The 20th century was the century of political ideology. A century that was rife with wars and domestic political turmoil. This was all the end product of ideological politics. Ideology, by its very nature, is divisive. It sets people asunder and negates the natural co-operative instinct in mankind. Politics in the 21st century must now abandon ideology. The future belongs to the politics of pragmatism. Politics in the 21st century must also move away from existing political structures and take democracy beyond parties and to the people.
There are many people in this country who would make excellent non-political candidates at election time. However these people are denied access to the electoral process because as individuals they lack the money and resources of political parties. So as a result, legislative power remains a preserve of political organisations, which are in turn, manifestations of vested interests. Thus parliament becomes an ideological battleground and the people are disenfranchised.
Therefore the state must make provision for individuals to participate on an equal basis at election time.
This could be done through grants etc, of course the state shouldn’t subsidise crank candidates but rather should set specific criteria for funding, each constituency could fund say two candidates. These could emerge from a non-political shortlist. We must take measures to ensure that we send people to parliament, eventually reaching a number equal to that of politicians, only then will the true meaning of democracy be realised.
For democracy properly understood is rule by the people and not rule by political parties.
We need an electoral system that ends the antiquated party political machines and instead allows non-political candidates into Parliament. Also all individuals should be limited to five years tenure of office. For too long career mongers have used Parliament for personal gain. This must end. The people of our nation should also be allowed regular referendums on single issue subjects.
We must reject the destructive ideological politics of the past and give power to the people. The 21st century calls for democracy. True democracy.
Posted by Administrator on behalf of Tony Makara
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I see your point, but it would be difficult to keep out individuals with views cogent to those of the BNP.
If the state is to fund access to the electoral process for individual candidates, then naturally they should be expected to meet certain criteria. Any person promoting socially divisive opinions, such as racism, anti-semitism and religious intolerance, would, in the interests of community relations, be refused funding. I agree that the last thing we need in parliament and government are people who want to create social tensions. Electoral reform should aim to foster social cohesion and heal the rifts and hatreds born out of ideological politics.
No.
If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.
Arguably the current party system that we have is pragmatic already; it leads to compromise and fudging and hovering on the centre ground so I don’t see what the problem is.
There are very few ideologues, certainly so few that their ideas could never be implemented in a democracy. However, the existence of ideologues is A Good Thing for political discourse; allowing pure concepts to be discussed.
Political parties are the kind of evil which, were they not to exist, would be necessary to invent. However, that’s no defence of the status quo. I think that we could profitably think of ways of making our politics more fluid, looser and based around smaller parties.
A very interesting post. I absolutely agree – “democracy properly understood is rule by the people and not rule by political parties.”
Having experienced the party system from the inside and seen how a small clique of vested interests maintain the cosy status quo to the disadvantage of the people they are meant to represent, I left the local Conservative party and was re-elected as an independent on a platform of openness and transparency, with a strapline “There should be no party politics in local government”.
Getting elected with a blue rosette on had been a cinch, but as an independent, without support and having to deal with the underhand tactics of the parties it was somewhat more difficult.
It was hard enough to do this in local goverment and it would be very difficult to get elected as an independent MP. It should be made much, much easier.