If politicians can’t enact the policies people actually want, the system is broken

This week, Class released a new poll on the theme of fairness and inequality, which will nicely coincide with the debates at our conference this Saturday. Speaking of which, you should totally book a ticket for that as we’re down to the last few.

Anyway, I find our polling particularly interesting (I mean, you’d hope I would) because its aim is to gauge public opinion on long-term issues, rather than responding to a given news story. Class polls provide a snapshot as to where the public is on cornerstones of left-wing thinking. This time last year we polled opinions on the nationalisation of key public services (rail, energy and so on) and found widespread public support – especially amongst UKIP voters, who were generally more amenable to nationalisation than the national average. That poll still gets wheeled out whenever the issue of nationalisation comes up as part of political discourse.

This year, we asked about the gap between the rich and the poor and the results were equally encouraging. Nearly two thirds of people think there is a big gap between the rich and the poor and it is harming society. Over half think the gap between the rich and the poor is harmful to the economy, which I take as a rather damning indictment of the coalition’s own arguments about the need for inequality and austerity to stimulate economic growth.

In terms of policy, the poll found significant support for statutory maximum pay ratios, with 2 in 3 people in favour. This policy even won clear majority support – 57% to 26% – among those who voted Tory in 2010. A number of policies were viewed as being effective for combatting inequality, from closing tax loopholes (83% in favour), to a mansion tax (52% in favour), to increasing the top rate of income tax (65% in favour) and introducing pay ratios (63% in favour).

I know I bang on quite a lot about the huge gaping canyon that exists between public opinion and acceptable political discourse, but is there not something fundamentally undemocratic about the public wanting a set of policies that politicians would be burnt alive for even alluding to?

This, to me, is why those hashtagging Labour doorstep folks are always on the receiving end of the “you’re all the same” accusation. Politicians are demonstrably not all the same, and in my mind, there’s enough of a distinction between the parties to make voting a worthwhile act. But there is remarkably little room for manoeuvre, and if politicians can’t enact the policies people actually want, the system is broken. Little wonder, then, that voters are starting to look for solutions away from the mainstream. Never mind UKIP, Labour should take the sudden surge in Green support seriously, and instead of trying to battle the Greens for left-wing votes (most unedifying), ask itself why that surge has happened.

On Saturday, Class Conference will host over 60 speakers from across the left to debate the kinds of policies people actually want. We’ll be talking about the practical steps we need to take to realise those policies in the immediate future. Politicians of all stripes should take note of the outcomes – not for our sake, but for their own survival.

Ellie Mae O’Hagan is the Media and Communications Officer at Class