… to break from the “Labour” party and form a political party more directly representative of their interests?

it would make it easier to fix elections

Unless we move to PR, they’d never see power, IMO.

Surely that would be a pointless idea as you’d split the Labour vote, ensuring a Tory majority. Further Unions aren’t some unified body, but have different agendas so getting them to all agree would be like herding cats.

Most unions* are not affiliated to the Labour party at all.

No education unions are affiliated to the Labour Party,

I think there is a merit in discussing what union support for the Labour party looks like, and the process by which they could use that to their advantage.

There is more to unions supporting the Labour party than money, activist time and membership recruitment as well as organising around elections and so on is easier for the Labour party due to the union link – many full timers for the big unions (Unite, Unison) are also Labour supporters and activists, and use their position to develop the party as well as their day job.

I think that non-affiliated unions should be having more of a discussion about what they do with their political funds – at the moment, they either spend it on political campaigning – like the PCS, make your vote count, donate it to individual politicians, like the FBU, prop up an ailing and pretty lack lustre collection of political groupings (RMT – who support NO2EU and TUSC) or employing a team of full time parliamentary lobbyists – which is what the education unions do.

PCS is currently going through the process of changing what they do with their not insubstantial amount of money, and it’s looking likely it will end up going to individual candidates – probably Left Unity, TUSC, left wing Labour and Left Wing Green candidates, knowing the political make up of the PCS NEC, it’s likely to be more towards TUSC than other candidates…

I think the notion of splitting the Labour vote is true, but shouldn’t put off unions breaking the link – Labour have in the past (twice) committed to dealing with the issue and failed each time – introducing a proper electoral system in this country is essential in the current climate – the governments we get are becoming further and further from the will of the people and the end of the 2.5 party system is upon us – we need a voting system which reflects that – some form of PR is essential to stop people getting consistently elected into govt. without any kind go clear mandate – overall voter numbers are going up, overall votes for the big 2.5 parties are going down.

(*in terms of a numerical head count of the actual unions themselves – 15 out of 54 unions affiliate to the Labour party)

They should join up with the suffragettes.

Perhaps it’s time to get away from the idea that one party supports the workers and one supports the bosses and the lib dems make up random ideas on the basis they will never get elected….

I don’t know how we “fix” westminster politics so we don’t just have 3 tory parties, the unions would be a useful voice in that but it needs more than that. Maybe Zombie John Smith is the man for it.

Yes.

some form of PR is essential to stop people getting consistently elected into govt. without any kind go clear mandate

A different perspective of the history of PR? Be careful what you wish for IMO.

I think the notion of splitting the Labour vote is true, but shouldn’t put off unions breaking the link – Labour have in the past (twice) committed to dealing with the issue and failed each time – introducing a proper electoral system in this country is essential in the current climate – the governments we get are becoming further and further from the will of the people and the end of the 2.5 party system is upon us – we need a voting system which reflects that – some form of PR is essential to stop people getting consistently elected into govt. without any kind go clear mandate – overall voter numbers are going up, overall votes for the big 2.5 parties are going down.

Spain has a PR system, and Spanish politicians are a vastly more removed from the population they lord over than any British MP. FPTP is not ideal, but at least you have a representative that (in theory) answers to the local voters, and not just to party HQ.

Personally I’d like a FPTP (or STV) lower house, and a regional PR upper – but it needs some real teeth to work.

PR in one of it’s variants gave Australia this lot
http://www.australianmotoringenthusiastparty.org.au/
with about 6 votes
be careful what you wish for

Perhaps it’s time to get away from the idea that one party supports the workers and one supports the bosses and the lib dems make up random ideas on the basis they will never get elected….

Particularly because all 2.5 main parties support the bosses.

Politicians are by their nature dodgy IMO, no voting system will change it. TBH the UK is pretty centralist anyway and has been for decades, so I don’t think the governments we get are as unrepresentative as some make out. A big lurch to the left or right would end your parties chances, which is a good thing IMO.

FPTP is not ideal, but at least you have a representative that (in theory) answers to the local voters, and not just to party HQ.

Really? Given that MP’s are rewarded by party HQ for doing as they are told, and punished for representing their constituents view (by defying the whip on the rare occasions they do) I can’t see that FPTP does this in any way.

In these days of technology, true democracy could be achieved by completely disbanding parliament as it stands:

paid policy makers could then present bills, laws and spending proposals in a public online format, with say 90 days voting period for each to give everyone time to discuss their merits and otherwise, before tallying the votes of the tax paying public whose money is funding the system… true power to the people, rather than a blurry choice based on ideals preached by toady lies of self serving officials running up for election.

By removing the middlemen, the savings made would be phenomenal and we wouldn’t have to worry that decisions were really being made due to who has the biggest lobbying budget…

All those in favour say aye!!

The lobbying budget then just becomes a marketing budget, and the court of the daily mail decides – not really a viable alternative.

Maybe make everyone complete a short test before they’re allowed to vote on anything? Actually **** it, let’s do that before general elections.

Or, I dunno, complete a period in the space army or something.

Really? Given that MP’s are rewarded by party HQ for doing as they are told, and punished for representing their constituents view (by defying the whip on the rare occasions they do) I can’t see that FPTP does this in any way.

It does it a lot more than a PR system based on party lists – say it turns out the number 2 on the list has a whole load of secret accounts in some tax haven, and has been photographed on holiday with leading industry figures who just happen to get loads of contracts from the government… Nothing strictly illegal but definitely dodgy. How do you get rid of her? You can’t run a protest candidate or local campaign against her, because they’re not candidates (it’s a party list) and there’s no “local”. She’s made it to number 2 on the list, she’ll have a whole load of support in her party, favours owed and the like – the party is unlikely to chuck her.

I’m not saying FPTP is ideal, far from it, but it does provide a personal check on the behaviour of individual politicians.

In these days of technology, true democracy could be achieved by completely disbanding parliament as it stands:

paid policy makers could then present bills, laws and spending proposals in a public online format, with say 90 days voting period for each to give everyone time to discuss their merits and otherwise, before tallying the votes of the tax paying public whose money is funding the system… true power to the people, rather than a blurry choice based on ideals preached by toady lies of self serving officials running up for election.

By removing the middlemen, the savings made would be phenomenal and we wouldn’t have to worry that decisions were really being made due to who has the biggest lobbying budget…

All those in favour say aye!!

Naye! Dumb idea, as bokonon points out it’d be rule by Mail, and the lobbying budget would just go directly on tv advertising campaigns. You might want to look into how well Californian politics work, allowing direct referendums on any and all political decisions is very unwise.

It does it a lot more than a PR system based on party lists

There is more to PR than just party lists – none the less, FPTP wouldn’t enable you to get rid of the person either, because the vast majority of constituencies in the UK have a natural vote for one of the two main parties – so even if you do vote against, in Surrey or Essex, where they would vote for a donkey in a blue rosette, they would still end up in parliament – because even thought they might not get elected near you, they have the party contacts to secure a nomination elsewhere.

The real answer in this context doesn’t actually come from voting systems – it’s much more about involvement in politics. If we expect sticking an x in a box every 4 years to deliver a fair system of governance then we are deluding ourselves.

The real answer is better involvement in the organisations which are the real decision makers – the parties themselves – become a member, vote in elections, stop idiots getting power internally – in which ever party.

The major problems with the 2 main parties is an almost total lack of internal democracy – the tory party is run as though the leader has a divine right of kings having been selected by the parliamentary party alone. They don’t make decisions together, they do as the leader directs – the only power member have is selecting candidates for elections – which is more involvement that most people have, so should be encouraged, even grudgingly.

Naye! Dumb idea, as bokonon points out it’d be rule by Mail, and the lobbying budget would just go directly on tv advertising campaigns.

At the end of the day, the vast majority of the media these days is propaganda in some shape or form…

By allowing everyone to decide on things, people would feel more involved and as a result do more research for themselves, empowering the masses…

People could also suggest their own policies, which could then be developed for the good of all.

Nothing will ever be perfect, but it’d be a damn sight better than being bum raped by a network of public school inbreds, who’s conflicting interests as business moguls and need to maintain their inherited manors blight their policies somewhat.

The current system whereby parties are funded by outside interests completely devalues any concept of democracy and is tantamount to corporate fascism.

I’ve got an idea!

How about, we take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week, with all the decisions of that officer being ratified at a special bi-weekly meeting, by a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs, but by a two-thirds majority in the case of more major issues.

5thelephant – Member

They should join up with the suffragettes.

Just to raise a chapeau to you there Elephant, so that you know that your excellent historical reference wasn’t wasted on everyone here

Now’ scuse me while I settle back with my copy of the notes for the 1920 internationale and ponder on Lenin’s diatribe regards the nature of the party…

Done an ickle bit of research and it seems the idea that came to me already exists~

the closest concepts seem to be:

Open Source Governance

Electronic Democracy (especially Electronic Direct Democracy)

Direct Democracy

to me, it makes so much more sense than voting for representatives who are all too often corrupt, greedy and/or perverted.

It would also give a far greater level of transparency than the constrictive system we have at the moment, were we only learn half truths of the misdeeds of our government through the endeavours of hard working investigators…

How often do you feel you are genuinely represented by your MP?

And I don’t care what you think 😉