No tests please, we're British

I've made my views on nationalism clear before. It's impossible to define what constitutes a "British" person, such as by culture, religion, ethnicity and so on in a way that applies exclusively and universally to British people. It's the same with any other nationality, too. This is why the concept of changing nationality is so difficult, and we end up with the infamous and ludicrous Britishness test.

The Britishness test taken by potential Brits is widely recognised as being post ridiculous. It implies you need to have knowledge of British history, institutions and customs in order to be British, something which clearly isn't true of all native Brits. I can see the case for an English language test for citizenship as this is at least something which, if not held by everyone, is necessary in order to be a productive member of society. But above and beyond this it's difficult to say what standard should be met to gain citizenship. New citizens are currently required to pledge an oath of allegiance to the Queen. I can assure you if that were required of current citizens I would be out of the country in an instant. However, it does make a kind of sense. We have no codified constitution so don't have any universal values to swear allegiance to. The Queen represents the sovereign of this country, so an allegiance to her (and to democracy, as is also required) at least acknowledges the government of the day and some kind of recognition of British institutions. However, it's counterintuitive to some not make migrants jump through hoops to gain citizenship which is where the test comes in.


Finally Theresa May, who herself has jumped head first into British society after being left behind by the other astronauts, has decided to reform the test. She has decided to make the test "more patriotic". Now I can personally guarantee you that you don't have to be in the least bit patriotic in order to hold a British passport. You can, in fact, blog about how unpatriotic you are, publish hate-tweets about the royal wedding and jubilee or describe the London Olympics as a tedious, over-hyped garish money pit and continue to call yourself British.


Perhaps the best solution is to take a leaf out of the Judean People's Front's book. "If you wanted to be British you'd have to really want to be British" "I do." "How much?" "A lot!" "Right, you're in".

You could even have different versions to make it comprehensive:
"If you wanted to be British you'd have to really hate the Germans"
"If you wanted to be British you'd have to have a really irresponsible attitude to alcohol"
"If you wanted to be British you'd have to really enjoy talking about the weather"
"If you wanted to be British you'd have to really like Richard Curtis"
and so on.

The good thing is that Theresa May has gone for a slight variation on this. The bad news is I was only joking. From the 146 page "Life in the UK" handbook given to potential Brits she's removing information about how to read a gas meter, how to claim benefits and details of the Human Rights Act and replacing it with information about historical figures, knowledge of British inventions (including the structure of DNA) and an ability to recite the first verse of God Save the Queen.

Let's think about that for a second. The practical information that might actually be of benefit to people living in the UK is removed and replaced with information about historical figures. What we test people on is fairly arbitrary as, like I said, there isn't any range of questions that could be correctly answered by all British people, but if we're going to have questions, it at least makes sense to have ones which give the new citizen practical information about living in the UK. The HRA is perhaps unnecessary, but it's removal is probably more a reflection of the fact the Tory party hates it, and knowledge of DNA structure? Last time I looked DNA wasn't a British invention, and if we're going on British discoveries, why not have a test on America? An ability to recite God Save the Queen is of little practical use, as when British people are in that rare situation where singing is compulsory we scarcely move our lips while mumbling as quietly as possible so the person next to us can't here. Maybe that would be a more useful skill to teach potential Brits.

Not telling people about benefits, getting people to swear allegiance to the Queen, forcing British history on people and getting them to acknowledge Britain as a Christian country seems less like a positive reform of a shoddy system, more like an attempt by Theresa to impose her socially conservative values on people. It's once again a case of the party of small government being keen to use government to push its values on people when it feels like, which suggests small government is not an ideological part of the Tory party, but simply happens to temporarily reflect the economic interests of its voters. Shocking revelation, I know.

But what's the solution? I don't know, I'm just shouting from the sidelines. Obviously I'd prefer the abolition of the nation state to be replaced with a single global federation, but assuming that's not going to happen any time soon, I suppose there should be some kind of language test, but not much else. British "values" can't really be said to exist, and even if we could agree on some liberal democratic principles which potential Brits should share, there would be no way of knowing if people actually hold them. "Do you support liberal democracy?" "Sure, why not?" and this again has the problem of native British people who DON'T support liberal democracy. Although maybe this could be a way of getting rid of all those pesky fascists and communists. Maybe this isn't such a bad idea after all...


CORRECTION
It has been brought to my attention that the relevant Judean people's resistance group is the People's Front of Judea, not the Judean People's Front. After misquoting Monty Python I will now be renouncing my British citizenship.

May 5th

It's currently 4.22 in the morning after polling day. I am tired and supremely pissed off. The following blog will come under the following headings:
An account of my day
Do people get what they deserve?
AV fuck up, who is to blame?

An account of my day
Well, first of all I voted. I put a little mark on my ballot so I could spot it if I counted it later.
Then I was sent to a polling station by the organization formerly known as "Yes to Fairer Votes". I was there for three hours in the warm weather giving out leaflets to about 10 85 year olds who turned out to vote. However, I did have the pleasure of the company of the UKIP candidate for the area. He knew a lot of people in the area through his business and family. We talked about everything from the EU (obviously) to feminism, party funding, national debt and electoral reform. Personally I am instinctively pro-EU because of my lefty upbringing, but I don't have any strong arguments. I actually agree with a lot of what UKIP say on Europe. It is too undemocratic and we don't need the EU to tell us what kind of lightbulbs to use or apples to eat. However, my answer to this is to reform the EU, not to leave it altogether as I think the trade benefits, movement of labour and the need for a strong unified global voice are important. I also find it strange how UKIP argue for more trade agreements etc. with the commonwealth. I don't see why they prefer the commonwealth over the EU and can't help but think that there may be some underlying imperialism at work. I also put it to him, after he had commented on the beauty of free markets, why he opposed the free movement of labour. The markets, surely, are capable of ensuring a well-balanced population with people where they need to be. He replied that it actually doesn't benefit 3rd world countries to be allowed free movement as we end up stealing all their doctors and nurses. (Don't quote me on this, I'm paraphrasing a bit [or would be if I knew what paraphrasing was])
As for party funding, we both agreed that there was too much money in politics and favour a low cap on donations by individuals so parties would need many donations, rather than a few big ones. I've said this for a long time, but I was surprised that a UKIP candidate agreed with me. I get the impression that UKIP, even more so than the tories, rely on wealthy backers. I have done my fair share of political campaigning but have never seen a UKIP volunteer delivering leaflets or canvassing. However, they do have big billboards and signs on the back of trucks. Also, the UKIP £ logo is probably meant to be a symbol of Britishness, but one can't help but speculate that it may be an in-joke by the party's wealthy leadership.
So after three hours and having persuaded literally no-one I headed back to uni to shout at people on the concourse for a bit.

In the evening I was counting votes for the local elections. On the one hand this is an exciting experience as there is the feeling of being at the heart of the election, but it is also quite tedious, particularly by 3 in the morning, and there is a lot of waiting around. It's also ironic that by being at the count you get less of an idea what's going on than if you were at home watching events on telly.
What I like about events like that is seeing all the people in different coloured rosettes chatting politely to each other. That is, apart from the single BNP candidate, who was circulating the room trying to taunt Labour and Lib Dem candidates and make a scene. He opted for calling the elderly Labour volunteers at my table peadophiles. What a lovely man.
Party-political slave that I am, it was quite distracting to hear the feral hoots of Labour members as their councillors won ward after ward while I was trying to count, but what was more uplifting was how close a lot of the results were and as a counter seeing the sheer number of Lib Dem votes. You get the impression in the media that there are no Lib Dems left, but this simply isn't true.
The massive Lib Dem defeat was not exactly fun to watch but it's not like it was unexpected. It's like when your 110 year old great grandmother pops her clogs. You knew it was coming but it's still hard to come to terms with when it happens.
The next day I was counting for AV. This took less time but was oh so much more depressing. I knew already from opinion polls and seeing referendum ballots the day before that it was lost and counting all the no votes on only a few hours sleep was not a bundle of laughs.
I pity the Lib Dems and Yes people at both counts. It was depressing for me but at least I was getting paid good money to be there.


Do people get what they deserve?
I watched a documentary once on call centres featuring depressed call centre workers and angry call centre customers. At the end, one of the customers summed the situation up well. He said that the cheap, impersonal, battery farming approach to customer service was the fault of the big companies for trying to increase their profit margins, and the fault of consumers for always demanding lower prices and not being prepared to pay for the extra bit of service. I think the same can be said of British politics.
People complain that they're all the same. Cameron, Clegg, Milliband. Which fresh-faced, political cliché do you prefer? You may as well flip a coin. People complain they try and appeal to the lowest-common-denominator, having broad, meaningless policies like the 'big society' summed up in vacuous soundbites that fit comfortably into headlines or YouTube clips. This is true. But we deserve it.
The very same people who complain about style over substance consistently vote for just that. Personally I don't dislike Ed Milliband as a Labour leader. He's not as self-servingly tribal as many and seems to be moving the party in a better direction. But all that is meaningless. He will never be Prime Minister, least not if he keeps along his current trajectory. If he ever wants a chance of election he needs to change his voice, style and learn to make a witty speech.
It's the classic market dilemma. The consumers blame the producers and the producers blame the consumers. What we all need to do is grow up.
You can't force people to take an interest but there must be a solution. 60% of people not voting in the second national referendum in our history is shocking, and by rejecting AV the British electorate have shot themselves in the foot again. Next time people are complaining about all politicians being the same they can just fuck off as far as I'm concerned.




AV fuckup: who to blame? 
This AV referendum was a fuck up, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. But who, or what, is to blame?

• The No campaign

The Yes campaign is angry, and rightly so, at the no campaign. The sheer level they stooped to with the £250m (that Blunkett admitted was made up on polling day) and their various other lies such as the BNP getting multiple votes, the end of one person one vote and people who come last actually coming first. However, it's likely that even if we had an honest debate (the Yes campaign wasn't perfect either) No would have won. What I want to know is why they chose this tactic instead of legitimate argument. There are some reasonable arguments against AV. For example, they could have pointed out that Ed Milliband was behind his brother in every round of voting and only one because of the in-some-cases next-to-last preferences of voters for other candidates. This is quite convincing. They could have also pointed out that it wouldn't have actually made a difference in a large number of seats, or that it can sometimes be even less proportional. If they had gone for this approach instead the Yes campaign would not be left with this niggling feeling of having been cheated. Anyone who thinks the public were given fair information and a clear choice must have been out of the country for the last few months.

• Circumstances

In many ways this referendum could not have come at a worse time, both in a large sense, at a time of big government cutbacks and when the strongest advocates of electoral reform are disliked across the political spectrum, and in a more random sense that the royal wedding was last week and Osama bin Laden was captured three days before the referendum, stifling whatever limited debate we might have hoped for. Without information, voters are likely to go to a polling station, see something they know nothing about and vote against it. Also, with the lack of proper broadcasting on the subject, voters had to rely on what they were told by the yes and no campaigns, which can't be a good thing.

• The Yes campaign

As I said before, the Yes campaign hasn't been perfect. However, I don't think it is 'to blame'. It did not have the resources of No to AV, or the newspapers on-side, or the majority of politicians. I read a comment, I think it was in the Guardian, criticizing the Yes campaign for having to enthusiasm for AV. I think this is unfair. Certainly in my experience there was loads of people prepared to pour time, energy, money and dignity into the Yes campaign. Some of us wanted PR, some were happy with AV, but we all knew that this was a better system than FPTP, and if we failed electoral reform in the UK would die for the foreseeable future. I don't think you can fault thousands of volunteers trying to improve the country for the better in the face of the fear and lies of the establishment.

• Nick Clegg

People have blamed Nick Clegg for a lot of things, should AV be one of them?

There is quite a convincing case that Nick Clegg should not have agreed to an AV referendum. Whether that meant saying "PR or nothing" or having no referendum and looking for more concessions in other areas. This was likely to be the only referendum on the voting system in our lifetimes whether won or lost; should it really be wasted on AV? Also, there is a stronger case for PR and it may have rallied more people to the campaign. However, having said that, if there had been a referendum on PR which was lost, people would have said "maybe we should have made a smaller change to begin with". There are also stronger arguments against PR, such as constituency links and hung parliaments. 

The personal unpopularity of Clegg may have damaged the campaign. Unfortunately some people are tribal or ignorant enough to vote against a positive change because someone they don't like supports it.

• The electorate

There is a major problem of people simply not caring about voting systems. In fact, I wonder why they always pick the worst issues to have referenda on. Who would have actually read the Lisbon treaty before voting on it? But even so, 40% turnout is bad. I know that I've already criticized the media for providing the necessary information, but people's reliance on the media is also a problem. They should be able to take the responsibility of finding out the facts for themselves and making up their own mind. And, again, we're back to supply and demand. The media doesn't talk about electoral reform because it doesn't sell papers. It's a vicious cycle.

It has been a more historic than usual set of local elections this year, aside from the predictable drubbing of the Lib Dems, we have been left with the very real possibility of Scottish independence as a result of the unthinkable happening: an overall majority in a proportional assembly. This would have a seismic impact on British politics. Any hope of a Labour shift to the left would be thwarted as they would need to appeal to the more conservative English electorate in the absence of their Scottish stronghold, and even without independence Scotland has been proven to no longer be as reliable to the Labour party as it has been. Whatever happens they will now need to look further afield for support. Those people who declare a permanent Tory majority in a Scotlandless UK I feel are mistaken, however, as sooner or later the English will want a change of government whoever is in power. This may also provide a niche for the Lib Dems who could exploit their perceived shift to the right in an independent England to become the second party and main opposition to the Tories, although this is wild speculation.

More important, however, is the future of electoral reform or lack thereof. There won't be another referendum on electoral reform in this parliament, and even if there's another hung parliament at the next election, would either Labour or Tories offer a referendum, and will the Lib Dems even bother to seek one after they have been defeated so comprehensively? It seems futile even to keep it in the Lib Dem's manifesto, as reform seems to have been rejected so wholeheartedly.

My view is that the British electorate are probably not as opposed to reform as it may appear and the proPR anti AV impact may have made FPTP look stronger than it is, but all that is irrelevant now. RIP electoral reform and any chance of Britain ever becoming a democracy. *transferring all eggs to basket of Lords reform*

If you know who is to blame for AV, please post below. And tell me their postcode and any achilles heels they may have.

William Hague and AV

On 17/2/2011 I received the following email from William Hague:







Dear Alex,


Without your help, Britain's traditional voting system could be ditched for something that is unfair, expensive and allows candidates that finish third to win elections.


On May 5th, there's a nationwide referendum on whether to replace the system of First Past the Post with the 'Alternative Vote' - or AV. The Liberal Democrats demanded this referendum as part of the Coalition agreement - but the Conservative Party are actively campaigning for a 'No' vote. Here's why:
AV is unfair. With First Past the Post, everybody gets one vote. But under AV, supporters of extreme parties like the BNP would get their vote counted many times, while other people's vote would only be counted once.
AV doesn't work. Rather than the candidate with the most votes winning, the person who finishes third could be declared the winner.
AV is expensive. Calculating the results is a long, complicated process, which would cost the taxpayer millions.
No-one wants AV. Even the 'Yes' campaigners don't actually want AV - they see it as a convenient stepping stone to yet more changes to how we vote.


HOW YOU CAN HELP
Go to the No to AV website and sign up to receive emails
Ask your local Conservative Association how you can help their campaign against AV
Join the NO to AV group on Facebook or follow them on Twitter
Forward this email on to 5 friends.


Together, we can win this referendum and save our voting system.


Thank you,




William Hague

Foreign Secretary





Unsurprisingly I disagreed with much of this so I replied:


Dear Mr Hague,

I received an email from you yesterday asking for my help in the 'No to AV' campaign. You stated your criticisms of the system. However, it seems that you misunderstand several key elements of the Alternative Vote electoral system as a number of the claims you make are inaccurate. Obviously a man of your stature would not deliberately mislead people, so perhaps I can show you where your errors lie and help you understand how the Alternative Vote works.


The first point you make is:

"AV is unfair. With First Past the Post, everybody gets one vote. But under AV, supporters of extreme parties like the BNP would get their vote counted many times, while other people's vote would only be counted once."

This is not the case. Smaller party candidates drop out after the first rounds, so votes for them are then counted according to second preference. As their first choice is no longer in the running it is difficult to argue that their vote is being counted multiple times. Furthermore, the way you have written it appears to imply that the BNP will get more votes as a result. Even if their votes were counted 'many times', these votes would not be for the BNP, they would be votes for a (presumably more moderate) second preference. Perhaps you should make this more clear, as at the moment you appear to be implying that AV will mean more votes for the BNP.

Your second point:

"AV doesn't work. Rather than the candidate with the most votes winning, the person who finishes third could be declared the winner."

Again, you appear to have misunderstood the system. It is true that the person who receives the fewest votes in the first round may go on to win, but this would only be if they are preferred over their two strongest opponents by 50% of the voters. Clearly this means an MP needs more support from their constituents than they do under FPTP, which is surely fairer. Perhaps in future communications you should clarify this, as at present you appear to suggest that AV gives a seat to the person with the third most votes, which is obviously untrue.


Thirdly:

"AV is expensive. Calculating the results is a long, complicated process, which would cost the taxpayer millions."

Expense seems to be a peculiar criticism, as your government regularly points out that £110m is spent every day servicing the national debt. This demonstrates that the 'millions' you talk about is clearly a relatively small sum. Furthermore, elections generally take place only every 5 years, so the additional cost seems negligible. Price also seems a bad way to choose an electoral system. It would be cheaper to have no elections at all. This point also seems particularly ironic as your party for several years demanded a referendum on the Lisbon treaty for no apparent reason. Also, you put the high cost down to counting being a 'long, complicated process', but this probably would not be as expensive as you say as the counters will hopefully have a better understanding of the system than you.


Finally:

"No-one wants AV. Even the 'Yes' campaigners don't actually want AV - they see it as a convenient stepping stone to yet more changes to how we vote."

The criticism that 'no-one wants AV' appears to be a bad one as the Liberal Democrats have campaigned for electoral reform for decades, and an AV referendum was in the manifesto of the Labour party, demonstrating that clearly there is some appetite for the system, and democratic legitimacy for a referendum. Also, I don't know if you're aware but there's a rather rigorous 'Yes' campaign with members nationwide who are terribly keen on the system.


I hope I have managed to clear up some things for you, and that you will take care not to accidently mislead people in future. If you want me to proof-read any future communications I would be more than happy.


Regards,








I'll keep you posted when I get a reply.