Seen the Russel Brand video? Despairing of politicians? Here's how you can_really_ make a difference

[fearmeforiampink]

So, you've watched the Russel Brand video, and you're despairing about the state of our politics. Or you're just doing the latter without having done the former.

But you want to do something that will actually make a difference, which Brand's call to arms of "Hey, don't bother voting!" will utterly fail to do. How can you get active, change things?

As someone who works in the area of democratic reform, I thought I'd try and put together a list of things you can get involved in to make a difference. (I'll note that this is just me personally doing this, due to I've seen a few friends asking what they can do - it's not anything official from any organisation). I do honestly believe that if more people got involved in these sorts of areas, it would help improve the system.

Will it be an instant change? No, theses sorts of things are a case of pushing over the long term, changing how people look at things. But the more people pushing, the more change will be achieved.

I'll start off with organisations you can get involved in, that are trying to fix politics:

— Unlock Democracy. http://www.unlockdemocracy.org.uk / https://www.facebook.com/unlockdemocracy
I'm biased, because this is the organisation I work for. UD campaigns for democracy, rights and freedoms. At the moment the concentration is on the (awful) lobbying bill that's going through parliament, but there's also stuff on local democracy, plus lords, electoral and constitutional reform. Local Works ( http://www.localworks.org ) is one of UD's projects, which works on giving people more power in their communities, and there's legislation they're part of that allows local communities to make changes that help their local area — one of the proposals there is to let local people call for their councils to be elected by a proportional system.

What can you do to get involved? There are regular 'speak out' campaigns where you can write to your MP through the website, and express your views on legislation. Whilst MPs are increasingly ignoring the petitions that take people two seconds to sign, they do notice personally written letters from their constituents, as they're the people that care enough to vote them in and out. There are also local groups across the country ( http://unlockdemocracy.org.uk/pages/local-groups ) where people can get involved in the local area, campaigning on local issues, but also having public meetings and other events to draw attention to national issues.

— The Electoral Reform Society. http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk / https://www.facebook.com/electoralreformsociety
ERS concentrates on electoral reform, but covers stuff from votes at 16, the problems of things like Safe Seats (where it's near impossible to unseat the incumbent MP or councillor), and other matters around the problems with our votes.

— Bite the Ballot. https://www.facebook.com/bitetheballot
They're the people who made the video I shared responding to Brand. They concentrate on educating & engaging young people in politics — making them votes worth winning.

— Republic. www.republic.org.uk
They're somewhat concentrated on getting rid of the monarchy, but they also call for a constiitution for the country. They do well at making their points when stuff on the monarchy comes up, and they're after activists around the country to be visible in doing just that.

— Reform Groups Network. http://reformgroups.net/site-list
A site for local groups that are pushing for reform to say what they're doing, how to get involved, and to share good ideas.

There are plenty of other organisations that focus on specific areas like the Open Rights Group ( http://www.openrightsgroup.org ) who have a particular focus or cause that they're concentrating on, and they're also good for putting your time, effort and support into.

---

What about the political parties? I think there's two ways to go; there are alternative political parties, or there's getting involved in the major parties and trying to fix them from within. On the former, I know people say that those parties make no difference, but I'd argue that's not true — in 1989, the Greens got 15% overall of the European Parliament vote, and whilst that didn't get them any seats, it made the major parties suddenly had to treat environmentalism a lot more seriously; that was when they all started including greener policies. I think that can happen again.

I was going to include a list of alternative political parties here, but having thought about it, I'll be honest — they're not my area, and I don't want to advocate causes at people when I can't back up their worth. I invite people to make suggestions on parties that are worth supporting in the comments here, though.

The other option is to get involved in the existing parties, and make a change there. People are likely to laugh at that, aren't the parties the problem? But one of the issues is the way that people have disengaged from the parties, making it easier for the heads there to do what they want. The way the membership of the parties has dropped, if people started joining them again en masse, and calling for specific changes, then the parties would have to sit up and take notice.

---

So, there you go. That's my thoughts, my suggestions for how to make a difference. I think there are real issues with things how they are, we need change, but I think the way to make that change is to get engaged, to actually *do* something to make that change happen. And if all the people who aren't happy with things did get involved in making those changes, we would see the difference it'd make. If anyone else has any suggestions for groups or points to add, I'm very willing to edit them in.

Comments

[demona-hw.livejournal.com]

To 'join a party' I'd add 'become a candidate'.

It's a greater investment of time, to be sure, but it's also a way to be the person making the decisions.

You probably won't get to be an MP from obscurity (although you might be a candidate for a smaller party). But parties of all colours struggle to recruit councillors, and minor parties can hold office this way. In the last county elections in Cambridgeshire the Tories actually lost overall control of the council because of voters turning to UKIP.

Sure, there's a lot happening at national level that is important, and will trickle down to, and restrict, councils. But I also increasingly find that the things that actually affect me and my community day-to-day are in the hands of councillors.

There is precedent for building support at a local level resulting in an MP: Brighton's Green council now have one. At the very least you could find the candidates from the major parties re-positioning themselves because they are aware of local support for minor parties.


Also, you don't need to be a member of a party to approach your MP and councillors. They don't know if you voted for them last time or will vote for you next time, but they're keen for you to do so. Elected representative have to vote on far more things that they can possibly understand in detail. If you know what you're talking about and approach someone who hasn't made their mind up, or only holds an opinion loosely, you can influence them without even voting.

[fearmeforiampink]

Mmmm, I'd agree, and roll that into the generalised 'get involved'. Essentially, I think the parties can be changed from within, though it's likely hard and frustrating work trying to do so. But enough people doing so would have a real effect on things.

[steer.livejournal.com]

As solutions go, these solutions are nearly indistinguishable from the "problem". The suggestion by Brand was a fullscale revolution... whether you think this is a great idea or childishly naive, that is a very radical change. Instead, what you point to is a bunch of essentially footling changes which even if wholly implemented would really leave the system pretty much as it is. If we had votes at 16, proportional representation and a written constitution we'd still have the same parties... possibly in a slightly different mix. The fact that you see this as a response and "making a difference" is in itself somewhat depressing.

[matgb]

If we had votes at 16, proportional representation and a written constitution we'd still have the same parties... possibly in a slightly different mix.

Possibly?

Every single time a country has significantly changed the voting system, including the UK, the party balance and structure has changed. Every country I've studied. Every time. I've yet to find an example of a country that's changed voting system or significantly changed the constitution and not, over the next decade or so, had a change within the party system.

The UK doesn't do revolutions, it never has, ever since 1688 those in power have always given enough ground to buy off or ameliorate enough supporters of revolution to stop it from happening.

There's zero point in hoping for a full on revolution, unless you have a real plan as to what happens next—so what's the plan, what's the afterwards vision?

How do you govern?

[steer.livejournal.com]

There's zero point in hoping for a full on revolution, unless you have a real plan as to what happens next

Disagree here. Sometimes the situation is enough that you can say "change" without saying what you get in return.

The UK doesn't do revolutions,

I agree with you completely that there's no real hope of this actually happening. But someone saying "oh, but we could slightly change who votes in what order and how we count it" and putting that as actually making a big difference when compared against revolution. That's just a bit laughable.

We get the governments we deserve... in our case, arse covering, uninspired and bandwagon jumping.

[andrewducker]

If we had votes at 16, proportional representation and a written constitution we'd still have the same parties... possibly in a slightly different mix

I don't believe that - at least not in the case of PR. Otherwise I wouldn't have spent an awful lot of time outside in the wet campaigning for even a minimal change in that direction.

The basic problem is that the parties that exist do not appeal to most people, but voting for anyone outside of the major ones seems like a complete waste because you're either doing nothing or making things actively worse. Change _that_ and I think you actually leverage a large change in the political landscape (which was the reason for the disinformation that was spread during the AV campaign - if it was going to change nothing then there wouldn't have been that level of opposition).

It's not _as_ radical as revolution, I give you - but if the basic problem is "voter disengagement" then moving over to a model that allows greater choice is a big help.

[steer.livejournal.com]

OK -- please understand that I'm wholly sympathetic to the cause of PR. We should have that system in some form. (Although there are bad forms). But at core, I don't believe it will change anything fundamental and I do believe it's really uninteresting to anyone apart from stats geeks and election geeks. In the end if we had PR we'd still have the same faces, in slightly different orders and slightly different proportions.

if the basic problem is "voter disengagement" then moving over to a model that allows greater choice is a big help.

Citation needed. What is the pickup in voter turnout between a PR and non PR system all other things being equal? I'd lay money it's pretty minor. If I said to someone "I find modern politics is uninspiring" and they told me "hey, well we could count votes a different way"... well, I just found modern politics really very much less inspiring.

The basic problem is that the parties that exist do not appeal to most people

Yes. But this continues to be the case in the majority of countries with PR.

voting for anyone outside of the major ones seems like a complete waste because you're either doing nothing or making things actively worse

Most people don't analyse it to this extent. If you do you'll quickly conclude that voting is almost as much of a complete waste in a PR system as a non PR system because (quite rightly) you're not changing anything (and nor should you be able to).

Change _that_ and I think you actually leverage a large change in the political landscape

Countries with PR systems in any almost any colour and flavour you like exist. Their politicians are not markedly different. Were we living in a country with PR and votes for 16 and a written constitution and almost any other electoral reform you could think of, you could get someone like Brand making almost that exact speech and it would ring just as true.

[andrewducker]

If I said to someone "I find modern politics is uninspiring" and they told me "hey, well we could count votes a different way"... well, I just found modern politics really very much less inspiring.

That, in my opinion, is because right now counting votes _is_ horribly uninspiring. We've centralised a great deal in the UK, so local voting can't change much, and the way the current system works most votes are worth very little indeed. Given a system where votes matter more, individuals can have some influence. Still not a massive amount, but at least a feeling that their vote ended up somewhere useful more than 50% of the time (rather than the current rather lower amount).

You're still talking representative democracy, of course, with everything that goes with it. But in, say, the last election in Germany, 2/3 of the voters have ended up with their party in power. That's rather better than we're doing over here - and with their system you know that the proportion of votes matters, whereas there are very few votes over here where you can feel your vote makes any difference at all.

[steer.livejournal.com]

What proportion of voters do you think know this stuff? Maybe I'm being horribly cynical (I do make an effort not to be) but I honestly don't think most people could tell you which system runs which elections in this country. I know that *I* don't know sometimes.

Expecting PR to improve voter turnout and reduce voter apathy... honestly, I don't think most people would really notice. UK election turn out 61% Germany 71%.

in, say, the last election in Germany, 2/3 of the voters have ended up with their party in power.

Not sure what that statement means... you mean 2/3 of the people who did vote ended up with a candidate they voted for in their constituency? It should be noted that in the last election in Germany there was a runaway winner with a huge proportion of the vote Merkel got 41% of the vote -- automatically making such a result pretty easy. It's mainly a result of the fact that there are multi-candidates per constituency.

The idea that your vote is only "useful" if your person gets in seems a pretty British sort of idea though. (Don't want to be voting for a loser?)

[andrewducker]

If you vote for someone who doesn't get in then it's not doing anything useful, is it?

Voting Green in most places doesn't do any good to anyone - surely that's the definition of not useful. And so people tend not to do it - they vote for the people who are most like them who have a chance of getting in. Which sends the wrong signal and props up parties who happen to be large.

I agree that voters are uneducated - but I think that's generally part of the problem. I wasn't educated about the voting system at school - although I think they do more of that now. But Scotland switched to STV for local elections, and after a bad first time out (switching systems _and_ holding those elections on the same day as one with a different system being a bad idea) people have apparently now got the idea.

I think that part of the problem is that it's a vicious cycle - your vote makes no difference, so you say "They're all equally bad", throw your hands in the air, and avoid the whole thing, which then leads to the system not changing, which causes the next set of people to realise their vote makes no difference.

I could be entirely wrong, of course. But the British do seem to have a particular disease whereby they assume that (a)everything is awful and (b)nothing could possible be better than it currently is.

[steer.livejournal.com]

If you vote for someone who doesn't get in then it's not doing anything useful, is it?

It depends on your view of useful. I mean a lot of people say "spoil your paper instead of not voting". Indeed I know a lot of people who rigorously do this.

Except in extreme and rare circumstances voting is only ever a message. It's never (nearly never) *useful* in the sense of changing who gets in.

So I guess we have a fundamental disagreement on what makes a vote useful.

I would rather have voted for the correct candidate (for me) who doesn't get in than have voted for the least worst candidate who does. If the candidate who gets in is down at my 3rd or 4th choice I likely don't give much of a hoot anyway.

your vote makes no difference, so you say "They're all equally bad", throw your hands in the air

Well, in my case, I've looked at a lot of voting systems, considered what their results mean in practice and made a habit of trying to work out the various answers using the different ones. And then said "they're all equally bad"... or within a delta of equally bad.

PR systems (some at least) have nice theoretical properties which are interesting and we should use those but you know, the main reason we should use them is so that people can spend their time debating what is actually wrong with politics because a lot of people are tying up time on this one.

All the changes to voting systems in the world won't change:
1) The nature of how political and moral issues are debated.
2) The nature of the kind of people who enter politics in a modern setting.
3) The nature of political reportage and how this feeds back to our actions and attitude towards politicians.
4) The nature of the lobbying system and how political influence is traded.

Those things require change which is outside the voting system (which is, after all, an extremely crude form of feedback mechanism, even with the most nuanced multi-vote multi-candidate PR system.)

But we don't need to debate this because we can see it from data. Plenty of countries have PR -- they also have corrupt politicians, disaffected voters, very similar political parties. Other countries have FPTP and have more honest politicians, widely differing political parties, engaged voters and a sense you're making a genuine choice.

Offering PR to someone who wants an actual and meaningful change to the political system is like offering a glass of water to someone saying "my house is on fire".

[andrewducker]

I disagree. I see it as a useful step - because reining in the press, controlling the lobbying system, etc. are all controlled by politicians, and I believe that the voting system makes it more likely that we get bad ones.

Which doesn't mean that we won't see reform without that - we clearly have seen all sorts of reforms while using FPTP - and will presumably continue to do so. And it doesn't make voting reform my number 1 wish - it just makes it something that's important to me - because I want to see higher engagement with politics, and more people making demands of the political system.

Because we have democracy because people have a tacit agreement that it's better to go along with the majority decision than it is to shoot the people in charge and take over, and if we discourage enough people from engaging then eventually the latter route starts to look very appealing to them.

[steer.livejournal.com]

I'm not at all convinced that the current voting system makes it more likely we get "bad" politicians. It makes it less likely we get the ones the public wants.

I want to see higher engagement with politics, and more people making demands of the political system.

The best studies I can find do in fact show that PR increases turnout which surprise me -- but not a huge amount -- for example, political parties spending a lot on their campaigns has more of an effect.

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=9&cad=rja&ved=0CHYQFjAI&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wzb.eu%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Fpersonen%2Fgeys.benny.328%2Felectoral_studies_25_4.pdf&ei=WRdwUsy0AcSI0AWCiYH4CA&usg=AFQjCNHIvmA7xt3dt05qRPq98Kekyt35gA&sig2=LXwSihIEoWHY1XPj56Bvpg&bvm=bv.55123115,d.d2k

the latter route starts to look very appealing to them.

Indeed. And when the shooting people and taking over route starts to look appealing, a well-intentioned offer to fiddle with how votes are counted makes it look even more appealing.

[fearmeforiampink]

I'd agree with what Andrew's been saying so far, and would add to it that again I feel you're being to simplistic.

Yes, I'm of the opinion that a preferential and proportional system would change things significantly, as it would allow for signal votes, so you can make your views known whist still affecting the final result, it would considerably change the makeup of the Commons, and the nature of the parties.

But I'm also very much of the opinion that that's not the only thing to be done — whilst ERS does some very good work, there's a reason I throw my weight more behind campaigns that cover a broader range of things, that want more transparency, that are pushing to give local government more ability to do things, that wants to bring in things like recall, and again, things like Bite the Ballot for education and engagement.

[steer.livejournal.com]

We can currently do signal votes...

But look, this experiment has been done. You can argue until you're blue in the face that PR will change things significantly. Then I can point at countries who already have it and go "well, this is what it works out to when you get it" -- it's different but it's not qualitatively different. It's marginal. If you do detailed statistical analysis you can find that it slightly brings up voter turnout -- but you do need detailed analysis.

[andrewducker]

Interestingly, it turns out that PR increases corruption levels:
http://www.yale.edu/leitner/resources/docs/2001-14.pdf
Although the effect is largely in closed list PR systems - because people high up in the party can be guaranteed re-election, unless the party suffers total collapse.

Which is one of the reasons that I've heard STV favoured - because that way you _can_ vote for people, rather than parties (although I'm sure that many people vote a party line).

Ooh, and it looks like when there are 3 or more electable parties corruption is worse for FPTP:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0261379411000564

There seems to be a lot of research in this. Oh for a politics researcher!

[steer.livejournal.com]

Interesting results, thanks.

The thing is we should argue for proportional representation as a "good thing" in itself. It increases people's direct democratic influence and I believe this is an end in itself.

People who rest their claims for PR on things like "it will increase participation" (turns out it does) or "it will get us less corrupt politicians" (maybe it doesn't) are risking having the rug pulled out with results like that. I remember a while back an argument with someone convinced that PR would increase a countries economic success because people would have more direct control over which party ran the economy. (Now I don't think even if the electorate had all studied economics at LSE they would be able to well predict which party would be best for the economy... they can vote for the one they *think* is but they've no good chance of being right.)

PR is the right thing to do because the result it gives is closer to the result desired by the people voting.

[fearmeforiampink]

The solution suggested by Brand in the interview was that not voting would some how lead to a magical revolution, and after the dust settled 'admin bods' would sort things out.

The current system forces into the same party groups that would otherwise stand on their own merits and form coalitions in a proportional system. You're also being far too simplistic about this — yes, Bite the Ballot want votes at 16, but that's not all they are. An engaged and politically educated generation of young people would make a lot of differencec, I think.

Revolutions tend to be bloody and not get you what you actually want. I'll pass on that, thanks.

[steer.livejournal.com]

Revolutions tend to be bloody and not get you what you actually want. I'll pass on that, thanks.

Sure -- that is a fair point. In the end we have to just put up with not getting what we want. But having concluded that, somebody saying "but hey, have PR" is just insulting. It's like offering chocolate sprinkles on your shit sandwich.

[fearmeforiampink]

Which is why I'm not advocating just calling for PR.

[steer.livejournal.com]

You advocate PR and a number of equally marginally effective measures. Honestly, of all the responses to what Brand said I found yours made me feel really really bleak. Someone was yelling from the rooftops passionately, let's change this, let's make things different, let's really alter things... and you offered subtle variants on same. Honestly, I like politics but your post really depressed me.

[andrewducker]

I honestly find this attitude horribly depressing.

There are, almost certainly, no massive sudden changes we can make to improve things dramatically.

So it's easy for people to shout "BURN IT DOWN AND START AGAIN!" - because they're shouting about the fact that life isn't perfect. It's the kind of thing I see from libertarians saying "FIAT CURRENCY IS BROKEN, WE MUST START AGAIN!" - easy to sloganise around, but doesn't get you anywhere good.

Whereas small, incremental, change that slowly improves things in a useful healthy direction _works_. We aren't going to end up living in The Culture next week, but we could end up a bit more like, say, Denmark, where people are apparently significantly happier. Although, shockingly, they still have politics.

The rational response to people asking for the moon isn't to offer them impossible things that sound just as impressive, it's to have adult conversations about what _can_ be done, and then try to do that.

[steer.livejournal.com]

Honestly though I doubt PR is an improvement in anything other than the most theoretical sense. It's a distraction from the real problems... and posts like this just put a very passionate and interesting speech into the category of "go and play, you've being very unrealistic, politics is really about finicky rules and counting systems".

I'm sorry but this is the least inspiring way I can possibly think to get someone interested in politics and the problem here it's because it's almost all focused on voting and voting is simply the least effective and least inspiring way you can participate in a democracy.

Well, I guess we find each other's viewpoint here depressing. Brand wasn't saying "burn it down and start again" but he was saying "this system is rotten and needs fundamnetal change"... he's right. And what's spoken about here just isn't fundamental change, it's nit picking change.

There's plenty of space in between bloody revolution (which Brand, incidentally, wasn't saying he supported he was saying was inevitable) and rearranging the deckchairs with another different voting system. Which is why I find this whole "well, revolution isn't going to happen/work so let's just sit down and twiddle a few useless knobs on what we have" a terrible response.

There's a hundred forms of activism, campaigning, grass-roots movements, collective organisation and so on which operate outside the confines of voting to actually make a genuine improvement. People who do that kind of thing are much more making a difference than someone who plods along to vote under any voting system.

When I saw this entry I was really hoping it would be something like that where people could actually productively use their time for something inspiring in the political field...

Sorry, this comes across as more bitter than I wanted it to because as I said, I do support PR and most of the things advocated here... but even if all of them were implemented tomorrow, it's a really flaccid response.

[andrewducker]

"There's a hundred forms of activism, campaigning, grass-roots movements, collective organisation and so on which operate outside the confines of voting to actually make a genuine improvement."

And several of those are above. Unlock Democracy is campaigning about lobbying at the moment, and as it says, organises people to help them to express their views to their MPs.

Bite The Ballot helps educate young people about politics, so that they can better get involved in campaigning.

Reform Groups Network are also campaigning against the "Gagging Law"

And the post also advocates getting involved in party politics of all stripes too.

So the post actually talks about those things you're advocating, but because it also talks about voting reform as _one_ of the things you can get involved with it's highly dispiriting?

[steer.livejournal.com]

So the post actually talks about those things you're advocating

No... it does not -- it talks about the things I'm not advocating. If you like we can divide our politics into "in system" and "out of system".

"in system" we attempt to change the politicians we have... by electoral reform, educating young people about politics, changing lobbying (fucks sake, we're in a system where the one attempt to change lobbying rules has somehow been sold as a "gagging law" and everyone hates it) and getting involved in party politics. Can you not see why I consider this a feeble response to someone saying "the system is broken".

"out of system" would be attempts to improve without the need for a political change of the central system-- not necessarily illegally but by movements which change how things can be financed, collective organisation... movements which can achieve positive things and real political goals without (or despite) the lack of change of the political system.

The post is highly depressing because as a response for a call to make a run around the current political system and achieve things without it, outside it, around it or despite it, this post is a call for people to invest more time in the political system, sink themselves into it and essentially do exactly the opposite.

The things in this post have their place but their place is for people who start from the point of view that the current political system is fine but could do with a patch up.

[andrewducker]

In that case I'm not actually sure what you're advocating at all.

Unless you mean things like communes? In which case history seems to have shown that the vast majority of people don't want that at all.

Can you give some examples?

[andrewducker]

And both myself and draxar have said that we're in favour of campaigns on a variety of things, of which voting reform is just one, but you keep coming back to that. I don't really understand why.

[steer.livejournal.com]

Because the variety of things are variants of the same type of thing.