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27th April 2005
The Japan Times
By David Howell
Elections: the Missing Ingredient.
LONDON – Britain is now in the grip of a General Election campaign with voting
due on May 5th.
As with political campaigns generally in the modern world this one is heavily
orientated towards domestic issues and disputes. Globalisation and the
world-wide information revolution seem to have had the opposite effect to that
predicted by many experts. Far from electorates becoming more cosmopolitan and
looking to wider horizons they appear to have narrowed their focus to more
inward-looking and local issues, or so the opinion-polling authorities have
concluded, and the political party strategists have duly responded.
In the British case this is being vividly demonstrated in the current battle for
votes. Such matters as Britain’s relationship with the rest of Europe, or
whether the Iraq invasion was right, or even legal, have vanished from the
airwaves as the rival parties’ protagonists clash over tax rates, public
spending promises, street crime, school standards, transport facilities,
immigration and health provision .
This seems strange. After all, the ‘Europe’ issue raises the most profound
questions about Britain’s status in the world, about its security and even about
such fundamental matters as national identity. And the Iraq invasion issue has
proved to be deeply divisive, as in most other European countries and as in
Japan, with millions taking to the streets in protest and the bitterest of
feelings as to whether the country was led into war on false intelligence, or
false presentation of that intelligence.
Enormous and admirable bodies of opinion also exist, right across the political
spectrum, focussed on world development and humanitarian concerns.
How can it be that these highly contentious problems, which clearly matter to
people, are not reckoned to sway votes or favour one political party or another?
Part of the answer is that such issues do not fit neatly into the party
political template. Worries about the European Union, and where it is headed,
stretch across both the major parties. And unease about the Iraq project, and
about what comes next out of the Middle East cauldron, exists on both right and
left.
A second reason, at least in the British case, and at least as far as the
European issue is concerned, is that a clear opportunity lies ahead, beyond the
General Election and whoever wins, for the British to express their feelings on
Europe. This is the promised referendum on whether to adopt the proposed new
constitution for Europe, an occasion (probably next year) on which the majority
of the British are likely to give a resounding ‘No’ - if other countries such as
France or the Netherlands have not already done so by then.
A third factor may be that some of the really big world issues of the future
sound remote and impossibly complex. Thus the looming world energy crisis, the
climate change issue or the whole complex of questions about global terrorism
and its causes and cures just do not lend themselves to instant debate in the
day-to-day electoral struggle.
But there is a fourth reason for the apparent disinterest in international
issues which may be the most important of all. It is that the opinion pollsters
may not be asking people the right question.
The standard opinion poll format is to ask voters to state their concerns in
descending order. Down the list they are offered an item marked ‘foreign
affairs’. Except in times of acute international crisis this usually gets a low
marking, well below the ‘bread-and-butter’ issues affecting everyday family
life, such as education, health, transport and social security.
Yet a moment’s discussion with almost any group, whether of friends or
strangers, confirms that worries about the world are very deep and come into
almost every conversation.
The real problem is that people just do not think in this compartmentalised
fashion. ‘Foreign affairs’ may sound an abstruse and remote subject but
re-phrase the subject as one of identity, of belonging, of ‘being British’ and a
very different answer emerges. Often those who have come to Britain most
recently, or are second generation immigrants, are the most passionate and proud
in their desire to be and feel British.
This is not at all the same as being nationalistic, let alone xenophobic. A
mature nation like Britain knows in its bones that such feelings are negative
and unrealistic in an interdependent world. It knows that racism is evil and
that within an overall envelope of Britishness there must be tolerance, indeed
welcome, for a variety of cultures.
But there is a key and binding word to describe these feelings and that word is
‘patriotism’. Love of one’s country, pride in its history, concern when its
rulers fall short in their world responsibilities or show weaker resolve than
others, desire to have some real say in ‘our government’ and ‘our laws’ – these
are truly moving and powerful sentiments running through the electorate amidst
the swirls of globalisation ands the jumble of world events.
Politicians and parties need urgently to find the words to lead on these
matters, to speak in balanced and moderate tones which meet the patriotic
sentiment in a sensible and modern way.
The pollsters who advise them to neglect this area are dangerously wrong, and
the leaders who ignore the pollsters will demonstrate that they are not ignoring
the people.
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