Give political parties a chance

There has been much published in recent days, including from your opinion writers Peter Gillson and Horace Camp, warning people of the frightening consequences of party politics. However, I feel that those correspondents are mistaking ‘the consequences of UK party politics’ with ‘the consequence of party politics’.

I agree that parties which are strongly left wing or strongly right wing create a very divisive parliamentary system. However, the reality is that our current States effectively evolved into ‘unofficial’ parties, with an equal level of divisiveness clearly in evidence. There is social media gossip that one or more of our current senior deputies are seeking to create an unofficial grouping of supporting deputies. So, which is better, the honest transparency of declaring your position, or a group of ‘so-called independents’ operating in the shadows?

Parties need not be about left-wing or right-wing politics. The Guernsey way could be for parties to be a broad representation of the people of Guernsey, something that no one ‘independent’ could ever achieve.

The advantage of a party with a meaningful number of candidates is that, if elected, they could actually have a realistic chance of achieving their declared manifesto goals, something which your correspondent, Horace Camp, seemed to view with horror. Why would he prefer to vote for an individual’s manifesto when we know from experience that a single deputy, no matter how well intentioned, can achieve nothing?

The Guernsey way could be for the party policies to be decided by the party members, not the party leader, which is very different to UK politics and very different to the perceived nightmare scenario of your correspondents. So, before we write parties off, let’s look at:

n Their make-up of candidates

n Their policies

n How they determined those policies.

Only then can we decide, based on facts rather than fiction and fear tactics, what will be best for Guernsey.

JILLIAN CUNNINGHAM

jillcun@hotmail.com