Alien, unaccountable, unwanted, unnecessary and dangerous

Whoever voted for the Electoral Commission?
Given the progressive consensus that emanates out from the BBC, is evangelised for by the honestly left wing private press (The Guardian, Independent and etc), and even demands obedience from social conformists at the ‘Tory’ papers (naming no names, but virtually every female bye-lined hackette in Conservative Fleet St outside of the Mail), the least agreeable bits of Tony Blair’s legacy are going to be hard to pinpoint for a while. Lacking, as we do, the frenetic, splenetic and comprehensively ineffectual critiques of Mrs Thatcher’s reign, the works of the present Prime Minister that will be most subject to criticism are presently obscure. In your correspondent’s old-fashioned opinion, devolution will amount to the most dangerous thing he did in office, but there’s plenty of other stuff, apparently equally as dull and unimportant at the moment, but which is going to change Britain, possibly for good, and certainly for the worse. Prime amongst these evils is the Electoral Commission, a eunuch devoid of purpose, but more than capable of ensuring that the political culture which created it will be preserved long after its mandate has been dissolved. More than any other agency, if the Electoral Commission is allowed to survive by future governments, it will be the means by which Blairism is pickled in perpetuity.

Where to start with the Electoral Commission’s vices? The facelessness of this quango is tempting, but then there’s its powerlessness to do good whilst being more than capable of stopping it being done. But to start at the beginning is to see the culture that the Commission has been grown in, and the only word contemptible enough for that is . . . European. For the intercession of this hopeless bunch in British politics has accompanied, and in part, justified, our slow and steady transformation into a bad parody of a continental country. Already, for Strasbourg elections, we have closed list systems, which of course give unwarrantable amounts of power to party wire-pullers, at the expense of voters and grass roots party activists. Over this the Electoral Commission presides with self-righteous torpor, no matter that such a system of voting owes no part to any British democratic tradition. Worse still, when actual, absolute corruption occurs, such as the Government’s introduction of postal only voting in three Euro constituencies in 2004 (all three of which were Labour ‘heartland’ areas, where a high turn-out was keenly sought by Old Queen Street), the Commission can do and indeed does do nothing.

Over any and all referenda — one of the signal reasons why we supposedly have an ‘independent’ body like the Commission — the government listens and ignores it. This is what Labour have done over the, now thankfully abortive, series of referenda on provincial devolution within England, and it’s what they have done over the Commission’s timid witterings on how and why any referendum on either the European constitution, or British adoption of the Euro, should be conducted. What the government wants, it gets, whilst the Commissions unashamedly carries on as a figleaf for every other disruption of traditional British voting practises that Labour can dream up.

The recent fuss over postal voting for Westminster is nothing as compared to the fact that the Electoral Commission legitimises the nationalisation of politics in this country. Whereas once upon a time, parties here were voluntary, private and freestanding entities, now they are regulated and registered wards of the state, who can hope to exist solely with government permission. This was not a healthy development, and it is one that has happened with barely a whisper of opposition from the Tory and Liberal parties, happy as they are to collaborate in this seeming entrenchment of their own selfish, temporal power. Even spending limits, as overseen by the Electoral Commission naturally, are little more than the state’s way of excluding new political competition, and restricting participation in politics to the existing cartel.

This election campaign kicked off with a disorganised instance of the power that the Electoral Commission and its pernicious panoply of rules and privileges have given to the leaders of political parties over their supposedly freely following supporters. Michael Howard’s dismissal of Howard Flight from parliament may or may not have been strictly legal, but if it’s the former, it will be only be through dint of bad parliamentary draughtsmanship and possibly the perversity of European law. As intended, the leader of a British political party now has the power to determine who his followers are. This was a foolish extension of party power, verging on the wicked, and one which has already begun the suppression of individual and local rights in this country.

Most obnoxious of all however, are the advertisements this gormless, unanswerable collection of poltroons have taken it upon themselves to start placing in the press. For these, unsurprisingly enough, are happy-clappy little messages (actually, full page national newspaper ads) priggishly tell us, “don’t sit on the fence. Vote May 5th”. Now never mind that all three main parties piously agree that voting is a good thing and should be encouraged at all times, it’s no business of a wing of the state telling us to. And it’s especially not the job of the Electoral Commission, a body whose pretensions dissolve instantly if it isn’t more neutral than Swiss banker confronted with an inactive savings account, to tell people to vote for the sake of voting when the consensus of everyone who has ever uttered an opinion on the subject is that, higher turn-outs are better for the left, and lower ones are better for the right. It matters not a jot that this election may well confirm that this is yet another rule of the old politics that Tony Blair has dissolved: it cannot be right that a body existing solely to ensure electoral fairness can spend public money in such a way which might, however marginally, affect the partisan outcome of these elections.

Much like Monarchy, for which there is a case, and Republicanism, for which there is a worse one, both being superior to debased versions of either, there may well be a case for an Electoral Commission in theory, but for the one we have there is none.

For the duration of the campaign, the Social Affairs Unit will be publishing regular commentaries on the progress of the UK election. These commentaries represent the views of the anonymous commentator, not those of the Social Affairs Unit, its Trustees, Advisors or Director.