It is very hard to take the UK Conservative Party’s claim to be a localist party seriously today. Many of these steps will seriously weaken the powers and status of local elected representatives without providing any empowerment of ordinary citizens by way of compensation.
All of the following issues are features can be portrayed as fitting in to the populist mode of democracy as outlined in this excellent article by Cheryl Simrell King.
- the concept of ‘elected officials’ – particularly police commissioners
- referendums on council tax rises
- referendums on any issues that citizens demand them
- directly elected mayors (at the behest of a local referendum, if I understand their position correctly?)
- direct participation in structural change at a local level
In each case, these measures provide a veneer of accountability while removing the deliberative policy making processes. These will be replaced with tools that will only further empower the most active citizens in any community (and, of course, those with access to the media or the resources provided by pressure groups).
In addition, the general attack on regional government can only be seen as a means by which central government can obtain further control over local government. I hope it’s not a cheap and partisan point to make when I say that the Conservative government of the 1980s was responsible for an unparalelled degree of political centralisation.
For a party that has done so much to ‘detoxify it’s brand’ on many of the issues that it was responsible for during these years, the complacency on the question of centralisation may be one that could come back and bite them?
The one light at the end of the tunnel is the promise to abolish the Standards Board.
In the coming months, I’d like to look in more detail at ‘the populist mode of democracy’ – it seems directly pertinent to a site that focusses closely upon what social media can enable (and what it should enable). In the meantime, I’d be very keen to find a supporter of these Conservative Party proposals to defend them in a guest-post here.
