EXPLAINER: What's Wrong With Having Labour/Lib Dem/Green/Tory Party Councillors in Somerset's Councils?

 

One of our Official emblems

Somerset Independents puts residents first. We exist to improve representation in Somerset and to stand up for residents.

We are frequently critical of the Westminster parties and we say:

 Labour

 Lib Dem

 Green or 

 Tory...

 Same old story.

The fact is that now, after the 2022 local elections, that there will be fewer independent councillors in (most of) Somerset. We say (most of) because this does not apply to North Somerset Council and Bath and North East Somerset Council.

In those elections, there were only three councillors out of 110 (2.7%) elected to the County Council that in 2023 will become the New Somerset Council unitary authority when it replaces the four districts and the county council.

All of the independent councillors on the districts will go. And there will be 107 out of 110 councillors (97.3%) who are members of the Westminster parties - Labour, Lib Dem, Green or Tory. We do not include town and parish councils in these figures, but the Westminster parties have infected those councils too - sometimes in disguise by standing for the county council for their party, and then standing as a fake "independent" on the town and parish at the same time in 2022 elections - as pointed out by Scott Ward from Independents for Frome in his response to the attack by The Leveller on IFF.

Below is an explainer as to why we believe that Westminster parties should have no say in our local councils. We hope that it is useful to residents and that it helps to explain. Let us know your views by getting in touch.

We believe that councillors should represent their local residents, by listening and acting on their concerns. Having Westminster parties telling councillors what to do, via the whip and other mechanisms, gets in the way of doing this. There is also a pernicious influence of local media, which involves unaccountable decisions over what is and what is not in the public interest. This is the local politics of news.

In the main, there are two key tensions and conflicts in being an elected representative in a party-based elected democracy (e.g. a Member of Parliament or Councillor). One is between the representative's political party and the representative's constituents.

On a particular policy, the constituents may have views that are perceived to be not very “informed” by evidence or debate, but nevertheless they are the people who elected the representative, and who can vote them out. On the other hand, the party also enabled the representative to be selected as their candidate, provided them with support and had policy positions that may or may not match the constituents’ views. The representative may choose to take the party line, or may take a line determined from some or all of their constituents. All of these tensions can interfere in how the representative demonstrates accountability (or not).

If the ideal of democratic accountability is to be observed, an elected representative would always do what their electors wanted (Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s "people's will"). However, this leads to the practical concern of how the "people's will" is to be determined. Such issues raise other concerns related to the democratic goods of democratic legitimacy and popular control.

The other tension is between the representative's politics as an individual and the representative's party policy. In the UK Parliament, the party whips intervene in this matter, enforcing discipline on party members to obey the whip and vote according to party policy. There are levels of discipline, with a "three-line whip" being the strongest. Punishment for disobeying the whip is unspecified, but it does not require too much imagination to expect that MPs could lose selection at election time, have the progression of their political career halted, or suffer more devious "briefings" to the media about matters that may be political or even highly personal.  

With the implementation since 2000 of the Strong Leader and Cabinet or even more undemocratic Mayor and Cabinet model in the vast majority of councils across England, the flaws of the Westminster system have been replicated in those councils. It is just councillors instead of MPs.

The media and lobbying also intervene in policy and decision-making. The media can act as guardians of communities, taking a popular issue, making it into a story that sells newspapers and taking a particular line on the issue (e.g. opposing the fluoridation of water in Southampton). Or it can select and embellish stories that encourage viewing of television news, or hits on websites or subscriptions to magazines. Media power itself has come under the spotlight with the Leveson inquiry.

Lobbying is notorious for lacking transparency, and accusations of corruption of elected representatives have focussed heavily on corporate lobbying and PR. There is also a debate over whether "civil society groups" can, or should, create a new type of "accountability" by trying to influence government policy, despite not being accountable to the political structure of representation. Instead, they are only accountable, if that can be said, to their own members, their boards of trustees, or other groups that are not necessarily representative of the constituents that elected that government. Religious leaders also occasionally intervene in politics, despite the widespread view that "politics and religion should never mix". Despite this view, the Church of England remains traditionally privileged over other religions in the UK Parliament as well as law. For example, its bishops sit in the House of Lords - itself an unelected body.

All of the reality of the tensions and conflicts described above interfere in the ideal of democratic accountability of elected representatives to local residents - this is the ideal that Somerset Independents aims to promote.

 

1. What do you think of the above explainer?
2. Is it helpful?
   
3. Do you agree?
4. Do you disagree?
5. Have we persuaded you?
   

Who Are Somerset Independents?

Join Somerset's own campaign group and political party to celebrate Somerset's past, protect Somerset's present and prepare Somerset for the future.

We can be contacted at the link here and via Twitter @SomerInds, via Facebook at the Somerset Independents page and via email at somerinds [at] gmail.com.