Suzy Dean (London, Manifesto Club): Local government has recently been given the arduous task of leading the way towards “more active citizenship, empowered communities, and ultimately, the revival of democracy.” A White Paper, expected early this summer, will explain how. In the long run it is hoped that citizen involvement at the local level will lead to an increase in public confidence in the services and institutions delivering them.
The way in which local government has been rebranded the solution for broader political problems such as disengagement and lack of trust in political institutions, sets the scheme up for a fall.
There has been an understandable attempt by politicians to find out what the public are thinking. When there are high levels of apathy and widespread mistrust in the political system, it is not surprising that political elites want to know what will make people want to engage with them. So far, this has proved unsuccessful at the national level of politics where despite endless opinions polling and citizens’ juries on almost every aspect of policy, there seems to be little that really inspires people to vote, let alone join a party. Following this lack of success throughout central government, local government has taken on the challenge, on the basis that the public may be more interested in their local area.
There are a number of indications that local politics will not be able to renew a sense of faith in politics.
For a start, it appears that government are only really interested in hearing what suits them despite all the rhetoric about wanting to know what the public want. As Stuart Weir has pointed out elsewhere on OK, a number of popular ideas that have filtered through from the Downing Street site or public consultations have been ignored as they don’t fall into line with government plans. From calls to keep the local post office to having a referendum on the EU, the outright rejection of popular ideas has reinforced the sense that politicians are aloof and disinterested. This pick and choose attitude shows they’re less interested in genuinely engaging with people’s ideas, than with the perception that they are doing do.
Despite promises that consultations will give people a real voice in local politics, in essence they decide which pre-determined political initiative will get funded. According to Involve, ‘within the next five years all English local authorities will be expected to offer some form of participatory budgeting,’ and that, really is the extent of local engagement. Active, empowered citizens are unlikely to be the end result of local budgetary consultancy. When there is no option to raise alternative ideas or even criticise those that exist it is more likely that local government will be responded to with cynicism in the same way that national politics is. More specifically, the idea that there will be any large scale interest in what is essentially the distribution of local resources conveniently ignores the evidence that people are disengaged with politics because of the lack of big ideas, as opposed to small ones. The small minded politics which dominates, from Prescott’s bulimia to banning boozing on London trains, is what’s keeping people switched off.
There is also the danger that when politics becomes localised we undermine our system of representative democracy rather than strengthen it. When the elites’ sense of detachment from the public makes them so nervous that a PR exercise is needed before the introduction of any new policy, the idea that authorities can consult a few people in a room behind closed doors rather than have to battle with experts, media and the public out in the open must be appealing. In the long run this approach will alienate people as they are involved at the most banal, technical level. Furthermore, as this lack of debate at the level of national politics becomes accepted, pressure on elites to persuade the public to want to vote for them will waver as political mandate becomes rewritten to the local level.
Most people have ideas about what they think should happen even if they do not vote. The idea that the public need to be informed and given a series of options about their local area, rather than being given the authority to independently establish what they want undermines what it means to be an active, rational citizen. The idea that the public are incapable of having an opinion independent of the government will be reaffirmed as the new “option” based politics enhances people’s sense of passivity rather than challenging it.
Active citizenship and community is a by-product of open debate which is currently off the political menu as all major political parties support the status quo, with very little variation. For a long time now politics has not been for the people, by the people but for people and by elites. The inability of political parties to be future orientated and offer a positive sense of how we may look in 10 years time, or even challenge one another, means that it is highly unlikely that a democratic revival will come from the centre and increases the likelihood that politics will take place outside the mainstream.
The current crisis of disconnect that politicians face with the public makes the establishment nervous; they have a poor grasp of what people want and nothing to engage them in. It is easier to say that people can’t engage with big ideas and so need local alternatives rather than putting some effort into having genuine, open discussions with people about the direction of society. It is important we recognise that a technical tweak will not revive democracy because of this very problem.
