What next?

As polling day approaches, and with only the benefit of opinion polls at my disposal, I’d like to spend a bit of time following up on my previous blog in terms of the ‘primary’ discussion.

In my previous blog I suggested that the predominance of safe Labour First Past The Post (FPTP) seats in the Scottish Parliament has had a detrimental effect on the party’s ability to provide opportunities to new, up and coming politicians more attuned to the modern day campaign.

I rhetorically asked whether someone elected in 1999 could still, in 2011, after 12 years in a safe seat, offer the same intellectual input into modern political debate – particularly if that person has offered little more than a backbench position in a parliament of 129 MSPs.

That said, I’m a supporter of FPTP, although I do accept that it does – on occasion – offer the problem of creating safe seats. Needless to say that AV does not in any significant way solve this problem.

However, I believe that whilst any member of a party will strive to be selected for a safe seat and the parties themselves love having them, it can in ways offer a pyrrhic victory in terms of that party’s quest to remain relevant and in government.

This is best illustrated by the Scottish Parliament in which of 129 seats, 72 are  FPTP and the bulk of which (until tomorrow) are safely Labour.

Is Labour’s position strengthened by its reliance on the army of FPTP MSPs it can rely on? My contention is that, not only is the answer to that question no, it is in fact detrimental to the party and offers an almost insurmountable obstacle to identifying and nurturing new talent.

I'll mention no names, however it is likely that the same old faces, doing very little, will be elected on the basis of a labour rosette tomorrow evening, whilst some very talented people are rejected by the electorate. Is that any way for a party to progress?

If the opinion polls are correct and the SNP do in fact win, then that may be as a result of a system that allows the SNP to remain dynamic and to nurture talent, whilst the Labour Party stagnates with, by and large, the same faces since 1999.

Incidentally, I use the Scottish Labour Party as an immediate example, however the problem of safe seats offered the same problems to the Conservative pre-1997!  

Therefore, I contend that every party should consider a means of implementing some degree of ‘primary’ system throughout the Country. This will, in my opinion, be of benefit to parties with safe seats, if done properly.

Involving the electorate prior to the election itself could reinvigorate a system currently considered stale and party orientated. It isn’t right that only a small selection of people (a local party membership) can select someone for a safe seat. It leads to lobby fodder and generic candidates who know what to say and when to say it.

The Labour Party has particularly bitter experience in this regard and should embrace the primary idea. The Conservatives have done so with some reward!

I have consciously lived through two proper Labour Leadership elections. Blair and Ed Miliband. You’ll note a leader in between.  A leader responsible for a defeat similar to that suffered by Michael Foot in 1983 in terms of percentage share of the vote. The same leader who did all he possible could to avoid a leadership election when the then PM Tony Blair resigned.

Accountability is key! The days of preservation of political self interest, particularly for the labour party given the example just outlined, should be over! No person, regardless of their devotion or servitude to a party, should be guaranteed a place in parliament! That is the sole preserve of the electorate!

I, for one, am sick of a party system being used to engineer certain people of adequate sycophancy or servitude to a party message, being elected to seats for which they will rarely be held truly to account.

A primary system, open to an electorate outwith party membership, could be a truly revolutionary development in modern day UK politics. I believe this will serve two purposes;

Firstly, it will allow political parties a wider and more positive scope for selecting potential candidates.

Secondly, it will bring forward a new group of people who may not necessarily feel the need to conform to narrow party political prejudice or its leadership, but more to the concerns of the electorate at large - even the diverse electorate of the beneficiary party in any given safe seat!

There will be many people in this country who do not particularly like or associate with their MP/MSP but who will, through loyalty to a party (and fear of another party), vote for that person. Now if that’s the case in a single seat, what worth does that representative have to the Country and, overall, to the well being of his or her party?

Come tomorrow, I think the Scottish Labour Party may have a serious period of introspection on its hands and the aforementioned idea should be considered in the up and coming debate. That said, the problems outlined are not the sole preserve of the Scottish Labour Party and should be equally considered in the aftermath of the failed AV referendum.

Let's have a debate on the electoral system, but most importantly, let that debate take place outwith the flawed pretext that AV is the only reform in town.