John Rentoul: Voting reform won't bring a different result

What is wrong with the democratic system in this country is easy to diagnose. It produces the wrong results. At least, it does in the opinion of the right-thinking people, who write letters to newspapers and who sit on hand-wringing commissions to inquire into the health of our democracy.

Let us start with the crowning moment of our current elective dictatorship, the decision to join the American invasion of Iraq in March 2003. That was wrong, obviously - to right-thinking people. When one million people take to the streets, they must be listened to. It does not matter that their elected representatives voted to approve the use of military force; one million people cannot be wrong. Not if they feel strongly enough to march. Never mind representative democracy; what we want is mob rule.

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The situation, and the analysis, was similar in the early 1980s. Because there were very large demonstrations in Hyde Park that the police refused to count properly, it was obvious - to right-thinking people - that Pershing and cruise missiles should not be deployed in this country. Who can get most people on to the streets? Is that the question? No, of course not. That is how people such as Hitler take power.

The next stage of the argument expressed in all its glorious confusion today by the Power Inquiry, therefore, is that big street demonstrations are a symptom of the failure of the political system. It is not that we do not believe in representative democracy, but, because the House of Commons voted the "wrong" way in March 2003, it must have been because the system was faulty. We do not want mob rule, but we have to recognise that large demos mean that something has gone wrong with our democracy.

And we know what that is, because the arguments were all developed when Margaret Thatcher was prime minister. The executive is too powerful, parliament too weak. Power is too centralised, local government has been neutered. The people are shut out of meaningful engagement by an unfair voting system and so they don't bother to vote. (Well, they did when Thatcher was prime minister, but that's a detail. They don't now because Tony Blair is so much worse - or something.)

Still, we are glad that Gordon Brown recognises the problem. He has suggested that Parliament should always vote before Britain sends its troops to war. In the way that they - oh - did in March 2003. Yes, yes. But they voted the wrong way because they were all whipped against their conscience by the disgraceful party system. Well, all except the 139 Labour rebels, roughly half of all Labour MPs not in Government. Still, "limits should be placed on the power of the whips", says the Power Inquiry. That's obvious.

Next: the last election. That was a disgrace. That Tony Blair. Nobody voted for him. Hardly. And he's still Prime Minister. Can you believe it? Right-thinking people cannot - and so, once again, the system must be at fault. If all those people who could not be bothered to vote had been inspired, engaged and empowered by the perfect voting system, that is to say the Irish one, they would have turned out in their droves to vote in the permanent government of ... Charles Kennedy. Despite abundant evidence that non-voters tend to say that they would vote Labour if they had voted.

Oh yes, say right-thinking people, eagerly, warming to a different theme. They were disenfranchised. They were disillusioned by New Labour's move to the right. What they need is a Socialist Party in a multi-party democracy. And they must have it, because if they don't they will end up voting for the British National Party instead. Obviously. Which is why the Power Inquiry's desire to make it easier for small parties to gain representation is curious.

However, there is something in the "Labour disillusion" thesis. It seems that Labour supporters are more likely to vote to get rid of a Tory government than they are to sustain a Labour one. Although the low turnout in 2001 and 2005 is partly explained by the fact that the outcome was not in serious doubt, Labour turnout was still high in 1983, 1987 and 1997, when the results were also hardly close.

But whose problem is that, apart from the Labour Party's? Why does that mean that our democracy is broken? No electoral system is perfect, and the biggest fallacy about the low Labour vote at the last election is that it would have been the same 36 per cent figure under a different system. Voters behave differently under different electoral rules and it is far from obvious that the Single Transferable Vote in multi-member constituencies produces a paradise of civic engagement in Ireland.

The Power Inquiry ought also to be wary of the "wasted vote" argument. To say that people do not bother to vote in safe seats because their vote is unlikely to affect the outcome is a step away from the statistical truth of any system: that a single vote has a near-zero probability of deciding the outcome. Tell them that in their citizenship lessons.

The main substantive proposal of the Power Inquiry that deserves to be taken seriously is that of direct democracy - that Britain should move to a system of referendums triggered by a minimum number of citizens. Whether this would make this country more democratic is more a matter of taste than of evidence; to right-thinking people, Switzerland might suggest yes, California no. The right-thinkers dream of a referendum on Iraq three years ago - after all, public opinion at the time was only narrowly in support of Britain's joining the invasion. Not that it would have made any difference to the outcome of the last election: in an Israeli-style preference vote for prime minister, Blair would have trounced Howard in the run-off.

But there is rather more to it than that. How many people would vote for the Power Inquiry's plan to give more tax-raising powers to local government, for example? The curiosity is that the British politician who has promised more referendums than any other is Tony Blair - on the euro, the voting system, the Good Friday Agreement, and on devolution of power to Scotland, Wales and London.

Citizen-sponsored referendums are a mechanical response to a perceived problem. But there is nothing structurally wrong with a system of representative democracy in which parties and party discipline organise the preference of millions of citizens. If people choose not to vote, or to join political parties, that should surely be a matter of concern to political parties, or to people who want to be politicians. Why should their fellow citizens tut-tut at their lack of civic spirit and try to nanny them into political responsibility by encouraging them to collect signatures to force a referendum on hanging?

The writer is chief political commentator for The Independent on Sunday

j.rentoul@independent.co.uk

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