Could the Greens Gain (at Least) One More MP During This Parliament?
By Emma.
I was having an interesting discussion with a colleague this morning about what Lib Dem MPs who didn’t like the coalition’s actions could and would do. I said that it was highly improbably that this (or any) government would go a full term without at least one ministerial resignation and that that was probably even more likely under coalition. While ministerial resignations are dramatic and aid a narrative of splits, in the end they don’t really amount to much unless a Government is a lot closer to a knife edge than this one is. Some junior Lib Dem stepping down from being minister for paperclips will occupy Twitter, the blogs (this one included I’m sure) and the press, but won’t make an awful lot of difference to the Parliamentary mathematics.
The only thing that would really change parliamentary mathematics would be defections.
Now as is utterly clear, the Lib Dems hate Labour. Lib Dem blogs are full of this bile and since going into coalition with the Tories, it’s all spewed endlessly at us. And let’s be fair – we hate them right back. We hate them for splitting the left making it so easy for the Tories to rule without a majority and the coalition has hardly dulled that feeling. Both sets of activists are as tribal and angry as each other and this is not being made better by the ConDem coalition.
So I really can’t see a Lib Dem defecting to the Labour Party in this parliament. But I can see a Lib Dem feeling so far removed from their party that they didn’t see a place for them in it anymore. This happens – rarely but it does happen. If it did, I think that the shock of leaving their own tribe would probably be quite enough and defecting to Labour probably more than they could take. But with Caroline Lucas now firmly ensconced in Parliament, there is another alternative which would work pretty well for non-Orange Book Lib Dems.
I’m not willing to put any money on it (unlike AV failing, which following today’s story in the Independent I have now put £20 on) but I don’t think it could be dismissed out of hand that by the end of this Parliament, we could see at least two Green MPs fighting for reelection.
Tags: av, Condems, Greens, Lib Dems, referendum, tories, tribalism
Thursday, November 4th 2010 at 14:47
Interesting how you say that you “hate” the Lib Dems for “splitting the left” as if all left leaning Lib Dems should by definition be in Labour. More importantly on this point though you should hate Labour for having had 13 years in which it could have reformed the rotten FPTP system which leads to the splitting as you describe it.
Another reason why you should hate Labour is for having kept Gordon Brown despite it being patently obvious for well over two years that he could never win a General Election. I and many others were banging on and on about how you absolutely had to get rid of him. In the back of my mind was the very real potential of a hung parliament and I wanted a situation firstly in which a coalition with Labour would have been a mathematical and practical possibility (which was always unlikely with Brown at the helm as it proved) and secondly that the Lib Dems could not have been seen to prop up someone who had been in government as long as Brown had been. A fresh face at the top say from June 2009 with an election last Autumn could have facilitated this. So please look at your own parties actions (or inactions) before you condem(n) others for playing the only realistic hand available.
As for the Green defection idea I am not so sure. Doing that would almost certainly be signing their own political death warrant as they are very unlikely to be re-elected on a Green ticket so they would also need to be pretty certain they were facing electoral defeat anyway or have other reasons to do so. I suppose it is possible that one of them might do it just for the hell of it a la George Gardiner or Bob Spink in response to some party related difficulty but I would suggest it is unlikely.
Thursday, November 4th 2010 at 15:16
Thank you, a more clear example of the tribal hatred the Lib Dems have for Labour I could not have asked for (outside of a Lib Dem Voice article).
This piece is one of the least angry about the coalition I have written. It’s not about the terrible policies being enacted in housing, welfare, the arts, employment or any of the other myriad areas the coalition are inflicting real and lasting damage. It’s about what a Lib Dem who felt they wanted to defect might do. It’s not unheard of, though it is unlikely, but it followed an interesting conversation to its full train of thought and I thought it was worth presenting. And despite my hoping that they would come to Labour, I am in strong enough recognition of the gulf between the two parties to realise this is unlikely at present.
The SDP split the Labour party and that was partly responsible for many, many years of Thatcherism. That much is historical record. We don’t know what would have happened otherwise, but I can tell you that that, alongside the nasty vicious and mendacious local campaigning are the two reasons most often quoted to me as to why Labour members don’t like the Lib Dems.
Labour are a collective Socialist party, bigger than our leader, but given that you see the leader as so essential, I look forward to your campaign to oust Nick Clegg for bringing you into single figure support. And given that is where you are, I’m not sure that there are that many Lib Dem MPs who are as sure as you that staying with their own party is any less likely to bring about electoral defeat than defecting to the Greens.
Finally, I regularly write about things the Labour Party could and should do better (though I admit that electoral reform is pretty far down my list and slipping daily), so I don’t quite know why you say I need to look at my own party’s actions. I do – frequently. You might want to try the same before that 9% becomes first a regular feature of your polling and then a distant dream.
Thursday, November 4th 2010 at 19:28
Hmm. I think my repeated use of the word “hate” (which was intended to be an echo of your own wording) may have misled you about my motives. I do not hate Labour. My parents used to be card carrying members when I was growing up. I was too young (just) to vote in the 1992 election but I would have voted Labour wholeheartedly and did so in 1997 for Tony Blair. I was very pleased with some of the things Labour did in its early years in government (e.g. minimum wage) but got more jaded with them as time went on. Iraq was a terrible mistake but for me the creeping authoritarianism of people like Jack Straw, John Reid and Blair himself is what utterly turned me off Labour politics. If anything I am just disappointed in how reactionary they became in office although I did find actions like Johnson’s decision to sack Professor Nutt for example totally disgusting.
This is not the first time you have described me as “tribal” but as I keep protesting I really am not. I actually do not think tribalism is really compatible with the principles of pluralism and co-operation that is the outcome of a proportional voting system as I strongly support. I only joined the Lib Dems in 2008 and I regularly praise politicians from all parties when they do things that I approve of. I have not been blogging recently but there have been some very good signs from Ed Miliband in his early actions as leader which vindicates my support for him as a candidate which I was open about online too as I am sure you recall.
Your Nick Clegg point is a bit of a red herring. We are still very likely 4.5 years away from a general election. I am not going to pretend to be ecstatic about the Lib Dems being at 9% in the polls (although they are at 16% in other polls but I am not happy about either figure) but everyone is still getting used to coalition politics, including those in at the centre of it, on all sides. It was inevitable that some support would be lost when the party ended up in government (protest voters generally do not like governments after all and they clearly formed a part of the Lib Dem support), this would have been the case whoever a coalition was formed with. You can bet your bottom dollar that if in 3 or 4 years time the party is still bumping along in the low teens then there will be huge pressure to do something like change the leader or even to leave the coalition but we are a fair way off that at the moment and it would be hugely premature to dump Clegg now. He has only been properly in the public eye since April this year. Contrast that with Brown who by Autumn 2007 had been at the centre of British public life for over a decade. His major problem was that the public already knew who he was and he was hidebound by all the decisions he had taken as the most powerful Chancellor in history. Once his poll ratings slipped following TETNW there was no way back for him. It was not just me saying it. Loads of people in your own party thought it too, hence the various abortive coups.
Just one last point. As I said I am not tribal and I could certainly imagine that one day if the Lib Dems party moved too far away from my own political centre of gravity that I may conclude the party is not for me any more. I just wonder if there are any conceivable circumstances under which you would leave the Labour Party. Because from what I can tell you are dyed in the wool Labour till you die and would rather fight from within your party, pretty much come what may. That’s a perfectly valid way to approach politics but I am not like that. I wonder if it is the fact that you perceive politics filtered through this sort of prism that makes you so quick to infer tribalism in the actions and words of others?
Thursday, November 4th 2010 at 21:19
Mark you keep saying that you aren’t tribal, but the problem is that I just don’t believe you. You are part of a tiny, tiny minority of the country who identifies enough with a political party to be a member and pay them a regular sum of money. Party of an even smaller minority who take action week in, week out to attempt to elect representatives of that party as diverse as Simon Hughes and David Laws as respected as Charles Kennedy and as disliked as Lynne Featherstone. The only differnece between you and I is that I’m quite comfortable with the word tribal, but as it pains you so much, I’m happy to use different terminology. So how about we agree that you are invested in the Lib Dems as I am invested in the Labour Party. My investment doesn’t blind me to the flaws of my party or it’s politicians. My post on Phil Woolas should show you that.
You only joined the Lib Dems a couple of years ago. I joined the Labour Party on February 22nd 1990. When you’ve been invested for 20 years, you’ll know how that feels, but yes there are circumstances under which I would leave the Party. I considered it over Iraq. I’m now extremely glad I didn’t as I don’t want to lead an apolitical life, and there is no other place for me to direct my energies. Sometimes those energies are direcred inward – in making Labour a better party, sometimes outward in getting Labour elected wherever possible.
My Nick Clegg point is as fishy as yours about Gordon Brown. So in 4.5 years time, don’t say you weren’t warned! Actually, I’m not sure you have 4.5 years. Not becuase the coalition won’t hold, but because Nick Clegg’s behaviour is doing a great deal of harm to the cause of political plurality, which seems to most people to be rejecting the platform on which you stoopd at the election and joining forces to attack Labour (the Huhne Warsi press conference was a particular low point). It’s perfectly possible to share power without having your agenda as subsumed as has happened, and the Tories are running rings around you. It’s harming your party, and it’s clearly harming the Yes vote on the referendum. Once committed yes voters like me are being made agnostics by arrogant pre-referendum announcements of political fixes.
And as to there being no tribalism in the Lib Dems then clearly I am a more avid reader of the Lib Dem blogs than you are! My worst post of the week would be a good place to start looking. If the Lib Dems want to truly promote “principles of pluralism and co-operation”, it wouldn’t hurt to show you’re capable of it as a party. I have also been an activist fighting against the Lib Dems locally who used some pretty low tactics (not least in Tower Hamlets in 1992, a pretty important formative political experience). I recognise tribalism becuase I am self aware enough to see it in myself. I recognise tribalism but don’t see it as a bas trait. I don’t infer it in others, I call it when I see it, but I don’t necessarily think it’s a bad thing.
Saturday, November 6th 2010 at 11:02
Emma.
You say: “You are part of a tiny, tiny minority of the country who identifies enough with a political party to be a member and pay them a regular sum of money. Party of an even smaller minority who take action week in, week out to attempt to elect representatives of that party…”.
By that definition, any active member of a political party would be described as tribal. But I think that is wrong. You can be an active member of a political party and still have respect and time for views from people of other parties. I would argue that tribalism is more along the lines of vocally shouting support for and defending your party under all (or most) circumstances as well as taking every (or most) opportunity to attack your political opponents or members of other parties. I am think people like Ellie Gellard who I have never seen make a tweet or post that was not nakedly partisan and in many cases frankly ridiculous. There are members of all parties who are like that, I am not one of them.
I have spent over 20 years being fascinated by politics but it is only in the last two and half years that I have become actively involved. If I had got involved at University or at any time until about 10 years ago then I probably would have joined Labour given my background and where the party was at those points, although I suspect I would have left the party at some point in the intervening years for reasons stated in my previous comment. And the very fact it took me so long to join any party surely must make any accusation of tribalism agin me pretty hollow.
Anyway, rather than get bogged down in semantics, let’s just agree that we are using the term to mean slightly different things and from now on I will stop being affronted when you use it!
As for your point about Lib Dem tribalism, of course it exists as it does in every party. I do find it hard to understand how the most tribal within my own party reconcile the support for electoral reform with their other views but as we know not everyone in every party agrees with all of that party’s policies. For me, electoral reform is one of the two most important things that needs to happen regarding politics in this country in the long term (the other one is reform of the drugs laws). I want to see more coalitions. I want to see the Greens, and UKIP and perhaps other smaller parties get the representation that their support in the country means they deserve. This is not for narrow partisan reasons, it is because I think our country will be hugely better off if its parliament is more representative.
And if we had already had PR in 2010 then a coalition with Labour would have been feasible (29% + 23% > 50%). Of course because the Lib Dems only got 9% of the actual seats it was never going to be able to happen.
Regarding your point about the Tories running rings around us, Duncan Stott did a very useful blog post a couple of months back where he created an infographic based on research by the Guardian relating to how much of the coalition programme is from the Tories, how much of it is from the Lib Dems and how much is from both parties:
http://splithorizons.blogspot.com/2010/09/quantifying-and-visualising-lib-dem.html
It gives the lie to this idea (that you seem to agree with) that our party is being completely subsumed by the Tories and their agenda. Of course we are having to make compromises, that’s coalition, but given we have less than a fifth of the number of MPs that the Tories do I think it is pretty clear that we are punching above our weight and having a real influence. Yet most Labour comments I see basically imply that this is a Tory government giving no credit of any of the influence that the Lib Dems have had. This is actually quite dangerous because as Andrew Hickey pointed out in an excellent blog post earlier this year (see point 2 here: http://andrewhickey.info/2010/08/15/an-open-letter-to-the-labour-party/), if the public buy this line then you are effectively making the Tories seem more moderate than they actually are. They have been dragged back to the centre-ground in many cases because of the fact of the coalition. Lib Dem MPs need to do a much better job of making this clear (as I blogged on Lib Dem Voice recently: http://www.libdemvoice.org/opinion-our-ministers-need-to-communicate-better-and-fast-21655.html) but there is no doubt at all in my mind that it is happening.
Saturday, November 6th 2010 at 11:56
Mark, you say “By that definition, any active member of a political party would be described as tribal. But I think that is wrong. You can be an active member of a political party and still have respect and time for views from people of other parties.”
Yes, I do think any member of a party is invested in the success of their party, and so I believe them to be tribal. I don’t believe this has to be at the exclusion of a greater political understanding. I describe myself as tribally Labour, but that doesn’t mean I am not pleased that Vince Cable has referred the BSkyB deal, or that I don’t approve of some of the things Ken Clarke has to say about prisons. What it does mean is that I want my own party to adopt these positions on top of the other places where – of course – I believe we have significantly better policies than the other parties, not that I want the parties with those policies to succeed at the expense of my own and our much broader agenda.
Given that you state that electoral reform is one of the most important things that needs to happen, I’m surprised you didn’t comment on my view that Nick Clegg is royally stuffing up any chance of you winning the referendum.
Couple of free bits of advice – take or ignore them at your will, but they are given with friendly intention:
1. Don’t quote that Split Horizons blog as it is factually wrong. I’m not an expert on all the areas it covers, but I can gove you a good solid concrete example. Two fo the gain it claims as “lines from the coalition agreement that wouldn’t be there without the Lib Dems in government” are:
“We will cut red tape by introducing a ‘one-in, one-out’ rule whereby no new regulation is brought in without other regulation being cut by a greater amount.”
“We will impose ‘sunset clauses’ on regulations and regulators to ensure that the need for each regulation is regularly reviewed.”
These are both Tory policies, lifted directly (and I mean almost word for word) from the Arculus Report on “Enabling Enterprise, Encouraging Responsibility” written before the election for the Tories. Given that I recognise this as glaringly factually wrong, and I don’t know the source of much of the other claims, I can happily dismiss this blog right out of hand. You might be better using this from Conservative Home which was reposted on Lib Dem Voice so presumably engenders a degree of agreement across coalition commentators.
2. Remember Clinton’s motto: “It’s the economy, stupid”. And by that I don’t think he meant Moodys, but the amount of money in people’s pockets, the homes they live in and the jobs they do (or don’t have). Be very careful in claiming this as a moderate government.
From that Conservative Home Post:
“Of course, there have been sizeable concessions made by the Lib Dems to the Conservatives, too — chiefly from the Lib Dem side the acceptance that the structural deficit should be eliminated entirely during the lifetime of this parliament (which is forcing many painful spending cuts, especially in welfare, that the Lib Dems would have preferred not to make).”
Lib Dems – particularly ministers, but it’s up to the grassroots to make them – have to stop the “there’s no alternative” and “this is fair” stuff and better express their party’s discomfort with what is being done. It ain’t moderate. It might be what you’re stuck with, but you need to look stuck with it, not happy about it. Both David Laws and Danny Alexander do this really, really badly.