GUEST BLOG: Bryan Bruce – Voting Blind in Britain and New Zealand
Almost 2 years ago the people of Britain were given what seemed a simple choice. Did they want to stay in the EU or leave? They voted (narrowly) to leave.
Prime Minister Cameron resigned Theresa May took over and this week the British parliament will vote for or against the leave deal she has negotiated.
Simple eh?
Except, no one knows how that vote will go. Currently it seems May’s deal will be defeated. If so, what happens then? No one knows.
A cross -party deal might then be negotiated (because at this stage it is only Conservative Party deal and the Conservatives themselves are divided) or it might trigger another general election, or perhaps even be a second referendum.
Why such confusion? Because when the British people cast their vote to Leave or Stay they were largely voting blind to what would happen next.
At the last General Election in our own country I cautioned against voting for NZ First , The Top Party and The Maori Party because they all refused to state their preferred coalition partners. (The Maori Party did declare themselves at the 11th hour and the TOP party said prior to v voting they didn’t care whether it was National or Labour led government)
Supporters of those parties were all very annoyed with me. “That’s the nature of coalition government” they argued . “You don’t reveal your bargaining hand until the election is over.”
The problem, as I pointed out, is that such lack of transparency means that we are voting blind and it allows politicians too much wiggle room.
“Oh I know you voted for our policies but you know in coalition government you have to give up some things – it’s complicated you don’t get everything you want .” Runs the all too familiar refrain.
As it turned out NZ First decided to form a coalition with Labour and Greens. They could so easily have decided to join with National, the largest party in parliament.
What difference did it make?
Well, we still have a neoliberal government albeit with a softer face. Grant Robertson’s budget is one Bill English could have written and the CPTPP deal just signed contains provisions that allow foreign investors to to sue our government in dodgy overseas tribunals – something NZ First vowed they would stand against.
And those who thought the Greens would be the voice of progressiveness and integrity have been sadly disappointed in their capitulation to the neoliberal agenda by giving away their question time rights to National and Minister Sage’s giving in to Chinese interests over the existing Otakiri Springs water bottling plant near Whakatāne.
Democracy is facing a number of threats these days, not the least of which is posed by the influence of huge corporations and world financial elites on our way of life.
But we can’t fight big money or any of the other threats to our democratic freedom if we don’t insist on complete transparency at the time of voting.
Because voting blind doesn’t deliver a clear consensus – it delivers confusion and confabulation.
Bryan Bruce is one of NZs most respected documentary makers and public intellectuals who has tirelessly exposed NZs neoliberal economic settings as the main cause for social issues.
I think the British public voted for Brexit assuming Brexit, not any of the fudges that have been under discussion for the last 2 years. I think hard Brexit was what they voted for with most of the public opposition deriving from the prospect of loosing the freedom of movement of people. It is big business and finance and the politicians who serve business and finance that will be temporarily disrupted that are making all the fuss. If they go to a vote again with hard brexit as one of two options they will get the same result again. The only way there won’t be a hard Brexit is if the politicians ignore the vote and cancel Brexit.
D J S
Well written Bryan. Especially this comment, “Democracy is facing a number of threats these days, not the least of which is posed by the influence of huge corporations and world financial elites on our way of life”.
The deep corruption exhibited by Thompson and Clark, Southern Response, and other civil servants and government departments reveals the gravest threat to our democracy since the 1951 waterfront lockout and Muldoon’s refusal to devalue the dollar.
NZ is at crossroads. The road marked Do Nothing will leave in place a rotten cancer within our state sector.
Labour is basically a neoliberal free market centrist party. With a kinder face, whatever that means.
The only blindness I can see is Labour voters who refuse to acknowledge that Labour is anything other than these things.
Though I suspect that the blindness is psychosomatic, with middle class voters, deep down, not actually wanting a real rebalancing of the books which would impact house values, rental income, the wages of the cleaner at work and the price of cheap garden furniture and designer Tshirts from China.
It doesn’t really matter who Labour form a coalition with. The current spectrum of NZ political parties is rather mix and match.