On 30th October 1997 the Labour Government published its European Parliamentary Election Bill. It sank without trace in the press, somewhat overshadowed by the furore over EMU. Yet the week before, the papers were full of stories about four Labour MEPs who had refused to be gagged by New Labour on this very question.
Unlike recent converts in the Labour Party, we have been supporters of PR for a long time. We are European Socialists who believe in the need to have a European jobs creation plan as proposed by the Full Employment Convention within which a Single Currency has a role to play. This is not a battle of “Old Labour” versus New, but a struggle for democracy against authoritarianism and centralist tendencies in all parties including New Labour. Now we have the European Elections Bill it reinforces our view that we were correct to speak out. The Labour Government has produced a Bill which is potentially less democratic than the system it replaces. It is a closed party list system, based on regions, where the elector will merely tick a box on the ballot paper marked “party”.
There are a number of problems with this system. First, it loses the link to the constituency MEP that the current system has. Currently many people may not know their MEP’s name in Britain, but the new system will mean that no-one will know their name or which area they represent. If you are in the South-East with 11 MEPs in a region stretching from Oxford to the Isle of Wight, you won’t have a clue who your MEP could be. It doesn’t have to be this way, Labour could have proposed retaining single member constituencies with a national “top up” of additional members — this is after all the system they are proposing in Scotland. They could have also proposed a single transferable vote - this is how MEP’s are currently elected in Northern Ireland and the Government plans to continue this practice there. Another effect of the closed party list system is that electors cannot vote for particular candidates, split their votes between parties nor even make a choice on good and bad MEPs in the same party.
Third, the system is only very crudely proportional. In some areas minor parties will have to get over 20% to get elected (unlike in Europe where most parties that get more than 5% of the vote get representation). We suspect that New Labour is not keen on allowing minor parties to be represented in British political life.
Fourth, the Bill envisages the registration of political parties. Is this the forerunner to state funding which New Labour is keen to use to sever the links with the trade unions? Or is it just a further device to keep out minority parties or alternative slates at election time? Again, we need a full debate on these issues.
Finally we come to the crucial issue of how parties select candidates and in which order they are placed on the list. This is open to abuse by party leaders. The fear of many MEPs is that their respective leaderships want to replace independently minded people with more compliant ‘on message’ MEPs. At present, Labour MEPs are selected by OMOV in their Euro-constituencies by our local Party members. OMOV is a key principle of New Labour. Will we see it in this case? Is it likely to be replaced by OLAV (one leader all votes)! At best will we get a plebiscite? Two months before the election we may be presented with a list prepared by the Party leadership, and we will have to vote in the knowledge that there is no time for an alternative list.
We will continue to speak out on these vital democratic issues. These elections are the first time that we will use PR for elections in Britain as a whole. It is very important that we get it right and improve democracy and accountability. We need a full debate, and that is why it’s crucial that Labour MEPs play their full part. We welcome the decision of our colleagues in the EPLP to assert our rights to speak out.
When we were originally threatened with suspension we thought that the Millbank machine was moving to crush us. It subsequently transpired that this was another misjudged attempt at discipline by the Labour leadership in Brussels. Serious questions are now being asked of this leadership. However, we are determined to continue the debate on the issue. There is widespread concern over the European Elections Bill and the way MEPs are to be selected and elected. We will be organising a conference in the New Year to debate the issues fully. Watch for further details.