The poison of taxpayer-funding for political parties
Posted on November 11, 2011Just as politicians’ attempts to get hold of more power will likely never cease, the same is almost certainly true of the attempts of political parties to get their hands on taxpayers’ money.
This week we’ve seen yet another push to give taxpayer funding to political parties – under a system once championed by Chris Huhne where parties with sitting MPs would get a set amount of cash for every vote they win. Let’s call it the “cash for votes” system, a negative name for a negative idea.
This time round, the main parties have publicly distanced themselves from the plan – a welcome sign that at the moment the political class are afraid of public opinion on the cost of politicians to the taxpayer. But we can’t rely on that always being the state of play. Privately, all three parties would love to have a guaranteed income from taxpayers without having to do all that tiresome fundraising – they just can’t get away with saying so in the current climate. We need to be constantly watchful to ensure they never succeed in this private desire.
So let’s look at exactly why taxpayer-funded political parties are such a bad idea.
First off, there’s the ethics of the matter. It’s deceitful to equate a vote for a party with a desire to donate to it. If a vote indicated a happiness to donate, then people would donate. The fact is that they don’t – often because they don’t have money to spare, but also because they may be voting begrudgingly or even tactically. The supposed link underlying the cash-for-votes system simply doesn’t exist.
Why should anyone be forced to fund a political party if they don’t want to – and even one they would never consider supporting? After all, if voter A who is a net beneficiary of the state votes for party A, then their “donation” is subsidised by voter B, a net contributor to the Treasury, who might well be a supporter of their deadly enemies party B.
Just as important are the practical effects on our democracy.
The reason this system is regularly put forward is that the parties struggle to raise money. We should look at why that is the case, rather than simply crudely address the symptom. In truth, our politicians fail to really inspire people – voting, party membership and donation have dropped off, as what used to be called apathy has grown into outright anger and disillusionment.
From the point of view of many, our political class are too self-interested, too out of touch and too close to each other ideologically. Unsurprisingly, that failure on their part has put people off donating to fund them, just as a company giving dreadful service and neglecting its customers will lose business and see turnover and profits decline. Rewarding that failure would be to allow them to escape accountability for their actions and – worse – guaranteed taxpayer-funding would serve to reinforce this disconnect from the public by removing the pressure to inspire people.
At the same time as it would protect the main parties from the consequences of their failure, taxpayer-funding of those parties with MPs would also serve to fossilise British politics in its current, unpopular form. The current big parties would be in a bolstered, protected position, with even more of a headstart than they currently have over insurgents and upstarts. Proponents of taxpayer-funding are effectively saying that the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties have some form of divine right to exist indefinitely.
In reality, what would be wrong with one or all of them being put out of business if a new, more active and more popular party emerged on their patch of politics? It can happen – the emergence of Labour in the late 19th Century, the strange near-death of the Liberal Party in the inter-war period, the emergence of the SDP in the 1980s, the growth of the SNP and Plaid Cymru and so on.
We should have a system that allows that to happen – both because it’s right that such change should be able to occur and because the possibility of it will keep the current parties on their toes. If anything, we need to make our system of politics more open to new competitors, not less. Bunging taxpayers’ cash to reinforce the status quo would make things even worse than they already are.
Tags: Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrats, opinion, Parliament, Politics, public spending, Socialism, Taxpayer-funded political parties, Taxpayers, Westminster
Categories: Opinion, Politics, Public spending
Spot on. Taxpayer funding is the political class saying to the voters: “Hello everyone. We believe, firstly, that you are such a bunch of chuckleheads that you are unable to decide on your political affiliations without an advertising campaign. Also, guppy-mouths, even if you did work out your political leanings, we are now interchangeable and need to be viewed as though we were brands of very similar chocolate.”
Your most salient point is customer lock-in. The current political and media fear of a mass surge to the genuine right makes the need to ensure the continuing existence of the broadly Socialist ‘big three’ [in actuality, the big one] so that insurgent parties are starved of funds. But funds may not be needed…
23.11.2011 14:54
Another thought is to limit parties’ spending. It would be very simple, for example, to ban political parties from any outdoor advertising. The ad industry would object (tough…), but it would serve two purposes. The first is to limit spending: what happens in Formula 1 is a good precedent. The second, and perhaps more important, change is that parties would have to present arguments beyond advertising slogans; it might help them connect with voters more
23.11.2011 15:21
Totally agree, as I say in my epetition – “If parties cannot fund themselves they have no business being at Westminster” http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/23632 – Reject the proposals on political party financing – Committee chaired by Sir Christopher Kelly.
Also agree with a ceiling on spending – we do not want to imitate the American system
24.11.2011 13:47
The only way to clean up politics from sleaze and vested interests is to restrict party funding so it is member-only and free from external influence. This may also encourage MPs to listen to constituents rather than party whips. We have enough information nowadays to form our own political views and do not need this apparatchik class to tell us what to think. http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/21338
25.11.2011 12:29
We already do fund a Political party. We are taxed to pay the broadcast wing of the Labour Party. It is called the BBC
25.11.2011 14:02