Emancipation
England, Northern Ireland, Scotland & Wales
The futility of proportional representation
In the book "The Briton's Quest for Freedom1 the shortest section is the one which deals with proportional representation. In a book largely orientated towards unravelling how political parties prevent effective representation of the free will of the people of Britain the analysis of proportional representation is short and to the point.
"For many years there have been studies, reports and proposals issued concerning electoral reform. These have almost all dealt with the question of identifying fairer or more representative voting systems. However, the predominant emphasis in all of these documents has been to establish a fairer and more representative balance in the elected representation of political parties. The Levellers2 would have recognized the problem with this immediately.
It is notable that most electoral reform efforts do not place any emphasis upon the importance of upholding individual free expression of voter preferences or the formation of a Parliamentary representation of the free will of the people. Most electoral reform concentrates on the issue of improving the representation of political parties as opposed to that of the electorate. In the United Kingdom it is evident that the interests of political parties and those of the electorate are not the same. Accordingly a more proportional representation of the political parties can never solve the specific and most significant problem, that of establishing a Parliament made up of a free and faithful representation serving constituencies.
Electoral reform priority
Most discussions on electoral reform address the wrong priority. The imperative should be to stop the erosion of individual freedom, the main victim of the current political party system. Electoral reform efforts therefore need to give priority to systems which can reflect the preferences of the electorate. The focus should fall on how electorate preferences can be determined and reflected in Parliament. The attempt to relate this quest to the separate and distinct interests of political parties is unlikely ever to produce a beneficial outcome for the status of individual freedom.
Closed & open lists
Some systems for electoral reform propose party lists in which the electorate is asked to select a party of preference and the party "bosses" decide which politicians will fill the representation. Experience with such closed lists in Europe is sufficient to demonstrate that party lists are an unacceptable basis for constituencies to gain representation. Party list candidates are normally even less directly involved or committed to the interests of the constituencies than normal candidates and only serve the interests of the political party. On the other hand, a system of open lists where voters select the candidate by name from a political party list does not address any of the problems raised so far associated with the lack of independence and freedom of expression of such representatives.
The issue is electorate preferences
The problem facing the electorate, and this needs to be addressed in any electoral reform, is how to provide the electorate with a system of representation expressing the free will of the people free from distortions introduced by the interests of political parties. It would seem that legal constitutional provisions are required whereby elected representatives should represent the free will of their constituents with the imperative that they must remain free from the influence of any other bodies, agents or political party.
1 Table showing summary of constraints on individual freedom:
Some 58 significant constraints imposed by the political system and which prevent the reflection of preferences in national decision-making.
| Activity | Significant constraints |
| General election | 20 |
| Parliament | 16 |
| House of Lords | 2 |
| Application of the Law | 10 |
| Political party funding | 2 |
| Parliamentary reform | 1 |
| Sovereignty | 7 |
| Whole process | 58 |
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Reference: "The Briton's Quest for Freedom - Our unfinished journey", McNeill, H.W., Hambrook Publishing Company, 2007, ISBN: 9780907833017
2 The Levellers were a group in 17th Century England led by John Lilburne and largely concerned with constitutional reform. They wrote several constitutional documents including forerunners of of the English Bill of Rights. They were particularly concerned with introducing constitutional procedures to guarantee the reflection of electorate preferences in Parliament
"A notable point was the Levellers' particular concern to defend freedom from the negative impact of the development of various forms of corruption of the process of governance. In particular they sought to prevent a concentration of power around the promotion of specific interests frustrating the satisfaction of the preferences of the people. They saw such potential risks in the formation of factions and professional politicians. Naturally, if one combines these two elements, one ends up with nothing other than a political party. The Levellers sought to remove this threat by proposing that public officials were to be elected for a fixed term by a free Parliament. Parliament itself was to undergo a general election each year with no representative being re-elected to the subsequent Parliament. Representatives could stand for the Parliament following the one from which they were excluded. The proposal for a one year Parliament was extended to a two year Parliament... What is of significance is that they considered political parties to constitute a fundamental threat to freedom in their likely tendency to ignore peoples' preferences. Their reasoning was specific: that political parties made up of individuals, serving for extended periods of time through several consecutive parliaments, would have a tendency to follow their own interests in a quest for power, status and money, and invariably, through corrupt process."
As the work, "The Briton's Quest for Freedom" shows, the Levellers' concerns were not some idle hypothesis but are borne out by the behaviour of political parties and politicians today and their impact on individual freedom is in every way the condition that the Levellers sought to prevent.
Reference: Chapter 4, A Proposition - 1649, "The Briton's Quest for Freedom - Our unfinished journey", McNeill, H.W., Hambrook Publishing Company, 2007, ISBN: 9780907833017
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