Reforming hope

A bright day at Westminster?

I’ll admit, after hearing the results of the election, I was feeling disheartened. I felt like I had wasted my vote – the party I voted for hadn’t got in – and I felt disillusioned, suspecting that nothing would even change. After all, Brown still remains Prime Minister and no new government has yet been formed. The “cleggmania” had not translated into more seats for the Lib Dems – in fact, they had even lost seats – and in all likeliness, business, I thought, would continue as usual.

But I shouldn’t expect things to move so quickly. It took me a few days to realise that change was on the cards. Big change. I began to notice the “Taking Back Parliament” campaign. Okay, so the title of the campaign is a little misleading – we never “had” Parliament in the first place: but then “Taking Parliament” might have sounded a bit too anarchistic for the establishment to handle. I’ve always been a bit sceptical of massive campaigns like this, but this is one I think I really want to get behind: this time, I reckon, we have a chance of changing something.

Now I’m excited.

For someone who hasn’t studied Politics, this debate might pass over their heads’ a bit (or maybe not, who knows); but basically, some form of Proportional Representation has been promised to us. This means that every vote will count: this means that if you vote for a party, that support will be translated into power in the House of Commons, which is surely the point of voting for a party at all? A friend of mine, commenting ironically about the First Past the Post electoral system that is in use at the moment, said any system under which she would never consider voting for the party she is a member of (the Greens), is a stupid system. But then, why would she vote for the Greens when they only intended to take that one seat in Brighton? It would have been a wasted vote, if indeed there were even a Green candidate in her area.

Yesterday I watched a video of Nick Clegg coming out to speak, or shout more like, to protesters in London. He seemed a bit bemused by the whole thing – secretly pleased, I’m suspecting – and I was filled with hope by the promises he made over his intention to bring about change.

Then I read the articles on the BBC news website about his “positive” talks with the Conservatives and my heart sank. The Tories do not want electoral reform. It may equalise the bias that First Past the Post seems to give Labour, but it is against their principles, and it would remove any chance of the strong government and adversarial politics they traditionally adhere to.

I guess, as a student disillusioned by the opportunistic nature of much of politics these days, I should be glad that the Tories appear to actually have some principles they are willing to stick to, instead of merely trying to look like the party we want to vote into power. But if a coalition between the Tories and the Lib Dems is the government we get, I can’t see electoral reform being easy.

I don’t want to sound fatalistic, but this may well be the only opportunity anybody in British politics gets to actually make a difference and implement electoral reform. If Nick Clegg fails to stick to his principles, as the Tories seem to want to stick to theirs, the chance will be lost. Not only will electoral reform fail this time round, but the Lib Dem vote will decrease dramatically in the next election: no longer will they be able to take the moral high ground: no longer will voters be able to trust what they promise. In short, they will have signed their own death warrant in their short time in the limelight, and become that deadly thing: just like all the others.

Does Nick Clegg have the guts to do what he has professed to believe in? Or will he give in, and prove what I have long since suspected: that getting into a position of power immediately means you have to give up on what you believe in.

There is a Taking Back Parliament protest this Saturday in Parliament Square in York. For more details, check out the facebook page.

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