To fend off UKIP, Labour must show it trusts the voters

The Conservative and Labour Parties are making precisely the same mistake in their battle to fend off the UKIP marauders laying siege to their city. Both believe they can defeat the party on policy when the real key is to promise radical reform of the way we do politics.

As the research shows UKIP is, in part, generating support through its opposition to immigration, multiculturalism, and Europe. It is also tapping into what Ed Miliband has called a “seam of discontent and despair” over the economy and living standards.

Labour, like the Tories, seems to have decided to fight UKIP on this territory: sounding tough on immigration, promising change in Europe and reassuring those economically ‘left behind’ that it feels their pain.

As the by-elections last week showed and the polls continue to show this strategy is making little difference. It is very difficult to out-UKIP UKIP.

Farage & co. are not constrained by power, responsibility, a complex and diverse electoral base or even the pressure to make any sense. For the time being, they are free simply to give loud and ill-considered voice to a deep well of visceral alienation. The main parties’ threshold for irresponsible rhetoric and incoherent policies is not always low but it is certainly lower than UKIP’s. So when it comes to sounding tough on immigrants, raising fears of the European threat or expressing rage about economic marginalisation, UKIP can always appear stronger.

And these considerations do not even begin to touch on the fact that for many it does not much matter what Ed Miliband or any other mainstream politician say. The voters turning to UKIP simply do not believe what Westminster politicians promise anyway. Ed could commit to repatriating all Eastern Europeans and sending the SAS into Brussels and most UKIP inclined voters would dismiss it as yet more spin.

A silver(ish) bullet to defeat UKIP?

However, research into voter anger and alienation does suggest a silver(ish) bullet that could at least wound if maybe not quite kill the UKIP werewolf. The question is whether Labour or any other party is willing to fire it.

UKIP draws not just on voter anger about social and economic issues but also about the way politics is done. They are finally giving voice to a very widespread hatred of Westminster politics that has been around for many years but until now has remained unfocused and unorganised.

We know from surveys that this anger is deep and intense. And it is also almost equally deep and intense across gender, age group, class and geographical region. A recent survey of 2,000 people found, for example, that no less than 72% agreed that ‘politics is dominated by self-seeking politicians protecting the interests of the already rich and powerful’. Only 8% disagreed.

More in depth research reveals what voters want to see done differently. Detailed discussions across the country with 153 people conducted on behalf of the Hansard Society generated 450 total suggestions for change.  Only 58 of these related to policy outcomes such as immigration, Europe or the NHS.  The great majority demanded greater honesty from politicians over their performance, the ability to hold them to account for that performance and more of a direct say over what politicians do.

What the research suggests is that voters would very strongly welcome a shift away from our political system’s emphasis on representative democracy and tight party discipline to a larger element of direct democracy where voters can control and challenge MPs’ decisions between elections. Other research backs this up.

The need for direct democracy

So here is the silver(ish) bullet: don’t fight UKIP on policies fight it on process.

The first party to commit to much stronger methods of accountability over MPs and Councillors and to giving voters a direct say over the decisions they take could well begin to topple UKIP’s position as ‘the people’s army’. One possibility would be to back a law that would make it the primary responsibility of MPs to represent the views of their constituents rather than those of the whips, the media or the party’s donors.

The problem, however, is that many in Labour hate this idea. The Party’s members see Labour as being on a mission to transform society. Indeed, it is probably seized by this transformatory mission more now than it has been for a number of years. Direct forms of democracy, however, potentially get in the way of that.

Evidence shows that proper deliberation and exposure to accurate information does tend to shift the harsher views which are expressed in simple polls or television vox pops on issues such as immigration. However, it cannot be denied that a system that gave much greater say to voters between elections and held elected representatives much more firmly to account for their performance would weaken the hold parties can exert over their MPs and Councillors. Realising Labour’s mission would be far more complex than simply winning a general election and passing the right laws. Although if it was able to secure the backing of voters between elections it might also be a mission based on a firmer foundation of support.

So if there is a lesson emerging for Labour out of the current electoral turmoil then maybe it is this: in an age of fragmented class identities, confident citizens and weak ideological allegiance, being the ‘People’s Party’ no longer means speaking up for the people, it means giving them the chance to speak up for themselves. Accepting this fact, however awkward that might be, could well be the key to neutralizing the UKIP threat.

These themes amongst others will be explored in Adam’s book, Small is Powerful: Why the era of big government, big business and big culture is over (and why it’s a good thing). Crowd-funding for the book is now live, so you can pre-order and help make sure it gets published here.