Guy Aitchison (Bristol, OK): The Conservatives under Cameron have become zealots for the idea of direct democracy. We’ve had the Democracy Taskforce’s call for beefed up e-petitions, Direct Democracy’s ‘Think Local’ campaign, Zac Goldsmith talking to Unlock Democracy, and just this week the right wing Centre for Policy Studies produced a pamphlet (introduced below) setting out the lessons to be learnt from New Zealand’s use of citizens’ initiated referendums.
The latest Tory to take up the language of localism and direct democracy is Mayoral candidate Andrew Boff. In an article in this week’s New Statesman he sets out his central proposals:
"Londoners will have the right to draw up their own policies and have them voted on by fellow Londoners. On raising a petition of a proportion (10% to 30%) of voters any proposal within the remit of the Mayor would be put to Londoners at the next ordinary election. The result would be binding on me.
Communities who think that their Boroughs are too large and remote will also have my support in drafting proposals to break them into smaller, more accountable units."
The fact that Boff stands little chance of winning the candidacy against Boris Johnson matters less than the continued trend towards Tories thinking in radical terms. Indeed the very process by which the Tory candidate will be chosen represents something new, with every Londoner being given a vote on who runs.
On his website Boff identifies this trend as part of a shift in the polarities of modern politics. “The old divisions of left and right are melting away”, he claims, “the arguments that matter now are between centraliser and localist, well meaning autocrats and disenfranchised communities, the state and the governed.”
Just clever rhetoric? If that’s your view it’s worth reading Tony Curzon Price’s comment in response to Mike Small’s dismissive take on Zac’s interview. He argues that "the Conservatives need a new radicalism which Brown will fear to emulate but whose legitimacy will be plain to the centrist voter. Radical decentralisation, with its promise of the preservation of localism and hence its basic compatibility with grass-roots Conservatism, is the only contender.”
There is a definite direction in which the Tories are heading. What do people think? Is it a sign of desperation lacking in real credibility, or is it a genuine search for new sources of legitimacy and part of a fundamental realignment in British politics?
