After our previous debate on Religion and Socialism, Eddi and I have agreed to have another go. The topic for debate is "Britain would be better off under an exclusive one-party system than it is with many parties".
I shall be arguing for the position, whilst Eddi will be arguing against. Naturally this doesn't line up perfectly with my own views, but I'm willing to take on the intellectual challenge. So here it goes.
Typically, we believe that having multiple parties competing for power increases accountability, reduces corruption and prevents the abuse of power. Competition in the political arena is necessary for a healthy democracy.
When we think of One-Party states, we tend to imagine dictatorships like Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union, where the ruling party is the only legal party. Such an arrangement would mark a dramatic break from Britain's constitutional traditions by one-party having sole legal right and power to govern, excluding all opposition parties and suppressing dissent. More than likely this entails restricting the right of people to oppose the government through speech, press and assembly and other rights.
This view of one-party states is something of a caricature that greatly simplifies how one party might exercise the status as the only legal party of government. Many of the examples of one-party "dictatorships" we think of today, actually have multiple parties. The People's Republic of China has nine legal parties, but only the Communist Party of China can legally hold power making it a one-party state. North Korea also has multiple parties, with four political parties and the Korean Workers' Party being the sole party legally allowed in government. In eastern European countries during the Communist era, this practice was described as a "popular front", with the Communist Parties acting as the vanguard parties with the sole legal right to hold power, with other parties existing in a lesser role.
In some countries, we have a softer version called a "dominant party system", where one party commands an overall majority of support of the public and remains in office for consecutive terms. This doesn't always entail the loss of democratic freedoms as in one-party states and their remains scope for a legal opposition.
Britain would be better under a one-party state because that one party would represent the nation and the people. The division in to two-parties, Labour and Conservative, reflects divisions within the ruling class on the extent of government control of the economy, with Labour arguing for more on the left and the Conservatives arguing for less on the right.
This is not representative of the country as a whole, where many people are swing voters between the Conservatives and Labour. General Elections come down to the decision of swing voters, with most of the electorate being ignored as a handful of voters and constituencies are prioritised at the expense of level of debate in the country as a whole. The two parties have to divide the country and polarise the people against themselves with wedge issues to try to win swing voters, whilst taking their core supporters largely for granted.
The breakdown of the two-party system partly contributed to Brexit as Tory voters objected to the loss of sovereignty to Brussels and the European Union, whilst Labour voters were disgruntled with immigration. Until the 2016 UK Referendumn these issues were simply sidelined and it was only the rise of UKIP that brought it to national attention. UKIP came third in the 2015 General election with 3.8 million votes (12.6% of the votes cast), receiving a single seat in parliament (or 0.2% of the seats). This could easily have happened under a dominant party system where an opposition party could have challenged a single national party and forced them to address this.
The two-party system is divisive and has become largely necessary, with elections serving as propaganda exercises that rarely discuss actual policy, but instead focus on rhetoric, talking points and differences in personality between party leaders. The two-party system has become a way to ignore the electorate, negating virtually all of it's supposed benefits. The electoral process is a superficial media circus devoid of substance and often facts. Agreeing on a shared reality, on evidence and on facts gets in the way of dividing people, so the two-party system has instead produced counter-factual narratives that lead to dysfunctional policy and decision making based on the ability to make partisan nonsense popular. In this partisan environment, the two-party system cannot hold the government accountable for any level of corruption, criminality or abuse of power.
Put another way, the functioning of British democracy has become incompatible with the two-party system. We need a real democracy, where we vote for a government based on it's results and policies are based on facts not partisan pantomime.
It would be much better if we dispensed with the illusion of a two-party system and instead had a one-party state where we had a national party representing all the people and not just needlessly antagonising one another in the careerist pursuit of power, perks and high office. We don't need Labour or the Conservatives because they are both awful in government or in opposition. They both fail to serve the people and to represent the nation. We need a new kind of politics and a "party of a new type" that genuinely represents the country where the people can rally around the government and put this era of partisanship behind us.
Your turn @Eddi .
I shall be arguing for the position, whilst Eddi will be arguing against. Naturally this doesn't line up perfectly with my own views, but I'm willing to take on the intellectual challenge. So here it goes.
Edit: This Thread is in One-on-One debates so please don't reply under you are Laika or Eddi
***
British politics has been dominated by a two-party system for several centuries, with conflicts between the Whigs and the Tories, then the Liberals and the Tories, and finally between Labour and the Tories. Power has changed hands in Westminster depending on the balance on power in the House of Commons, switching between Labour and the Conservatives since the National Government under Winston Churchill during world war two.***
Typically, we believe that having multiple parties competing for power increases accountability, reduces corruption and prevents the abuse of power. Competition in the political arena is necessary for a healthy democracy.
When we think of One-Party states, we tend to imagine dictatorships like Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union, where the ruling party is the only legal party. Such an arrangement would mark a dramatic break from Britain's constitutional traditions by one-party having sole legal right and power to govern, excluding all opposition parties and suppressing dissent. More than likely this entails restricting the right of people to oppose the government through speech, press and assembly and other rights.
This view of one-party states is something of a caricature that greatly simplifies how one party might exercise the status as the only legal party of government. Many of the examples of one-party "dictatorships" we think of today, actually have multiple parties. The People's Republic of China has nine legal parties, but only the Communist Party of China can legally hold power making it a one-party state. North Korea also has multiple parties, with four political parties and the Korean Workers' Party being the sole party legally allowed in government. In eastern European countries during the Communist era, this practice was described as a "popular front", with the Communist Parties acting as the vanguard parties with the sole legal right to hold power, with other parties existing in a lesser role.
In some countries, we have a softer version called a "dominant party system", where one party commands an overall majority of support of the public and remains in office for consecutive terms. This doesn't always entail the loss of democratic freedoms as in one-party states and their remains scope for a legal opposition.
Britain would be better under a one-party state because that one party would represent the nation and the people. The division in to two-parties, Labour and Conservative, reflects divisions within the ruling class on the extent of government control of the economy, with Labour arguing for more on the left and the Conservatives arguing for less on the right.
This is not representative of the country as a whole, where many people are swing voters between the Conservatives and Labour. General Elections come down to the decision of swing voters, with most of the electorate being ignored as a handful of voters and constituencies are prioritised at the expense of level of debate in the country as a whole. The two parties have to divide the country and polarise the people against themselves with wedge issues to try to win swing voters, whilst taking their core supporters largely for granted.
The breakdown of the two-party system partly contributed to Brexit as Tory voters objected to the loss of sovereignty to Brussels and the European Union, whilst Labour voters were disgruntled with immigration. Until the 2016 UK Referendumn these issues were simply sidelined and it was only the rise of UKIP that brought it to national attention. UKIP came third in the 2015 General election with 3.8 million votes (12.6% of the votes cast), receiving a single seat in parliament (or 0.2% of the seats). This could easily have happened under a dominant party system where an opposition party could have challenged a single national party and forced them to address this.
The two-party system is divisive and has become largely necessary, with elections serving as propaganda exercises that rarely discuss actual policy, but instead focus on rhetoric, talking points and differences in personality between party leaders. The two-party system has become a way to ignore the electorate, negating virtually all of it's supposed benefits. The electoral process is a superficial media circus devoid of substance and often facts. Agreeing on a shared reality, on evidence and on facts gets in the way of dividing people, so the two-party system has instead produced counter-factual narratives that lead to dysfunctional policy and decision making based on the ability to make partisan nonsense popular. In this partisan environment, the two-party system cannot hold the government accountable for any level of corruption, criminality or abuse of power.
Put another way, the functioning of British democracy has become incompatible with the two-party system. We need a real democracy, where we vote for a government based on it's results and policies are based on facts not partisan pantomime.
It would be much better if we dispensed with the illusion of a two-party system and instead had a one-party state where we had a national party representing all the people and not just needlessly antagonising one another in the careerist pursuit of power, perks and high office. We don't need Labour or the Conservatives because they are both awful in government or in opposition. They both fail to serve the people and to represent the nation. We need a new kind of politics and a "party of a new type" that genuinely represents the country where the people can rally around the government and put this era of partisanship behind us.
Your turn @Eddi .
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