Join the party? I’ll sit this one out, thanks

With so many charters and associations being formed at times I feel more like a freshman at an American university being invited to join various fraternities than a deputy in the States of Guernsey. What to make of it all?

At the outset let me state two things. Firstly I defend the right of anybody to form political parties. I even defend their right to form ‘non-parties’ so long as they’re not really parties which are just pretending not to be parties. Secondly I have no desire at all to play at parties myself, get involved in power blocks, or join any fixed political alliance.

Why not? I am too passionate about my independence and my ability to form shifting alliances from issue to issue with other independent deputies. Personally I think this is by far the best way to represent my constituents and deliver as best I can on my manifesto promises. More than that I just want to get on with the job I have been elected to do and for which I am being well paid.

I do fully accept the limitations of a political system based on independent members in terms of offering the electorate a choice between comprehensive governmental programmes.

It’s just that I think we would be throwing away something very precious indeed if we moved to a fully-fledged party system just to overcome that shortcoming. Whips or no whips it would inevitably lead to an expectation that you would vote with your party colleagues most of the time – otherwise what’s the point? Even worse I am sure that scoring party political points would become just as important to deputies as what is good for the island.

Am I being cynical? Maybe, but it is based on observing what happens just about everywhere else where party politics exist. Frankly I think there is already too much negativity, division and factionalism in local politics without formalising it. I also think voters have a right to expect that their deputies will exercise their personal judgement on each and every issue without any reference to what the ‘party line’ might be. Surely anything less is a dereliction of duty?

But am I being hypocritical? After all, I say I have no interest in joining any formal political alliance but am quite happy to confess to joining a whole range of shifting alliances on an issue-to-issue basis. To my mind the two are completely different.

Such shifting alliances have been a feature of our system of independent politics since Pontius was a Pilate and Barry Paint was only an apprentice. However cussedly independent you are, you soon realise that you will never get very much done working alone. So on issues which you feel strongly about you seek out fellow travellers to work together with. The four deputies who drew up the ‘Alternative Model’ for education are a prime example.

The point is that in these shifting alliances you are working with a particular colleague at one moment, over one issue, and then squaring up to them (figuratively speaking) the next moment over another issue where you profoundly disagree. For example, politically I am hardly a fellow traveller of Jan Kuttelwascher but on one or two matters, such as the need to reform taxes on motoring and provide staff for the hospitality industry, we have stood shoulder to shoulder during this term.

Personally I love that promiscuity of alliances but I fear that if parties become ingrained it will start to be viewed by other party members as ‘sleeping with the enemy’.

So what about our current political groupings? At the time of writing there seem to be four, but heaven knows how many there will be when this goes to print?

Firstly you have the St Pier/Soulsby axis about which I really know nothing. At the moment it seems to be more a twinkle in these deputies’ eyes than anything yet born.

I suspect it will involve creating some sort of business-focused alliance, but we shall see. What I do know is that for all of his social liberalism Gavin St Pier is, economically, the most conservative political leader I’ve ever seen in Guernsey. Which makes it hard for other groupings to maintain their narrative that they are coming together to ‘block the march of the left’.

Next there are the ‘Guernsey Whigs’ or is that idea just a clever wind up? Either way it involves no States members – so far at least.

Not so with the chartists – remember them? Eleven deputies launched a document stuffed with motherhood and apple pie and were later joined by a few more. I do think this power block is starting to impact on the outcomes of votes as they tend to vote together while the rest of us persist with exercising our own judgement. To that extent they are an incipient party.

Lastly we have the Islanders Alliance. This is a splinter group of six chartists and is surely a fully blown party no matter how much they deny it. They are intending to put forward candidates in 2020 and will draw up a manifesto at a convention this summer. If that doesn’t make them a party, then I’m a Jerseyman.

I know they say they don’t have any whips but that isn’t a necessary feature of parties. They also claim to have three leaders (and so presumably three followers) but from the outside it does appear as if Deputy Meerveld is pushing himself forward as the real leader just as he did in his former role on Education, Sport & Culture.

Then of course they are asking for donations. Well I suppose most political parties do that but the normal approach is to decide what they stand for (their policies) first and then ask supporters to stump up to promote them. Reversing that process is certainly unique.

In fact their biggest challenge will probably be staying united once they have drawn up a detailed manifesto. I don’t mean platitudes like ‘a strong and diverse economy’ or ‘better transport links’ but rather the detailed steps they would take to achieve these things if they ‘win’ the next election and Deputy Meerveld becomes our new political supremo.