Comment: How to kill off the trade union/millionaire funding model
If political parties meant something, party funding wouldn't be an issue.
Labour could happily take its money from trade union members, who, clubbed together, would compete with the sums offered by the handful of millionaire donors the Tories rely on. There is nothing unreasonable about this arrangement, if you believe politics to be the resolution of class war over resources.
Class war is off the agenda now, but not so long ago, this was an appropriate way to do things. Alas, the public no longer associates itself with that vision of politics, making the reliance on union and millionaire backers unseemly.
The image of Cameron mocking Ed Miliband for his 'union paymasters' is particularly disreputable, given the donor scandal which broke this weekend. Miliband has, to his credit, made some effort to minimise union influence on the party, including tackling the block vote. But nine out of ten pounds donated to Labour comes from unions. In the final quarter of 2010, Labour's central office received no individual donations. Both parties are in the pocket of class interests which do not reflect the values of the British public.
Britain's inability to correct its party funding mechanism stems from its obsession with reducing state spending and the general distrust of politicians. Groups such as the TaxPayers' Alliance or Ukip will jump on any suggestion of state funding of political parties as further profligacy. Their quest is to turn the British state into a withered old man, incapable of doing anything other than perhaps providing street lighting and rubbish bins – and they'd probably privatise that too, given half a chance.
Opponents of state spending have a particularly easy time campaigning against it, given the contempt the public holds for politicians.
There are indeed legitimate reasons to questions such a system. It could easily become a prop for the status quo. With falling voter support, a non-existent membership and a disastrous image among members of the public, why should Labour or the Tories (or the Liberal Democrats, obviously) be deserving of state support? More importantly, why should they be given cash advantages over smaller, newer parties simply because of their historical role?
There are solutions for this conundrum, the most persuasive of which rely on state funding per member or per vote. If the state had to donate £10, say, to a political party each time it got a new member, it would provide a direct incentive for parties to widen their support and again focus on the grassroots. New members would be more likely to join if the internal process of the party was more democratic, giving them a more important role. This incentive could help undo some of the more Stalinist trends in party organisation, such as the removal of the membership from the policy process. We know people are more interested in politics than ever and they also feel more disenfranchised than ever. The funding system can create incentives for parties to give people more political power and create a healthier democratic system.
Alternative models would pay political parties per vote, thereby correcting some of the injustices of our current electoral system. The main deficiency of our voting system is that it penalises wide geographical support. The Greens, for instance, score a significant number of votes in all sorts of areas, but they usually fail to actually win the seat. This leaves them with considerable support but no representation (apart from party leader Caroline Lucas, who managed to win Brighton Pavilion in 2010). A funding model which pays per vote would reward strong electoral performance and give smaller parties a better chance of taking on the three party monopoly.
The crisis of party funding is a direct result of the crisis of faith in British politics. It exists because people have stopped believing in political parties. Our political leaders' cowardly inability to correct the problem is merely evidence of why the British people are wise to have reached this conclusion.
The corrections to the funding issue must also address the faith issue, by intertwining funding with popular support – either by membership, or vote, or both. Anything less is superficial and will create resentment. But to do that, we need to get over our obsessive opposition to any sort of state spending. If you're going to spend money on something, a clean, transparent political system makes a sensible purchase.
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