POLITICS
An invitation to Mr Hattersley to cast modesty aside
NOEL MALCOLM
It would be an exaggeration, perhaps even a contradiction in terms, to say that the issue of proportional representation has sent a frisson of excitement through the body of the Labour Party. No issue seems more calculated to make most politicians' eyes glaze over — in the two major parties at least. And yet the 40-odd motions calling for some form or other of PR are by far the most striking feature of the pre- liminary agenda for Labour's party confer- ence this year.
Organised motion-mongering is a well established tradition in the Labour Party; the sheer volume of these motions is a testament to the hard work of the 'Labour Campaign for Electoral Reform', and need not signify any spontaneous groundswell of opinion among party members. What is interesting about this issue at this particu- lar time is not the nature of the demands, nor even the fact that more Labour voters are making them now, but rather the peculiar awkwardness of the Labour lead- ership's position as it tries once again to brush the whole question aside.
For the last year, Labour has benefited from the 'Charter 88' movement's cam- paign for fundamental legal and constitu- tional reforms. It would not be fair to say that the Labour leadership jumped onto the Charter's bandwagon; it was not actually on the bandwagon, merely tagging along behind. It kept its distance, but in the manner of those motorists who can sometimes be seen racing along in the wake of an ambulance or fire-engine on emergency call. When Charter 88 sounded its siren, it was alerting people to a sort of civic emergency under the oppressive Thatcherite regime. The Labour Party, campaigning (sensibly enough) on the basis of 'Stop Thatcher' rather than 'Start Kin- nock', could only benefit from this. And if it sounded its own klaxons loudly enough on issues such as Spycatcher and GCHQ, this would distract people's attention from the fact that it completely disagreed with the Charter-writers on most of the basic constitutional questions.
Substantially, that disagreement re- mains. But the policy review document launched this spring shows just how keen the leadership is to dress up the substance in a Charter-ish form. The Hattersley chapter of this document, for example, announces in its preamble: 'We propose to put individual rights back into the centre of political debate.' But anyone who expects to find Mr Hattersley defending a political philosophy derived from 'individual rights', of the sort usually enshrined in a Bill of Rights, is in for a disappointment. Within a paragraph 'individual rights' have become 'individual and collective rights' (rather as if 'Mr Rushdie's rights' in one sentence were to become 'Mr Rushdie's and the Muslim community's rights' in the next); and two paragraphs later the notion of a Bill of Rights has been thrown out of the window.
Similarly, in best Charterising style, the policy document promises 'a fundamental reform of the institutions which establish and entrench' our rights. The next para- graph acknowledges, however, that no legislation can be entrenched — that is, made immune to repeal — in the British parliamentary system. What is proposed is a new second chamber which would simply have greater delaying powers over 'Items of legislation specifically designated' (by whom? it doesn't say) 'as concerning fun- damental rights'. This new second chamber would be elected, but it would not be a mere 'replica of the House of Commons'. Presumably, therefore, it would be elected in a different way. Does that mean, as it surely must, that it will be elected by PR? By this point the Charterites must be holding their breath in anticipation; but Mr Hattersley, performing the opposite of an electoral striptease, draws yet another veil over his proposals. 'The form of election to the new second chamber will be a matter for further consideration.'
Three pages later he is at it again, while describing his Yorkshire parliament — and the other nine English 'regional assemb- lies' which are due to ensure Mr Hatters- ley's place in the history books as a veritable mother of parliaments. 'The form of election to the regional assemblies is', yes, you guessed it, 'a matter for further consideration.' But in a section honestly entitled 'Winning Power', he spits it out at last. 'Our task is to ensure that the policies of the Labour Party convince the people that we are fit and prepared for power. Talk of PR or any alternative voting system would cause the electorate to question our resolve, our commitment and our self- confidence.'
If I were a Charterite (which I am not), I think that on reflection I would be even more fed up with Labour than with the Conservatives. The Tory Party disagrees more straightforwardly with Chapter 88: rejecting the diagnosis, it hardly needs to argue over the prognosis. The Conserva- tives have an economic and social doctrine, which they are prepared to push through even against the wishes of most of the population. The Labour Party has all the outward trappings of a new-look doctrine, but at heart the only thing it cares about at the moment is getting power. Last year, gloomy about the chances of ever winning power again, some members of the Labour front bench dallied with PR; this year they can afford to throw it aside. Power, too, and the difficulties of getting re-elected in marginal seats in the Midlands, seem to be the simple explanation for the pandering to Muslim activists which several Labour MPs have indulged in over the Rushdie affair.
The final twist in this argument, howev- er, is the most intriguing. You might think that an interest in PR was a direct function of Labour's drift to the political centre: isn't PR a classically centre-ish idea? Some of the more centrist Labour politicians, such as Mr Giles Radice in his recent book, do indeed favour PR. But PR's strongest Labour supporters now are on the far Left of the party: people such as Mr Scargill, or the members of Mr Benn's 'Socialist Con- ference'. Their feeling is that our present electoral system forces Labour to moder- ate its policies (as Mr Kinnock has tried to do) in order to appeal to the majority of the electorate. It is as if a powerful elastic band were constantly pulling the Labour manifesto back towards the centre of the political spectrum. PR, they feel, would cut the band, and send the Labour Party spinning off into the spectrum's furthest reaches of ultra-red.
Since these people are fundamentally hostile to the Charter's liberal theories about entrenched constitutions and indi- vidual rights, the chances of Charter 88 making much progress in the Labour Par- ty, even on the narrow issue of PR, seem extremely slender. As for the Labour leadership, they have two reasons now for not wanting PR: gaining power in the country is one reason, and keeping power within their party is the other. Both of these, it seems to me, are quite reasonable motives in a politician. If Mr Hattersley were to drop his veils and reveal all, we would surely see nothing more shocking than naked ambition. Need he be so coy?
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