In 2020, his Partnership of Independents won a total of 10 seats in the Assembly, more than any other party, but within a year it had been dissolved.
Three of Deputy St Pier’s nine former colleagues, Deputies Lyndon Trott, Heidi Soulsby and Al Brouard, are leaving politics at the end of the current States’ term in June. The other six told the Guernsey Press they would stand at this year’s general election but would not be aligned to any party or similar group.
Deputies Yvonne Burford, Steve Falla, Lindsay de Sausmarez, Jonathan Le Tocq, Tina Bury and Sasha Kazantseva-Miller all said they would be on the ballot paper in June as independent candidates.
‘The party experiment in 2020 was driven by the move to island-wide voting, but I believe it failed, and arguably contributed to some of the divisions that we have seen in this States term,’ said Deputy Burford.
‘I understand why candidates may wish to join a party and the sound intentions behind presenting the electorate with a joint manifesto on key issues, particularly given the electoral system, but unlike other places with established party politics there is no effective sanction in Guernsey for party members who don’t toe the party line, which renders the whole idea largely redundant.’
She also believed most people in the island saw no need for political parties.
Forward Guernsey launched last week as the first, and so far only, party registered to endorse and support candidates at the general election. Its candidates have signed up to an extensive manifesto published by the political movement Future Guernsey. It has announced four candidates, including Deputy St Pier, and hopes more will join before nominations close on 14 May at the start of a five-week election campaign.
Deputy Falla will not be among them after his experience as a first-term deputy over the past four and a half years.
‘Parties did not serve the current term well,’ he said. ‘There needs to be more consensus on policy and a more harmonious Assembly and I can contribute to that as an independent candidate.’
In 2020, 16 of the 38 deputies’ seats in the Assembly were filled by candidates from parties. The Guernsey Party secured six seats, all won by candidates who were standing for the first time. A third party, the Alliance, failed to win a single seat.
Although the Partnership of Independents was a registered party, it placed no requirement on members to stick to pre-prepared policy positions, focusing instead on what it described as ‘core principles, goals and values’, including a more respectful approach to political debate.
In contrast, Forward Guernsey will go into this year’s election backing the most detailed policy programme ever presented to voters locally, albeit developed by another organisation.
Deputy de Sausmarez, who announced over the weekend that she would run for a third term in the States, told the Guernsey Press that it was not an approach which appealed to her.
‘I very much value independent thought and decision making,’ she said.
‘I have nothing against parties, but experience shows that to make sense to the electorate parties need to promote a set of common policies, rather than candidates simply sharing a set of values. I’m a very details-focused person who puts a lot of thought into policy issues, so I’d be uncomfortable signing up to a shared manifesto that I hadn’t been closely involved in developing.’
You need to be logged in to comment. If you had an account on our previous site, you can migrate your old account and comment profile to this site by visiting this page and entering the email address for your old account. We'll then send you an email with a link to follow to complete the process.