Britain on the edge – from hard to soft Brexit

I am not a gambling man, certainly not given to putting money on political bets in spite of being a journalist all my working years. But don’t know why, I made an exception to the unwritten rule this month. Reading newspapers and watching television for about a month since my arrival in London, like so many others I was intrigued to make a guess who might win the 8^th June  British general election. Most newspapers and television channels seemed to swallow Prime Minister Theresa May and her ruling Tory party line that she was headed for a comfortable majority, probably a landslide victory.

So, a couple of days before the election I put a ten pound bet, not on any party’s straight victory, but on a hung parliament.

 The final ten days of the campaign before election day witnessed many television debates featuring party political leaders, but a head-to-head debate between Prime Minister May and her chief rival Jeremy Corbyn of the Labour party had been declined by Mrs May who offered instead to be interviewed separately, though sitting in the same studio, by the same anchors. Her reluctance for a face to face debate with Labour leader Corbyn gave chance to the headline writer of Metro, a free  news daily with about a million circulation across the country, for its splash headline: “THE LADY IS NOT FOR TURNING...UP.”  (The headline was a throwback to former Tory Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher who is still remembered for refusing to change any of her policies by declaring on her own behalf that The  Lady is Not for Turning.)  Theresa May, who didn’t turn up for a head to head debate and who unlike Mrs Thatcher, had in fact at least partly reversed her decisions on old age care benefits (dubbed dementia tax) and pensions.

As election day came nearer , Mrs May’s image began looking slightly shakier from “strong and stable”, in her own words, to wobble and stumble as humorously critiqued by sketch writer John Crace of the Guardian newspaper.

Election day and night came, and by the following morning, a hung parliament was clear as daylight. I had won my ten-pound bet with a net gain of 40 pounds. Labour party rank and file and leader Jeremy Corbyn, who had been shown thumbs down by nearly two-thirds of the sitting Labour MPs,  have been cock-a-hoop ever since, ready for the next general election expected sooner than later. 

As expected, Prime Minister May remains under open and unspoken attacks from within her own party for her election gamble which has badly backfired. She is now compelled to seek the help of 10 MPs from Northern Ireland to stay in power, with  a wafer thin majority. Former Tory Chancellor (finance minister) George Osborne, now the editor of  Evening Standard , London’s  free newspaper, called her a ‘Dead Woman Walking.’ On her own part she has apologised to her party and MPs who lost their seats. Truly contrite, she has admitted that she got the party and the country into the mess and she would stay to ge it out of the mess. But in brutal politics that is never enough. Her days are clearly numbered. 

Meanwhile, Her Majesty the Queen and her fans in the racing community and the bookies are not amused as all this mess has cast a shadow over her scheduled attendance at the opening of the Royal Ascot racing session. An event, perhaps no less important than the opening of the Parliament iself. Incidentally, till recently, the Queen opening speech had to be ready three clear days before the delivery as it was written on vellum – calf, goat or sheep skin – which required three days to dry. A hoary tradition going back 500 years, stopped earlier this year only. 

Simultaneously, the great British debate over Brexit – leaving European Union – is unremittingly urgent. The hard Brexit idea, which Prime minister May had dangled before the election when she described herself  as “ a bloody difficult woman” vis-a-vis EU, seems to be wilting fast. A much softer Brexit is on the cards after the PM’s landslide from hubris to humiliation. The shape of things to come could take two years or more to clear. The new French President Emmanuel Macron, however, has made  a kiss-and make-up offer to Mrs May during  her one-day visit to Paris by keeping the EU door open should Britain rethink.

Sadly amid all these political goings-on of historic importance, Britain has been hit by a series of tragic events. Three terrorist suicide bomber blows – Westminster Bridge/ Parliament House attack by a lone suicide wolf, Manchester Arena carnage killing children at a music evening, and another attack by three suicide bombers at London Bridge/Borough market– within three months before the general election.  Then, hard on the heels, a 24-storey tower block going up in flames in London less than a week after the election, the dead and the missing still being counted.

Britain’s cup of woe is overflowing. Nothing but prayers and sympathies all round! 

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India:Stop hiding poll funders, start PR democracy

India’s Election Commission’s call to reveal the names of corporations and individuals funding political parties for electioneering has come not too soon. It should have been made nearly three months ago, immediately after the government’s amendment of the Representation of the People Act (RP) and Companies Act during the Budget session in February this year. The two Acts work like a Rogue’s Charter exempting political parties from disclosing donations received through electoral bonds and without any cap on corporate contributions to parties.

Equally urgent is the need to bring in the system of Proportional Representation (PR) and replace the current first past the post election system which ignores the strength or number of votes won by a party’s candidates and awards almost absolute victory to a single party even though it has failed to win any commanding share of the total vote. The PR system, as practised in countries like Germany, enables even smaller parties to have their say in the governance of the country. The winner doesn’t take all in the PR system.

But first the need to root out the corrupt system of hidden money bags funding political parties without fear of public scrutiny. The Election Commission has rightly, if tamely, asked the government to “reconsider” and “modify” the RP and Companies Acts as they discourage transparency in political donations. The two Acts rushed by Parliament through a Money Bill blatantly and brazenly bypass the need for transparency of political donations which have been a hallmark of national, state and even local elections throughout the country in recent years.

Under the existing rules befor the amendment of the RP Act, political parties had to file contribution reports of donors and donations above Rs 20,000. This was amended in the Budget session with anew provision that exempts political parties from disclosing donations received as electoral bonds, even  above the prescribed limit, from government companies and even foreign sources.

The devil in the detail of the amendments lies in the provision that the donor can by electoral bonds and gift to a political party without the receiver knowing where the gift came from. How innocent and gullible!

On top of all this, the new rules also remove any limit on corporate donations to political parties. Earlier, a company could contribute not more than 7.5 per cent of its net profit over the last three years.Under this change, the EC rather boldly points out: “This opens up the possibility of shell companies being set up for the sole purpose of making donations to  political parties ...”

The Commission, in its call or recommendation in a letter just days ago,  has asked for the restoration of  the earlier provisions which ensured that only profitable companies with proven track record could provide donations to political parties.

The need for transparency and  some control on poll funding for parties favoured by a few industry houses or corporations is too obvious. The influence of money power in elections – to the detriment of real democratic choice --  has always been apparent, but never so starkly overpowering as since India’s 2014 general election. For months before the polling day newspapers and television channels had swung their loyalties behind particular groups or alliances. Full page advertisements in papers in a variety of languages across the country were a common occurrence day after day and week after week. The buying of private television channel time, which was much more costly, was no less common.

So who was funding – indeed has been funding for the last three years and more – all this activity?  Party political expense reports to the election commission are just a minor fraction of the lakhs of crores or billions of rupees actually spent. You don’t have to be a genius in accountancy to sus out that! Nor have you to be a genius to guess which party got most funding from which industrial house or a group of companies.

Something has to be done here and now before democracy becomes capital-o-cracy and one-party, nay one-man,  rule. It’s already late but perhaps not too late before this system gets firmly entrenched. And it won’t be a lasting victory for the current beneficiary of ‘nameless’ corporate funders. A day will soon follow when the beneficiary giant itself would be toppled by the industrial funders themselves as has happened in so many other lands. After all it’s always the piper who calls the tune.

The other vital element of  democracy, besides the funding challenge, is the choice of the voting system to elect representative leaders. The "winner takes all" model of Britain and  other  Anglo-Saxon or Western countries doesn’t fit all.  Such a system as adopted and adapted in India may well allow each constituency to send a representative to parliament with a simple plurality of votes. But it also means that votes for the losing candidates and parties are, well, lost. Such a loss, affecting large number of  voters , quite often in  neck-and-neck  contests, is clearly unrepresentative of democratic spirit. Surely, the losers’ voice  can’t  be and shouln’t be dismissed as of no importance. Some way must be found to hear their voice in the legislatures.

  The proportional-representation system is the answer where no votes are lost, because all parties and candidates are represented according to their share of the votes. The PR system operative in Germany, Austria, Ireland and in many states  in the USA is certainly and urgently worth our search. It need not be a copy cat of any single country’s  system. It can be a hybrid choice as is our existing parliamentary system which has the best elements from many other countries added to a solid foundation based on our own traditions and ethos.

No time to lose on both fronts.

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