity to take my family away to the seaside for a couple of days. Bournemouth in my view is one of the better resorts on the South Coast - conspicuously clean, much to do but not too populous as Brighton can be at its worst. We couldn't afford to stay at the Connaught but we found an adequate little guest house a few minutes' walk away and were happy enough with that.

At the meeting were a hundred or so independent councillors from around the country. One thing I noticed straight away was that they were mostly older (at 36 I figured I was probably the youngest person in the room), mostly male and almost exclusively white. As they began to speak I also picked up fairly quickly that a disproportionate number of them were from the West Country or thereabouts, representing farming communities.

They didn't have a great deal in common with me or the ICG, whether politically or socially. The majority, but not all, seemed conspicuously right of centre and probably did not know very much about community life in a place like Isleworth. Nevertheless I found them to be a likable bunch and, well, friendly. Some seemed possessed of a sense of humour which I had found lacking amongst many of my fellow councillors back home. I gave out a few of my LBH "business" cards and resolved to keep in occasional touch with this group, although overall I did not consider they could do a great deal to help shape the development of the ICG.

Fast forward nearly twelve years and we are facing a general election, at which the likelihood is that the era of New Labour will draw to a close and will be replaced either by a Conservative government with a clean majority, or a messy and unclear situation á la February 1974.

I have long argued, to the obvious disappointment of some of my good friends in the local Conservative Group, that the scenario we have before us is not 1997 in reverse. Then an excited and excitable tide of New Labour fervour overwhelmed with embarrassing ease a Conservative establishment that had long been in decline to the point at which it could no longer do anything at all right. At that election half the parliamentary Conservative Party had been wiped out and a new age was well and truly upon us. Things, we were told, could only get better.

Whether things did in fact get better depends of course upon whom one speaks to. What is not in dispute, other than amongst the most absurdly blinkered few who remain loyal to the class of '97 (and they still appear on local community forums from time to time, emerging in fighting mode out of the blue like Japanese nonagenarians from the jungle thinking the war is still on), is that the New Labour project is in its death throes as we approach May 2010 and, for some, the political equivalent of an appointment with a firing squad.

But the situation is not the same as in 1997 because there is no real sense of excitement about the opposition, at least not anything remotely like on the same scale as had been the case when Blair first assumed power. Public disquiet and disgust over expenses has tainted all the major political parties, and the Conservatives nationally only find themselves ahead by virtue of the fact that Labour are behind them. There is a general disillusionment with party politics which could truly herald a new age in national government, as it has in local government in Hounslow.

A couple of months ago I wrote a light-hearted piece for this blog entitled Rise of the Indies, in which I pointed out how betting giants Ladbrokes were shy of offering too generous odds on some of the more high-profile independent candidates who will be standing at the general election for fear that they may cause an upset. Leading Irish bookie Paddy Power has since taken a similarly cautious approach. Although the concept of the independent MP is still in its infancy and will not be making any major breakthroughs this May, the tide is clearly going out on the old politics and looks poised to wash something new and exciting up on the shore when it eventually returns.

This new force is binding together in the form of an organisation called the Independent Network. Rather than being a political party, the Network offers support to independent parliamentary candidates provided they adhere to a few basic, common-sense principles which unite them all. They are then free to fight their different campaigns, on their different issues, from wherever on the so-called political spectrum they happen to reside.


One of the many independent candidates associated with the Network is Tony Clarke, former Labour MP for Northampton South and now an independent member on Northampton Borough Council. As well as being a truly welcome supporter of this blog (!), Tony is also a full-time Director of Northampton Football Club. He has consistently opposed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and has his own distinct political programme with a distinctly "people first" flavour. He also publishes a superb blog of his own entitled The Northampton Independent, which I highly recommend. At the next general election Tony will be seeking to recapture his old seat, and according to the bookies he is not without a chance.

Like I said I am not anticipating a flood of independent MPs being elected to office in May. But the Independent Network and its quality candidates such as Tony and Khizar Iqbal show us clearly that the writing is on the wall for old-style politics in this country.

Preparing to welcome the new kids

This morning I went along to the Civic Centre to an informative event that was being laid on for the benefit of aspirant candidates for the forthcoming local elections.

A good crowd was there to learn about life as a councillor, as the well as the mechanics of standing for election. A crafty look at the attendance sheet, which curiously asked all those present to declare which party they hoped to stand for, revealed that there were a fair few potential independents in the field, and not only those associated with the ICG.

Some interesting presentations were given by the Leader of the Council, the Chief Executive, Councillor Matt Harmer and the Elections Officer, as well as a virtuoso performance by Thomas Ribbits, the Head of Democratic Services, who revealed a flair for public speaking of such a magnitude that it made the business of council committee structures and process sound interesting.

As I sat at the back and looked at those gathered I had an uneasy sensation of deja vu, and for a moment I was back at school sizing up the new first years and trying to work out whose tie I should twist first. I jest a little, but the realisation for the first time that I had become one of the "old boys" was more than a little scary.

Nobody knows what will happen on the fateful day in May, especially amid the chaos that is likely to be the general election on the same day. But on the balance of probabilities I met some of the next intake today, and at least they know now how to fill out a nomination form.

The rise of the Indies?

I know from personal experience that independent candidates seldom perform well in general elections. The are of course exceptions - Dr. Richard Taylor in Wyre Forest defied the odds to be elected in 2001, and then again to hold onto his seat at the following election. Then there was Martin Bell, the man in the white suit. And in 2005 the late Peter Law took a seat in Wales, which was held by his agent Dai Davies at the subsequent by-election.

But in most of these cases there were exceptional circumstances. Dr. Taylor was elected on the back of a massive campaign to save Kidderminster Hospital. Martin Bell's election at the expense of former Conservative MP Neil Hamilton, who had been dogged by controversy, was assured when Labour and the Liberal Democrats agreed to step aside. And the Welsh situation came about following a reaction against the Labour Party's policy of all-women shortlists, in other words the split in the vote could be expected to reflect the split that existed locally within the then ruling party.

So some of the odds in the individual constituency betting list issued by the bookmaker Ladbrokes for the next general election make interesting reading. At Castle Point one Bob Spink is quoted at 11/4 to win the seat, behind the Conservative favourite but considerably ahead of Labour and the Liberal Democrats. In Dewsbury Khizar Iqbal is showing as a not impossible 12/1 underdog, well favoured over the Lib Dems at 100/1. An unnamed independent in Kirkcaldy & Cowdenbeath is reckoned to be the most serious challenger at 16/1 in what would admittedly appear to be a very safe Labour seat. In Luton South TV celeb Esther Rantzen is quoted at 6/1 despite the intervention of at least two other independents. In another Labour stronghold in Mansfield the Mansfield Independent Forum are second favourites at 10/1, as is Steve Kidd - an improbable victor at 33/1 in Normanton Pontefract Castleford. Plus of course there is Dr. Richard Taylor, standing once more in Wyre Forest and reckoned to be a close second favourite to the Conservative candidate at 11/8, and Dai Davies who is 8/11 favourite to retain his seat in Blaenau Gwent. And that's just the independents that have declared so far.

There are a few other battles worthy of mention. In Bethnal Green & Bow Respect are not thought to be completely out of the picture as 11/4 second favourites in spite of all their problems, and they are also quoted at 7/1 in nearby Poplar & Limehouse. In Brighton Pavilion the Green Party are actually 6/4 favourites to win a three-way battle with Labour and the Conservatives (oh, if only they possessed the same political nous in this part of the world!), and are not entirely out of the frame in Lancaster & Fleetwood and Oxford East, in both of which they are showing at 25/1.

The final imponderable is in Buckingham, the seat of John Bercow. Traditionally the big parties do not field candidates against the Speaker, which does of course leave him vulnerable to the challenge of a smaller party, in this case UKIP who are quoted at just 3/1 to take his seat. Given his unpopularity amongst some of his Conservative colleagues he may ironically need to depend upon the votes of traditional Labour and Liberal Democrat supporters to see off the UKIP challenge.

So what does all this mean? How many independents will make it to Westminster?

Personally, I think no more than two or three. Dai Davies seems likely and if I were a betting man (!) I'd probably back Dr. Taylor ahead of the Conservative favourite in Wyre Forest. The ex-Conservative, ex-UKIP Bob Spink is clearly not without a chance. And Esther Rantzen?

It may not seem much, but when one considers that prior to Martin Bell in 1997 the last independents to be elected from England, Scotland or Wales were Dick Taverne and Eddie Milne in the first election of 1974 the Stone Table would certainly appear to be cracking, albeit frustratingly slowly. Bear in mind the massive advantage that the major political parties enjoy in terms of organisation, publicity and finance and the fact that independents would appear to be making some headway seems more remarkable still.

This trend is certainly reflected in our local politics. In 1998 Yours Truly was the first candidate ever to be elected to the London Borough of Hounslow on an independent ticket. In 2002 there were four - three ICG members and the excellent Luke Kirton from ABeeC. Last time it was eight, and currently there are nine (ten if you count the enforced whiplessness of Bedfont's Councillor Jiwan Virk).

I am aware of course that there is a feeling in some quarters that we are all about to be washed away come the next local elections. I wonder what odds Ladbrokes would like to offer me on there being more indies elected in 2010 than there were nearly four years ago?

Big news from Norwich - ideas win elections

The following article was written by William Rees-Mogg and appeared in Mail Online, to whom acknowledgements. It is reproduced here as a debating point on the question of party politics and the rise of independents and single-issue parties. Publication does not imply agreement with the author on every issue.


One should not over-elaborate the analysis of elections. The central question is always the same. Who won? This is certainly true of the Norwich North by-election, where Chloe Smith turned Dr Ian Gibson's Labour majority of 5,459 in 2005's General Election into a Conservative majority of 7,348.

Allowing for all the special circumstances, that is probably a good enough result to produce a Conservative victory next year, both nationally and in Norwich North. That is what matters; it is natural for the Conservatives to be delighted with last Thursday's result as well as relieved. Miss Smith is more than entitled to enjoy her triumph.

There are, however, some interesting undercurrents revealed in the Norwich North results. First, there is one piece of excellent news, which I had not totally expected. After its relatively successful result in the European Elections, the British National Party (BNP) thought it a good idea to put up a candidate in Norwich North. It was mistaken. The BNP was beaten into seventh place with just 941 votes.

That does not mean the BNP may not become a future threat, but it does show it has limited appeal outside a few deprived areas. Seventh place in a by-election is a joke position for a group claiming to be a national party.

The result put the Conservatives in first place, Labour second, the Liberal Democrats third, the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) fourth and the Greens fifth.

The result is disastrously bad for Labour. Undoubtedly, Labour voters resented the brutal dismissal of Dr Gibson, a popular and independent-minded local MP. The Labour vote fell by 70 per cent from 21,097 in 2005 to 6,243 in 2009. The opinion polls have been reporting that Labour support in the country has fallen from 36 per cent at the last General Election to a figure in the mid-20s now. Norwich has confirmed the opinion polls reflect reality.

The Conservatives won the seat largely because Labour has become so unpopular. In 2005, the Tories came second in the Norwich seat with 15,638 votes; in last week's by-election they came comfortably first with 13,591. The Tories would have been able to win the seat simply by retaining the support of their past voters, though they did well to increase their share of the votes.

The Lib Dems also had a lower vote in 2009 than they had had in 2005. At the by-election they came third, but they had only 4,803 votes to the 7,616 they had won in 2005. Although Labour did by far the worst, all three traditional parties won fewer votes than they had won at the last General Election.

The three leading parties, taken together, saw their vote fall from 44,300 in 2005 to 26,700 in 2009. Resentment over parliamentary expenses may have partly caused the decline, but an analysis of the vote for the new parties suggests there is more to it than that.

Two of the new parties came just below the three traditional parties in the ranking order. Both had performed reasonably well in the European Elections. UKIP increased its 2005 vote from 1,122 to 4,068 at the by-election. That put it in fourth place. Indeed, UKIP was fewer than 1,000 votes behind the Lib Dems. The Greens increased their General Election vote of 1,252 to 3,350.

Both parties are perceived by the public as single-issue parties. Nevertheless, both were able to increase their votes at a by-election in which the three major parties were unable to do so. Labour's vote was catastrophically lower. Obviously, the European and Green issues are important to voters.

Last week, Labour lost some 15,000 votes, votes that Dr Gibson had won in 2005. No doubt many of these voters simply abstained, but the two new parties gained 5,000 voters.

If Britain had adopted electoral reform, which is the long-standing policy of the Lib Dems, these new parties, including the BNP, would have an opportunity to grow to the point at which they would become natural coalition partners. The parties that are the biggest threat to the established parties would also make the most attractive coalition parties.

The Lib Dems would be attractive coalition partners for Labour, as they have been in Scotland; UKIP might be a potential coalition partner for the Tories, though that would be resisted. The Greens are a threat to the Lib Dems, but could also be their partners. As we do not have proportional representation, this change-your-partners dance will not take place - yet.

Nevertheless, British politics will increasingly be influenced by the single-issue parties. It is no longer reasonable to think UKIP or the Greens are merely crankish parties, bound to fade away. The opinion polls suggest both are in the interesting situation of being single-issue parties whose issues have strong public appeal. Most voters are certainly more conscious of Green issues than they used to be a generation ago; most voters have also become increasingly critical of the European Union and the Lisbon Treaty.

The Lib Dems in the House of Lords voted with the Government against the Lisbon referendum, which the country had been promised. Obviously, Eurosceptics will hesitate before they vote Lib Dem. Support for Green issues crosses the boundaries of other parties - the Tories can claim to have been a Green party for a long time in that they were always the countryside party.

I would not particularly welcome coalitions of conflicting ideas - which electoral reform has created in Scotland - into Westminster. But I do welcome the mixture of ideas which is fermenting in our politics. The Norwich North result supports the forecast that Labour is on the way out and the Tories are on the way in.

Yet it also supports the view that the politics of ideas, which we knew in the Forties, may be coming back. It was the ideas-based parties, UKIP and the Greens, which were the only ones to increase their votes in the Norwich North by-election.