Forcing political reform onto the agenda: Power 2010

2010 is of course, General Election year. The Conservatives and Labour have been in the headlines recently, attempting to score early political victories over each other. Among those preparing for the months ahead, is Power2010, a political campaign set up in response to the fury over last year’s infamous Expenses scandal. Power2010 is a campaign aimed to reform politics in order to create a ‘healthy democracy that works for all of us and not just a powerful few.’ Funded by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable and Reform Trusts, they are searching for the five political reforms to take to prospective Parliamentarians during the buildup to the General Election.

Between September and November 2009, they collected over 4,000 ideas from the general public, on the reforms they wanted to see brought into our political system. Last weekend, a sample of over 100 members of the public gathered in London to shortlist these ideas into a manageable list of proposals, which will be put to a public vote next week. The five proposals the public decides to put forward, will then be taken by Power 2010’s activists to Prospective Parliamentary Candidates across the country, to try and encourage Parliamentarians to push through these reforms if they are elected.

So I spoke to Guy Aitchison, one of the lead campaigners, to find out more about Power2010, where they came from, what their objectives are, how they will achieve them, and for a bit of a discussion of the big issues facing democracy and politics in general.

So where did the idea come from for Power2010?

It is a spiritual successor to the Power Inquiry – the investigation into the sources of disengagement from British democracy by the public, carried out between 2004 and 2006.  The Power Inquiry talked to people around the country from all walks of life, and their report came up with a number of recommendations for reform of the political system. Party leaders then kicked the recommendations into the long grass, and it was business as usual.

Power 2010 came into being in September 2009 as a result of the expenses scandal, as people were seeing politics as semi corrupt and felt as if they didn’t have control over their own lives. The Joseph Rowntree Trust got together and Power 2010 was subsequently launched, taking forward the spirit and ideas of the power inquiry, but this time drawing up a five point short list based on a mass public vote and deliberation.

Why do you believe this can work?

People are tired of being told from politicians what to think. If they go on massive protests like with the Iraq war in 2003, when it turned out the public were right and the politicians were wrong, it still has little effect. People aren’t trusting of campaigns, the media and the whole political class, so we want to go out there and ask ‘what are the changes that you’d like to see?’ If you have the authentic voice of the people, the grassroots, and if you say that it has come from lots of people, that gives more strength to your political demands.

You had a round of ideas. What were the weaker ideas, was the worst one?

One person suggested that we should restore the divine right of kings, based on being born into a position given to them by God. I hope such suggestions were made as a joke, but generally most of them were very intelligent, creative, well written and thoughtful and this disproves the idea that politicians like to pedal – that people aren’t interested in politics, democracy and reforms. The British public is far smarter, creative and intelligent than the politicians like to give them credit for – we had over 4000 entries.

If it was totally up to you, which is the one reform you would like to see brought in?

I can’t say it on behalf of the organization, and that has to be made clear – what we’re campaigning for is what the people want. Purely personally, I’d want to see a deliberative constitutional assembly to examine the way we do politics and how it should change. It should look at how we’re governed, the voting system, the whole thing from top to bottom and make recommendations and ideas for change that should be put to referendum,

Don’t politicians listen to their constituents first and foremost, so won’t your activists be lower down on their priorities?

The people who are going to make the ask will be doing it in their constituencies – they’ll be putting the pledge to their candidates. So if politicians want to say their constituents are not interested and don’t care, we can point out that’s not true..

But do you have enough people for this?

It is a serious campaign, with a team around the country and thousands of people supporting it. It should definitely make an impact and force these issues on the agenda. They’re going to turn up at public meetings, and attend MPs’ surgeries, and write to candidates asking them to take this pledge.

None of the Power Inquiry’s recommendations of 2006 have been implemented, why will your campaign be any different?

The power inquiry has shown that politicians will say anything to get into power, but once they are there, then the temptations of power and the privileges of it mean they’re unlikely to want to give it away. The only way to deal with that is to keep working, campaigning and ensure they carry out what they say they would.

Would it be more effective to simply send someone to Parliament?

If you were to do that you’d start to become a political party; and the point of us isn’t to stand against other parties and to compete. That would require a membership, a constitution, you’d have to pay to get these people to stand. We want to be cross party and non-party because democracy is an issue that concerns everyone at the most fundamental level.

We’re going to have a debate between the party leaders before the next election. Does this mean that politics is becoming more about personality than substance?

That’s interesting because when this was announced, all the talk in the media was over who was going to benefit, will it be Nick Clegg, Gordon Brown. Has David Cameron made the wrong move? That’s the kind of issue the media love to focus on, and this is another step towards a presidential style system. The authorities and experts will tell you this is a parliamentary democracy and we vote for parties. Since Thatcher and Blair we’ve started to associate power with the Prime Minister. The cabinet and parliament have been sidelined and it is becoming personalized and centralised. Leadership debates are a good thing, but they raise important questions about what type of democracy we have and what type we’d like to have which the media tend to ignore. Power2010 is about having that debate.

Moving onto voter apathy, I was once present when someone at a meeting asked a Liberal Democrat ‘what is the point in voting for you as you’ll never every get into power.’ This is a key issue, so what would you say to someone with that type of view?

I suppose it’s one of those paradoxes, a self fulfilling prophecy – if everyone thought like that, it would never happen. I’d never tell someone what to do, people think about what affects them, but we need to break open the political system and that means a multi-party system. Two political parties have alternated in power since 1945 and it’s totally counter to democracy and democratic choice. I’d like to see a proportional voting system so that if you vote for someone your vote will count.

And what about those without a strong inclination to vote or opinion on politics? For example, in your opinion would it be better to vote BNP than to not vote at all?

I’d say you should never vote for the BNP – I would never vote for an extremist party of the right. It’s up to the individual, but personally I think it is important to vote as it affects people’s lives and it will make a difference if you choose the party that’s right for you – there are differences. I wouldn’t judge anyone for deciding not to vote because they don’t want to as it may be a rational decision.

Is it the political system that is broken, or is it politicians?

I think it’s the political system. It doesn’t have checks and balances built in, and we have so-called “parliamentary sovereignty”; but because of the government’s current control of parliament it can do what it wants, so that is the system. What the expenses crisis showed was that the system of self regulation, and the system where we trust politicians, that system doesn’t work, and that system can be abused, so we need to find a set of rules for how politics works which is more democratic and less secretive. No matter how good politicians you get – absolute power corrupts absolutely. You’ll never be able to trust them entirely.

Finally, you seek to create a more open democracy, but I want to ask, is democracy self destructive? For example, the situation in Switzerland, where only a certain number of people needed to sign a petition for a referendum on Minarets, which subsequently lead to a ban on those structures.

Personally, I think the dangers of democracy like that are exaggerated. The point to make with the Swiss vote was that it was highly unusual. And secondly, if you’re going to have referendums, if you just have a vote, a referendum vote, it is easy for vested interests and wealthy owners of the press to sway argument one way or other. If you have forums where people can discuss issues and have a counter argument, democracy is a lot more fruitful.

And it is the question do we trust ourselves enough to believe in democracy? I believe we should: we don’t need to defer it to a special class of professional politicians all the time. I think we as a people need to trust ourselves, because at the moment the government doesn’t trust us to make decisions; the people are kept at bay.

From January 18th to February 22nd, the POWER2010 shortlist of reforms will be put to the public vote. To have your say on the changes our democracy needs and find out more about the campaign go to www.power2010.org.uk