The deficiencies of our consensus system have become all too clear

As one of the signatories to the letter on executive government, I was interested to read Deputy Roffey’s reply in the Guernsey Press, 3 April 2025. He makes a number of assertions that warrant further comment.

He says that the proposal is to ‘concentrate all the powers of Government in a cabinet’.

No, it isn’t. That is a blatant misrepresentation and scaremongering.

He says, ‘can you imagine the UK Parliament with 650 members, with every MP being a small part of Government? Of course it couldn’t work’.

We don’t need to try to imagine it. It is exactly what we have. It wouldn’t work with 650 MPs and it doesn’t work with 40 deputies either.

He suggests that it would be ‘utterly disastrous’ if one didn’t agree with the Cabinet’s policy.

This is not the case at all. No one who supports the idea of executive government does so because they want to see a particular political agenda adopted. That misses the point completely.

The push for executive government is a result of the need for an efficient system with which to run the island.

He says that executive government goes hand in hand with political parties.

He is right. If we had political parties then come election time we could vote for a manifesto, a leader and a direction of travel. During the term of the States, we could expect the party to follow that direction.

All as opposed to what we have now which is, er… nothing really.

He says that his proof is that previous Assemblies have made a better job of it than this one and therefore the consensus system can be made to work.

I wonder if that is really true? Or is the fact of the matter that when the island was running a surplus, we could afford to have a system like ours and if it didn’t really work very well, it didn’t matter. A positive and growing cash position at the end of each year papers over all the cracks.

Now that times are tough the deficiencies of our consensus system have become all too obvious.

Looking back to the political good old days is actually looking back to the rich old days.

He says, ‘it’s not the system but the people in it that counts’.

That is a complete fallacy. Anyone involved in an organisation of any size will tell you the strength of the operation lies in how well its systems work. A government structure is not really any different.

Added to that, for as long as Guernsey is a democracy then the electoral system will return a variety of deputies, some stronger than others. The clever thing is to fit them into a system that can work, not to stand by in hand-wringing angst, hoping for a ‘good’ selection of deputies to emerge, whatever ‘good’ may actually mean.

Lastly, he criticises our current island-wide voting system saying: ‘The voters are utterly unable to make a proper appraisal of all the candidates on offer’.

The concept of island-wide voting is a good one. We are electing the island’s government, not a parish council. In 2018 a referendum was held and the vote was overwhelmingly in favour.

At the time the States’ Assembly and Constitution Committee oversaw the process. It is now widely accepted that the system of election employed to achieve island-wide voting is hopeless.

Who can seriously cast 38 meaningful and properly researched votes? Surely there must be a better way to achieve island-wide voting. Who was in charge of the States’ Assembly and Constitution Committee at the time? Who do we have to thank for the useless process devised?

Well actually, it was Deputy Roffey himself.

There is no doubt that Guernsey owes this deputy a debt of gratitude. However, on this matter, he is wrong.

Jeremy Rihoy
Les Beaucamps