Best analogy I read on a blog today…
From Decline of the Logos:
The Liberal Democrats have been in favour of electoral reform for ninety years. Ninety years. Protesting in front of their HQ is equivalent to standing in front of Shell’s corporate headquarters and yelling, “MORE OIL DRILLING! SELL OIL AT THE HIGHEST PRICE YOU CAN GET!” It’s just stupid. I make no apologies for labelling Power2010 and Take Back Parliament daft for doing this, it’s the truth.
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Don’t be daft. It wasn’t for the attention of the LibDems – it was for the Tories and to irritate Sky News reporters!
Obviously.
Hi Mark,
Do you mean the flashmob outside the Work Foundation where the National Exec was meeting or the LGA building when a decision was being made? We’ve never had a demo outside Cowley Street.
I personally agree that the Lib Dems were always going to fight to get the greatest degree of electoral reform they could – the purpose of our rallies in my mind was, as Helen makes clear, to strengthen their hand in doing so. It was clear from both Nick Clegg and Chris Fox’s speeches to the crowd that they saw it as doing the same.
G
George said
May 12, 2010 at 7:21 am
Of course PR is a central aspiration of the Lib Dems, and of course they were always going to work as hard as they could for it in any negotiations taking place.
The point of the demo’s move to Smith Square, to my mind, was to strengthen their hands in this. As clear from Nick Clegg and Chris Fox’s separate responses they think the same.
G
Reply
declineofthelogos said
May 12, 2010 at 8:42 am
While I’m sure Clegg and Fox were grateful for external support for something they already wanted to do, the point is in an extremely narrow timeframe you squandered perhaps the best opportunity to publicly pressure Labour or the Tories over electoral reform, and force them to make a response. Imagine if you’d got Cameron to commit to electoral reform before the conclusion of negotiations. That would’ve strengthened Clegg’s hand more than anything else you could’ve done. Since you didn’t do that, and only protested outside Labour’s headquarters when it was already clear a coalition with them wouldn’t work, I can only conclude you were being daft.
Reply
George said
May 12, 2010 at 9:52 am
1. To suggest that blanket coverage of a mass protest for PR for the best part of an hour, and the perfect media opportunity for Nick Clegg to use to pressure Labour and the Tories – is “squandering” an opportunity to do just that then you are massively mistaken.
2. At the birth of a new movement it’s vital you don’t end up like every other campaign banging its head against a brick wall. If you want to inspire further participation you need to do it by picking a challenge you might be able to rise to. Clegg could have come out (and did), Cameron and Brown would never have responded. “Imagine ifs” are are no good if they could never have been realised, only small comfort to idlers.
On the contrary – you’re being daft if you think it an opportune moment to criticise the only emergent movement to push for fair votes. Contact me by email if you want an input on future direction for the movement, or begin like hundreds of others to organise your own rally or volunteer to help us run ours.
George: I think what some (though not all) pro-electoral reform campaigners misjudged was in not putting pressure on Labour to offer a plausible and better deal. The impression I’m left with by some is that they still view “progressive” and “pro-reform” politics as really at heart meaning “agreeing with Labour”. That’s why they were happy to put pressure on the Lib Dems – but fell silent when it came to highlighting Labour’s shortcomings. (But just to emphasise – I appreciate that doesn’t apply to everyone.)
More pressure on Labour would have been a good thing, but to create a turnout based campaigning force for electoral reform has never been done before, and to do it so quickly and work it so hard is no mean feat. As it was we did 3 turnout based actions in 4 days with the last initially looking to target Labour.
Still though, it seems to easy to call others daft from the sidelines. If the author you quote’s concern is that “Liberally minded individuals tend to uncritically assume Labour better than the Conservatives” then fine, challenge the assumption. But to read one’s own concerns into the actions of others while having basically no experience of the practice of organising a movement (as far as I’m aware) or understanding of the operational realities of those trying to do so is a mistake. Likewise, why – if he was there – did he not talk to an organiser and chip in his opinion?
Hi George,
I am glad more people are organising events in favour of electoral reform. I really am. But I’m developing more and more issues with the way in which this aggregate campaign is being organised. Let me explain by putting together a few sentences from your responses which will illustrate my points:
“2. At the birth of a new movement…”
“But to read one’s own concerns into the actions of others while having basically no experience of the practice of organising a movement”
And the top lines of a few Facebook notifications I received:
7 May 00:04 “Guy Aitchison changed the name of the event “DEMO FOR DEMOCRACY!” to “Take Back Parliament – Post-election demo for democracy!”.”
7 May 00:04 “Andy May changed the name of the event “Take Back Parliament – Post-election demo for democracy!” to “DEMO FOR DEMOCRACY!”.”
7 May 01:18 “Guy Aitchison changed the name of the event “DEMO FOR DEMOCRACY!” to “Take Back Parliament – Post-election demo for democracy!”.”
All this screams an organisation that’s likely to be riven by egos – your reference to the birth of a new movement (which will come as a surprise to the 126-year-old Electoral Reform Society) in particular. If you didn’t have any ego wrapped up in this, you wouldn’t have been so stung by criticism and used the classic fallacy of, ‘If you’re not doing it, then you can’t possibly criticise it”. This would be a fallacy even if I wasn’t the Campaign Co-Ordinator of the Embrace Renewables campaign (http://embracemyplanet.com/). We currently have 1200 active members, and we’d appreciate your support.
Look. It really, really sucks when someone criticises something into which you’ve poured significant amounts of time and effort. I know. The first time I did a CiF piece for Embrace, I attracted so much negativity I might as well’ve been an arms trader or baby eater. And it did knock me. However, we took it on board in order to make sure that if there were genuine causes for concern or PR issues around the campaign, we could identify them and overcome them.
To achieve genuine electoral reform will now entail winning a referendum. That won’t involve exciting turnout actions, but rather a long slow slog of door-knocking, leafletting and persuasion. Otherwise your ‘movement’ will go the way of the anti-capitalist protests in the early 00s, which were very exciting but failed to generate the sort of grassroots activism required for real reform.
I will be taking part in this long campaign, no matter under whose banner it is organised. As a member of the Lib Dems, I know we’ll be campaigning hard on it, and that I will be knocking on lots of doors and posting lots of leaflets. If this is what you plan to do, then I’ll gladly help in any way I can. However, if you continue to organise protests targetted at people who already agree with you, I will continue to criticise you.
Hi Adam,
Thanks for responding. There is a big difference between a “movement” and a “campaign/NGO”. The reason I use the first term this time not the second is that people turned out, they took to the streets in huge numbers and have self organised over 35 rallies through our website in a way the ERS hasn’t really tried to do in the recent past.
In terms of ego – come and meet us and you’ll find things otherwise! The name changing was because in part because we wanted to draw people’s attention back to the text of the event so people would see that the location had changed from Parliament Square to Trafalgar after the police denied us permission – again you seem to be reading a lot into a little.
I’m glad to learn of Embrace and have just joined. Look – I don’t want to suggest people should abstain from criticism, indeed I have in the past written about its importance – http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/4274
What annoyed me was the apparent flippancy of your response. As you say, having poured heart and soul into something it’s easy to take offence but the points I made:
“1. To suggest that blanket coverage of a mass protest for PR for the best part of an hour, and the perfect media opportunity for Nick Clegg to use to pressure Labour and the Tories – is “squandering” an opportunity to do just that then you are massively mistaken.
2. At the birth of a new movement it’s vital you don’t end up like every other campaign banging its head against a brick wall. If you want to inspire further participation you need to do it by picking a challenge you might be able to rise to. Clegg could have come out (and did), Cameron and Brown would never have responded. “Imagine ifs” are are no good if they could never have been realised, only small comfort to idlers.”
Are both valid. Had you wanted to criticise constructively you would surely have considered why we targeted the Lib Dems last Saturday or thought to ask?
Hi George,
It is fair to say that ERS’s approach to social media leaves something to be desired! I would appreciate the opportunity to meet you all – sustaining the momentum behind reform over the coming months will be difficult, and will require a broad base of support.
It is clearly going to be a very broad base – your article on criticism of Bolivarianism demonstrates a philosophical & political stance at great distance from my own, and I shall resist the temptation to launch into a long diatribe on knowledge, power & the role of external judgements in developing moral positions and content myself with merely linking an article I wrote a little while ago about the relationship between the left and value judgements: http://declineofthelogos.wordpress.com/2010/03/04/reinvigorating-the-left/.
The reason for my flippancy – which I am perfectly willing to accept is an accurate description of what I wrote – is that I felt you’re missing a trivial point about the political calculations involved in the coalition negotiations. It was clear, to both Clegg and the other two parties involved in discussions, that one of the biggest obstacles to any deal would be the Lib Dem triple-lock around coalition negotations, which to circumvent requires the approval of 75% of the parliamentary party and the Federal Executive. A proposed deal including merely a committee of inquiry on electoral reform would never have got past this obstacle, as Lib Dems have seen it before. Only a referendum on PR could get past it. Both the Tories and Labour knew this, and this is what lent strength to the Lib Dems during negotiations – the internal politics of their party, rather than external influences.
This is why I described the opportunity as squandered – Clegg already had the strength to demand a referendum, whereas it was never certain that Cameron could get one past his parliamentary party, and very clear afterwards that it was always impossible for Labour. I do dispute your assertion that Cameron would not have come out – his previous statements on electoral reform indicated his willingness to compromise, and there were already rumours of a referendum being offered by the time of the protest. The protest may have strengthened Cameron in his internal negotiations with his party, so his location at that point would’ve been my preferred target. I do take your point about offering a suggestion at the time, and can only offer the rather weak excuse that I was exhausted after an extremely long count on Thursday.
Regardless of this, I do appreciate your organisational efforts, and would like to help in any way I can.
Hi Adam,
I’ll read your piece soon and we can perhaps have a long chat over a pint on it. If you want to come by we’ll be squatting in the POWER2010 office in Southbank House Black Prince Road from now till Saturday’s demo – there is much purple cloth to be torn, turnout to be worked and plans to be laid. Drop me a line on george@power2010.org.uk and let me know if you’ve got time – otherwise i hope I’ll see you on Saturday.
And you Mark!
G