The Tory Case for AV
by Matt Grist
David Aaronovitch makes a compelling case in the Times for David Cameron supporting a ‘yes’ vote in a referendum on AV. Aaronovitch argues that having said how great and natural coalition government feels, Cameron cannot easily go back to scaremongering about political deals behind closed doors. This is right, but there are more fundamental reasons why Tories should now support AV.
Tories reject the notion beloved of Whigs that systems can be reformed wholesale to create perfection out of the crooked timber of humanity. Tories see it as their remit to pragmatically conserve the durable institutions of political and civic life. But equally, conservatives are not supposed to stand, like King Canute, against the major currents of change, and historically they have not done so. Bills like the Great Reform Act of 1832 and Disraeli’s Reform Act of 1867 show that when needs must, Tories have embraced change.
In the 1990s the doyen of New Labour, Anthony Giddens, spoke of a ‘Third Way’ which combined a desire to renew civic institutions (including families) with a concern to reduce social injustice. Giddens argued that this ‘Third Way’ was necessitated by two big failures. The first was that of British socialism, expressed in a welfare dependency that eroded social solidarity by reviving the idea of the undeserving poor. The second was the failure of extending unfettered markets into all aspects of life, which eroded the civic institutions that maintained the very social norms that allowed markets to function.
We have recently re-experienced these failures in the guise of a structural deficit and a financial crisis. These outcomes have left both Brownite statism and neo-liberal conservatism in tatters, which has consolidated our ‘Third Way’ mentality. We – and by ‘we’ I mean the majority of voters who are not overtly tribal – all now sit somewhere between Gordon Brown and John Redwood.
Having fully internalized these experiences the British public will be of a ‘Third Way’ mindset for some considerable time, which means an electoral system that better represents their centrism is required. Pragmatic Tories should recognize this cultural shift and support AV. For I presume they believe in a voting system that reflects the common sense of the people, not the ideological tribalism of Westminster.
Matt Grist
Thanks James. I think Tories would disagree because they would see protecting ourselves from the damaging idea that a political system could be perfected as highly inspiring. Your idea of inspiration here is itself based on a progressive idealism that Tories would reject. That's why I called it the Tory case for AV not the progressive case.
But also, isn't accepting the public's wisdom about failed ideas quite democratic? Or should the political elite plough on regardless, and find the latest 'ism' that tries to make practice agree with theory?
James Cameron
I take your point about the Tory case for inspiration, although I doubt that many Cameroons would be this blunt about it.
On your second point, there doesn't seem to be any inherent link between the failure of neo-liberal conservatism and what you call Brownite statism and the need to reform the political system. We are always in a "Third Way mindset" in the sense that there are ideologies on the fringes that mainstream electoral politics rejects. If you accept that, then your case for AV just comes down to the argument that it more clearly represents the general will, which Tories have issues with because: a) they think it is untrue; b) they are wary of its implications.
Matt Grist
The point about neo-liberalism and Brownite statism failing is that they have made the public very aware that the two forms of ideology that have dominated British politics for thirty years or so have serious drawbacks. This means the public wants to see a politics which combines lessons from those failings. That would be a politics that doesn't build up a structural deficit and finance welfare dependency, and one that doesn't destroy civic life (and markets are part of civic life) through a deregulated capitalism that is self-destructive. My argument is that because this is the prevailing 'general will' as you put it, then we need a political system that better incorporates the kinds of compromises that might deliver such a politics. This would be best served by a system that allows smaller parties to have a stronger voice.
So my argument is that this is a Tory reason for voting for AV - because it is pragmatic, it preserves the institution of democracy by adapting to irreversible cultural change, and it prioritises practice over theory (it prioritises what people do and think in civic society as the driver of change not technocratic top-down reform).
You might be right that Tories would be suspicious of heeding such a cultural change, or think the change hasn't happened. But then that is their problem: they are ignoring the Tory tradition of renewing institutions and are being the worst kind of Tory which is the one committed to protecting entrenched vested interests. If they think such a change hasn't happened and that neo-liberal policies can win over the majority of British voters, returning us to a dualistic two-party system, then they are in la-la land.
Andrew Preston
The primary reason why David Cameron feels so great and natural in coalition government is because he is surrounded by people just like him. Affluent, public schoolboys. Mostly Etonians. Whose primary motivation is usually that of pragmatism and power.
Matt Grist
Hi Andrew. I agree with you about the public school point. I myself grew up in a single parent family and went to a comprehensive, so I'm not so comfortable with this clique of upper-middle class men either. But the pragmatism I was advocating is not (or not wholly at least) that of power politics. It is based on a principled commitment to conserving institutions by reforming them when necessary but not reforming them too much, lest endless reform results in alienating them from the people they serve, and losing what it is about them that works already. It also based on a principled philosophical commitment to scepticism about the perfectibility of people and the systems they operate within. That scepticism is not cynical but defended because doing so helps conserve our society and polity from the messianic and totalitarian tendencies of some strands of liberalism.
James Cameron
Perhaps you are right, but there's something highly uninspiring in supporting a political system that -- as you have argued -- is defined primarily by the failure of two big ideas and the triumph of none.