PIP

The Government Department of Communities and Local Government recently published (April 2008) a document entitled, "The Community Power Pack". This, the Introduction states, is an aid for local groups to organise and facilitate discussions on the topic of empowerment. It also states that this exercise will be assisted by an organization called Involve, based in London. Involve describe themselves as, " ... a non-partisan organisation which exists to put people at the heart of decision-making" and they, " ... believe public participation can help solve some of our most pressing challenges and lead to the genuine empowerment of people" ¹ it would seem they were organised in 2005 and they have the aim to show how public participation can positively and productively change the lives of individuals and improve the working practices of institutions."

Misdirection of effort

Involve organized and wrote "The Community Power Pack" and it consists of some guidelines on how to organise forums and participatory meetings.

It is amazing that almost 1,000 years after the Manga Carta there is a need, in a democracy at the beginning of the 21st Century to invest time and thought in ways and means of encouraging people to become involved in decisions which affect them. The fact that there is a need to do this confirms that democracy based upon the majority principle and political party representation has failed to achieve this. Indeed, the basis for a free and happy society were identified clearly by the Levellers in the 17th Century as communities having faithful representatives. To avoid marginalization and dilution of power of those represented the Levellers pointed out the dangers of permanence of representives and public servants in creating professional politicians and factional interests. The Levellers warned that the rise in influence of such groupings, today known as political parties, would lead to a stripping away of the expression of the free will of the people. The Levellers were right and this is why today people remain on the margin and we have calls for "empowerment". The disillusion and lack of involvement of the public is not a lack of interest in public affairs but rather a direct outcome of the overbearing influence and suffocation of inspiration by Britain's tiny political parties over elections, decision-making and legislation mostly driven by the political party interest in clinging onto power. The British system marginalises the public from important decisions. However, it is a mistake to think that "involvement" in local "participatory exercises" will empower people when there is no change in the overall motivation and modus operandi of British political parties.

What is empowerment?

Empowerment is not a particularly useful word beyond the point of expressing something perceved to be lacking. In a free and happy society freedom of expression provides the means of each achieving their preferences in actions, spoken word, deeds and relationships with others with limits on freedom being established by the limits beyond which one's actions impinge on the freedom of others. The critical point is that people's own individual wishes or preferences are able to be satisfied. People will only remain engaged and motivated in treading their own pathways as long as those representing them are faithful representatives who in Parliament carry such independent messages as to create an institution reflecting the will of the people. But this is not how the system operates. We have an amateur arrangement whereby a handful of members of a political party, with a membership of less than 0.3% of the British electorate, think up what they think is a good idea and then set several such ideas out, in the form of a manifesto, at a general election. Naturally the media promote the issues selected by the political parties as being of "importance" and this builds up the confidence of the political parties to ask people to vote on political party preferences as opposed to seeking the preferences of the people. These are quite distinct issues but are glossed over as being the same thing. On the basis of one vote per person, the electorate is left to select the least bad policy package (manifesto) and where associated policies can be considered to be in mutual conflict. The election over, the electorate has no opportunity to give a second opinion on the policies as they are unfurled in Parliament, often in a completely different form to that suggested in the manifesto. The "winning" political party can take command of governance on the basis of receiving less than 20% of the electorate's support.

This top down approach to British politics, perfected since 1945, has not been responsive to electorate needs except for such obvious areas of need which were well addressed by the work of William Beveridge and the Liberals leading to the welfare state. But by the 1960s Anthony Crosland has realised that on the economic side "capitalism" was able to provide adequate incomes for "workers" and that it was not necessary to nationalise industries to control them. British political parties have a fixation with centralised budgets, now representing 40% of the GNP, as a convenient means of enhancing the power of the government party. This has resulted in a jealous management of power based upon budgetary control as a means to manipulate local authorities and local governance. The poverty and distortion of this approach was thrown up into high relief following the poorly-conceived devolutions for Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales and where nationalists consider the solution to be more power to the people or "empowerment". As a result, the top down nature of national governance is being questioned with the electorate giving more support to national parties, albiet still in the form of a minority faction. But throughout the United Kingdom it is more than evident that people have no means to participate in national decision-making in a way to help them satisfy their preferences. These continue to be set by the governing political party who hold the support of just 19% of the electorate. This minority faction, as a result of the first-past-the-post election system, has a commanding majority in Parliament enabling them to impose their policies and dogma on the remaining 81% (the majority) of the population.

No amount of "empowerment", "citizens juries" and other forms of shadow participation can have any effective impact until the political party system is changed.

Proportional representation no answer

The mythology of proportional representation is often held out as a fairer means of representation. But all that proportional representation does is share out representation amongst political parties who in total do not command a majority. Indeed, in the last election 62% of the population did not vote for a major political party.

Marginalization of the majority

The characetrization of the state of British democracy is that it is not a participatory democracy at all and decisions are taken in a centralised fashion by what are no more than factional minorities and who by their low levels of electoral support can never aspire to making up a Parliament of the will of the people. The British political parties are in serious denial over their absolute lack of electorate support. It is revealing how in trying to provide a semblance of participation they are trying to fob off the British public with talk and even spending public funds on studies and initiatives on "empowerment" and "local democracy". This does not disguise the fact that the common condition of the British political parties and their continuing somewhat visceral motivation to remain in power at all costs, is encouraging a collusion between such parties to defend their heavily camouflaged practice of imposing their minority preferences on the majority. This is why participatory initiatives focused at the local level tend to be overtaken by cynicism and disillusionment as people realise that such exercises are not in fact geared to improving relevant and effective power but rather constitute a means of diverting community "participation" towards "decision-making" which does not threaten the power of the political parties. Therefore this initiative will ensure that people power remains at the periphery and remain very local. ² .

Relevant & effective power

There is no mystery as to what is relevant and effective power. In formal decision analysis, decisions represent the irrevocable allocation of resources and the power to make such decisions lies with the decision-maker. The power to allocate resources signifies control over the means of actioning resources and this means power over funding or budget. Therefore power lies in the hand of who controls the budget. An the moment, because local communities do not have independent and faithful representatives the budget and power remain at the centre. On the other hand the principal-agent relationship, which should exist between the electorate and MPs, could bring about modes of operation of governance and institutions so as to exercise such power as a direct function of the preferences of the people thereby librating all to pursue their ends. In other words, all that is needed to correct the current perversion in the use of power exercised by political parties is for constituencies to select representatives who undertake to act acording to constituency preferences. ³