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The deplorable levels of popular support for political parties in terms of their absolute level of electoral support (ES) ² is almost a taboo subject, often pushed into the background and away from the public gaze by politicians only talking about their "share of the popular vote" (VS). "Share of the vote" has a psychological resonance which masks the increasingly important fact that political party candidates are receiving declining support as a result of falling electorate turnouts (T). The share of the vote gained in any elections needs to be converted to a more realistic and representative measure of the actual support received from the total electorate. This reality is often quite deflating. The truth is that an extremely small percentage of the electorate actually vote for any political party candidate.

The crisis in representation

Political parties will often try and plead their case by stating that the "shape" national agendas and provide people with a choice. They will say that democracy works because if people do not like how a party governs that the electorate can vote them out at the next general election.

ES in the Presidential Primaries

In the United States one hears the term "popular vote" used frequently by candidates. But neither the Democrats Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton nor the Replublican John McCain received any popular vote in the sense of a convincing support of some significany part of the state electorates. Apart from the New Hampshire and California ¹ with turnouts (T) of 52.5% and 41.7% the hype and fizz and $millions spent help detract from the fact that the average turnout was around 30% and some as low as 19% (Louisiana). The fact is that the turnout for the American Presidential Primaries has been abysmal.

Significance

Assuming an even split of votes (50:50) between the Democtratic candidates and assuming at State level balance in support between Democrats and Republicans, each of the Democratic candidates would claim that they had 50% of the "popular vote" when in fact there was nothing "popular" about it with each achieving an ES (electoral support) of just 7.5%.

¹ Source: McDonald, M., "United States Election Project", Department of Public and International Affairs, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA.

The problem with these arguments is that the agendas shaped by political parties are so bad that the current governing party has an electoral support of around just 19%. In addition, the choice of whether or not we have an election and its timing lies in the exclusive hands of the Prime Minister and not in the hands of the electorate. On the other hand, each Parliament has a maximum life of 5 years. Our first-past-the-post electoral system results in a minority factional government with less than 20% of electorate support gaining in excess of 50% of the representation in the House of Commons. This enables a minority faction to impose its agenda on the remainder of the electorate who did not support then, the majority of the electorate making up around 80% of the poopulation.

It is not difficult to see that with these figures the House of Parliament is not an assembly whose membership represents the true views of the communities making up the population of the United Kingdom. There is therefore a problem in that the agenda "shaped" by the government party as an election manifesto becomes the government's mandate. If there was a free voting Parliament one might imagine that the "government" could be held to account. However, with a voting majority and with ministers remaining in their constituency seats in Parliament voting in support of their own proposals and others of the party being whipped to do the same, we end up with no separation of powers between a government and a free voting Parliament. With the Prime Minister selecting Cabinets and various ministerial and state secretary posts each with extra income and party status, this, combined with the work of the whips, creates a body of party interest-shackled individuals who lose their intellectual independence and above all an ability to vote in Parliament in line with the point of view of their constituents. The voicing of constituency points of view, especially if these are at variance with "government" - read political party - policy is frowned upon and proactively discouraged. This ensures that the agenda shaped by the government party and supported by just 20% of the electorate, becomes policy imposed on the basis of a disproportionate House of Commons majority.

The problem is that the government's mandate drawn from the political party manifesto does not represent the point of view and therefore does not take into account the preferences of around 80% of the electorate. Today some 60% of the electorate does not support any political party resulting in the body of the Parliament being made up of MPs who represent political parties who gained the support of just 40% of the electorate. However, representation of their specific party preferences is neutered by the absolute voting majority held by the governing party.

As a result, most decisions by "government" are no mnore than decisions by a political party as opposed to any substantive will of the people. In statistical terms what passes for legislation and assorted decisions within government neither represent the point of view of the Parliament as a whole and, in turn, are yet further removed from the 60% of the population who do not support any political party.

The truth is that the people of Britain do not have a system of representation capable of reflecting their real preferences.

Arbitrary governance

If one cares to review all of the initiatives introduced by the main British political parties on Parliamentary reform and now, on constitutional reform, one can detect a strong level of collusion between the parties in their common avoidance of matters which throw into question the legitimacy of political party representation. Political parties only seem to know how to fight each other in a contentious fashion where election after election they may win any specific election battle but they never win any convincing support of the electorate. We therefore end up with a trail of legislation unrestrained by any genuine public inputs nor effective Parliamentary oversight or control. We therefore endure a system of arbitrary governance whose agendas are shaped by a minority faction and who cannot be removed, no matter how much damage is being introduced by unwelcomed legislation or created by current economic policy. This luxury rests with one individual, the Prime Minister, who directs, through an absolute power of patronage over Cabinet and Parliament ³ the nature and outcome of governance.

This elective dictatorship is no more than a tyranny and there is an urgent need for change to the benefit of the people of this country. It would seem that any constitutional reform needs to move in the direction of legitimising mandates by enhancing the degree to which electorate preferences can be reflected in decision-making. This is likely to result in political parties being substituted by better means of representation.