How do we need to reform our political system to tackle the UK’s challenges?

 

Rayn Lakha

I entered this essay, without the above image, into the 2023 Financial Times and Political Studies Association political student blog competition.

Over the last 5 years, British society has been bombarded with a series of crises. The largest European war since World War II, a devastating pandemic, and catastrophic governance, alongside longer-term concerns posed by technological development, have birthed three epochal challenges: the cost of living crisis, popular disillusionment with democracy, and the rise of artificial intelligence.

The Johnson and Truss administrations’ disregard for the public interest has resulted in 70% of the UK’s population feeling invisible to their political leaders. The accompanying growth in support for extremism threatens the UK’s liberal democracy; most British 18-44 year olds now favour an autocratic regime over Parliamentary democracy. Changing our plurality voting system to an additional member one (AMS) would maintain government operability and keep our useful local representation model without ignoring large proportions of voters: AMS-utilising Scottish Parliamentary elections have an average Gallagher score (where a lower value describes a result more proportional to voting distribution) twice as low as plurality-using general elections’ over the last 25 years. AMS’ flaws could also be managed: setting a minimum number of votes needed to gain any seats would limit the strength of small radical parties, and making parties run for both constituency and list seats would reduce individual split-voting, dissuading parties from dividing into two groups to artificially gain more seats.

Giving Parliament sufficient time to properly scrutinise legislation could further tackle popular disillusionment with democracy by enabling a body more representative of the public’s views than the government to influence legislation more effectively. Since governments are unlikely to U-turn on formal proposals, Parliamentary input could be enhanced most significantly by mimicking Ireland in requiring the government to provide a pre-legislative scrutiny (PLS) option on drafts to relevant committees. Time delays could be minimised by performing PLS only on selected clauses, with waivers for emergency legislation.

Democracy would be most strengthened, however, if it resolved voters’ greatest concern: the cost of living crisis. The crisis’ regiospecificity - Northern cities’ spending patterns leave them more vulnerable to energy price spikes - means that it could be best tackled by devolving more power to mayoral authorities, who understand local contexts better than national government. Clarifying tangled local government would also enable people to access aid such as council-run warm banks more easily.

The issues of privacy, bias, and foreign exploitation associated with the rise of era-defining AI technologies also necessitate political reform: effective engagement requires substantial technical competence in government. Unfortunately, the civil service cultivates generalists rather than technological specialists, rendering it ill-equipped to tackle these problems. The government should therefore create a dedicated recruiter for external talent, and provide an incentive for experts to join by establishing more senior specialist roles. Since potential applicants are often deterred by the fact that they may have to defend decisions they disagree with, damaging their professional reputations, specialists’ advice should be published openly. 

The House of Lords is also crucial in providing technical guidance to government, so hereditary peers should be removed, and the unrestricted ability of the Prime Minister to recommend peers replaced with a meritocratic appointments commission akin to Canada’s, to enhance the quality of peers. Ending attempts to reduce the size of the House, including the ‘two out, one in’ programme, would enable it to maintain its composition of many specialists who can provide expert advice, rather than reducing its usefulness by forcing it to consist of a small number of generalists. This would also increase the impact of the Lords’ expert advice, as the government would feel less able to publicly reject counsel from a more robust upper chamber.

No set of reforms can entirely resolve the UK’s complex challenges, but in the aftermath of successive unfair administrations and inequitable crises, fairness and competence must be injected into our political system to maintain a strong democracy. With improvements in governmental technological understanding, the UK might just be able to overcome the defining challenges of our generation.