With just a week to go to the British General Election on May 6th, the Labour Party, Tories and Liberal Democrats are each hovering around 30% in the most recent opinion polls.
This should not be taken as a sign that we have a contest which is electrifying the ordinary voter. Rather, it’s a measure of the blandness that characterises the campaign, where nothing of any substance, in terms of policy, divides these three parties.
The Conservative Party with Margaret Thatcher at its head in the 1980s, was instrumental in giving a major impetus to what we now know as the neo-liberal agenda involving deregulation, liberalisation and privatisation as economic instruments. From 1997, under the leadership of Tony Blair, the Labour Party carried Thatcher’s policies to their logical conclusion which transformed that party from one which used to be seen as a party of the working class to the premier party of British capitalism.
The Liberals have tried to portray themselves as an alternative to both Labour and the Tories. This is no more than posturing, however, as its current leader, Nick Clegg, has led the party to a totally pro-market, neo-liberal stance. This leaves working people in Britain at the mercy of three main parties, each of which is committed to policies which will find favour with “the markets”, that is, the financial speculators in the major international banks and Hedge Funds. Which means that all three are committed to implementing savage cuts in public spending with all the negative consequences this entails.
It is a bitter irony for British voters that the only policies offered them by the three biggest political parties are precisely those which have caused the present acute economic crisis of which they are the principal victims.
Of course, much of the British press has worked itself into spasms of contrived excitement over the three television debates involving Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, Tory Leader, David Cameron and Mr. Clegg. For those who tuned into the first two, however, it was blandness all the way with largely similar approaches in economic and other issues. The fact that the Liberals are prepared to prop up either of the other two parties in the event of a hung parliament underlines the point.
The huge concentration on the debate between the three main party leaders is creating an election scenario like the presidential campaign in the United States. There the contest is limited to Republican and Democrats, in reality two versions of one party essentially representing big business interests. This is not contradicted by the sometimes vicious rivalry between them, which merely reflects that internal family disputes can often be the most bitter.
The fostering of this kind of presidential campaign is detrimental to real debate on the real issues that affect working people and the poor, that is the big majority in society. The press commentary is frequently superficial and trivialising, highlighting personality issues and concentrating on style over substance.
The real Left is excluded for the most part from the national media in Britain in the course of this election campaign. How many people know, for example, that hundreds of candidates are fighting this election in opposition to public sector cuts or in defence of local facilities? Around fifty candidates are contesting under the banner of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC). This is an electoral platform which is attempting to fill the major political vacuum on the Left in Britain by the common adherence to the market of the Tories, Liberals and Labour and also of most other smaller parties such as the Greens, the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) and the nationalist parties in Scotland and Wales.
The general disillusionment with establishment politics in Britain as elsewhere has been reflected in the falling proportion of voters who turn out on the day to cast their ballots. In recent elections, only about 60% of the electorate has turned out, down from the mid eighties in the 1950s. This may rise somewhat this time out if the Liberal Leader can maintain his pretence of standing for something new and different, and therefore make some more voters feel that it is worth turning out.
Whatever the outcome, this election will highlight the British voting system of “first past the post”. Commentators are drawing attention to the fact that it can throw up results that are greatly disproportionate to the votes received by various parties. Quite clearly, a system of proportional representation would yield results much more in line with the wishes of the voters and would be very important especially for achieving electoral representation for a new party of the Left, including in Northern Ireland where voters have the least choice of all.
You can read a copy of the TUSC Manifesto here.
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