As voters we have to pull our weight

There are complaints that we don't know enough about candidates, we don't understand how the system works: we can find out for ourselves

The current crisis

It was Newsnight wot did it. The BBC’s sadly diminished and truncated current affairs programme on Friday considered the issue of young voters, what each party had to offer them and what their political priorities really are. That’s all well and good, and a very valid topic for analysis at this stage in the election campaign. I have two caveats, not about the edition of Newsnight but of “the youth vote” in general; the first is that we accept it sometimes too regularly as a blanket description, when it is only one approach to dividing the electorate into different demographics. Identifying people primarily by chronological age is not illogical but it is not the only marker voters will reach for: I set myself up as typical of nothing but I don’t see myself now first and foremost as a member of the 45-54 age group, and when I was young, whatever that is (18-24 is a common definition), I didn’t think of myself as belonging to that chronological cohort above all. Of course some people will. My point is simply that you make a choice when you talk about “young voters”.

My second observation, anecdotal but informed by a lot of years of watching politics now, is that young people, probably inevitably, can tend towards solipsism. We know—we have felt it for ourselves—that when you are young, especially when you are a teenager, you feel emotions with an unusual intensity. There are many reasons for this: often you will be experiencing emotions for the first time; your pre-frontal cortex, which among other functions regulates social behaviour, evaluates conflicting thoughts, makes decisions and is a kind of “logical” governor, is still developing; you are more sensitive to stimuli; your brain is more likely to release stress hormones like cortisol; more fundamentally, you lack experience, and so idealistic or unachievable ambitions and goals have yet to be weathered by lived life.

None of this is to say young people have nothing to say, nor that they should be ignored. Indeed, a couple of years ago I think I took some readers by surprise when I argued forcefully that it was quite right that the UK Youth Parliament met in the House of Commons chamber, that this was not some affront to the dignity of Parliament and that the brave and high-minded young people deserved a great deal of praise for their involvement in politics. I still think that. At the same time, I am not in favour of lowering the voting age to 16. Fundamentally I see no compelling argument to do so: Sir Keir Starmer’s proposition that “if you can work, if you can pay tax, if you can serve in your armed forces, then you ought to be able to vote”, is obviously nonsense when 16-year-olds must be in full-time education or a state-approved equivalent, cannot drive, cannot buy or drink alcohol (except with a meal), cannot buy or smoke cigarettes, cannot marry or contract a civil partnership (in England and Wales) and cannot have a credit card. Unless you are willing to look wholesale at the concept of age of consent, there is no slam-dunk argument for votes at 16, and when it is an issue as important as selecting our legislators and representatives, I am content to err on the side of restriction rather than liberalism.

All of this being the case, some young people can exhibit a dogmatism, a moral superiority and an impatience which is not realistic or helpful. It is one reason that student protests can be frustrating for both sides. The protestors crave moral clarity and want “Yes” or “No” answers, when in some (not all) cases, the answers are often “Yes, but…” or “No, but…”. No demographic segment is free from faults, nor is this fault unique to young people, but I do think it is an element we need to consider.

What inspired my irritation, although it was merely reapplying stimulus to something I have long thought and often half-articulated, is that when we look at the deficiencies and inadequacies of our current political system, of which there are many, too often we frame it exclusively as what politicians have done wrong and what they could be doing to make it better. Far less often do we as voters look at ourselves, consider our own agency and think about what more we could do and, bluntly, where we are failing not only ourselves but the system.

I will be explicit, because I know some of the arguments that will be raised. Politicians have let us down over the past 15 or 20 years in a variety of ways: venality, selfishness, arrogance, thoughtlessness, ethical and moral lapses of all kinds. This is not restricted to any one political party, and to those who like to portray it as a peculiarity of Conservatives, I would gently point out that, of MPs or former MPs given custodial sentences over the past 15 years—of whom all but one served time in prison—eight were Labour, one was a Liberal Democrat and two were Conservatives. This is not a subject on which any party has a spotless record.

The current situation has relatively deep roots. Last year I wrote about what were then the headline-grabbing scandals, but I argued that they were sequels to a seismic catastrophe which was the parliamentary expenses scandal of 2009. It seems like ancient history now, all those 15 years ago, and some of it now seems innocent, but it was devastating and corrosive and irreversible. I said in that essay, and I stand by this:

Here’s the headline: the House of Commons has not regained the reputation it held before the expenses scandal, and it probably never will.

There is a huge amount that politicians need to do to begin rebuilding public trust in them and in our political institutions. I have laboured this point and I have no hesitation in doing so again: levels of trust are at an historic and catastrophic low. The recently published British Social Attitudes Survey shows that 45 per cent of voters would “almost never” trust the government to place the needs of the nation above the interests of their own political party, 58 per cent would “almost never” trust politicians of any party to tell the truth when they are in a tight corner and 79 per cent believe our system of government could be improved “quite a lot” or “a great deal”. Meanwhile a survey conducted last year by the Office for National Statistics recorded that 68 per cent of us had “low or no trust” in political parties, and 57 per cent felt the same about the government.

This is desperately serious. If people do not trust politicians or the government, they will be disinclined to vote, and a low turnout at elections gives disproportionate influence to those with very passionately held convictions, for better or worse. More worryingly, if they have no faith in the current system, they are likely to be more open to alternatives, some of which may be undemocratic, demagogic and dangerous: we only need to look at the United States and the power of former president Donald Trump to see how that happens and what its effects are, and in our own system it is already possible to see Nigel Farage, the leader of Reform UK, beginning to adopt elements of the Trumpian playbook, casting doubt on the fairness of the electoral process and portraying himself as the victim of establishment conspiracies.

The destination of this malaise is an existential crisis for representative democracy. It remains a popular ideal but research indicates growing openness to alternative models of government, including unabashed authoritarianism. It’s good that 71 per cent of respondents reject the rule of a “strong man”, but the fact that a quarter of people thought it was a good idea is chilling.

Voters have a duty to be proactive and responsible citizens

But this is the point I want to make: if we are going to rebuild and repair our democracy, we all have to pull our weight, every single one of us. We as voters have responsibilities, we need to put in effort and we have to make things better.

There are some very basic things. Don’t know what constituency you live in or who the candidates for election are? That’s simply unacceptable in the vast majority of cases: there is a website (there may be many) which will give you the information in less than 30 seconds. Don’t know how to vote? Again, one or two clicks on the internet will give you all the details you need. None of this is difficult, or time-consuming, or hard to understand.

That is only the beginning, however. Participation in general elections should be a bare minimum of responsible engagement as a citizen. On that point, I should say that, while not voting makes me twitch, I accept it can be a valid course of action if it is a deliberate, positive choice. If you have made a conscious decision not to vote, for whatever reason, I can see the logic behind that. On the other hand, I am curious about the concept of compulsory voting, such as in Australian federal, State and Territory elections and referendums. I see the argument that it is an infringement on freedom, but I’m also drawn to the narrative which the Australian Electoral Commission creates of voting as “the right and responsibility to choose their representatives”. Having spoken to Australian friends, they don’t see it as a huge imposition, merely as a routine part of elections, and the requirement is only to “mark” your ballot paper, not to endorse any of the candidates. I’m not convinced either way but it is perhaps something we should think about.

When we talk about our political system and making it work better, it is striking that we almost always talk about what politicians ought to do. We portray ourselves, the electorate, as completely passive recipients of information, observers of a process into which we have minimum input, always needing things from other people and other organisations. This is no longer good enough. We simply cannot plead ignorance at a time when we have more and easier access to information than at any time in human history. There is an almost-saturated commentariat—I should know—jostling for the attention of the electorate to inform, explain and persuade. Public institutions fall over themselves to conduct “outreach” and “engagement”; for example, Parliament devotes enormous resources to its educational function.

How often, though, do we hear people saying, dismissively, that they don’t understand how the political system works? I’m not talking about the finer details of the legislative process: I don’t expect voters to know what a reasoned amendment at Second Reading is, or a clause stand part debate. That’s obviously above and beyond the call of duty. Even basic concepts of our constitutional settlement, however, like the distinction between parliament and government, sometimes feel like convoluted arcana. (In fairness, I once had to explain this distinction to a Member of Parliament.) Or, to take an example that keeps coming up, how many voters think the European Court of Human Rights is somehow connected to the European Union? Distinguishing between two different bodies which both have the word “European” in their titles is not rocket science.

Formal citizenship education

We can find this sort of thing out if we want. And, to a relatively rudimentary level, we should. American schools regularly teach what they call “Civics”, which, among other things, teaches pupils about the basic structures and functions of the United States government and the rights and obligations of US citizens. It is not universal, and even where it is taught, there is considerable evidence that it is only moderately effective, but it exists as a framework. In England, there is a requirement to teach citizenship at KS3 and KS4—there is even a GCSE in Citizenship for those who want to take it—and there is a section of the national curriculum devoted to the subject.

However, there have been repeated criticisms that this “citizenship” education is being subsumed into a more general approach to teaching “life skills” and “personal development”. A report by the House of Lords Select Committee on Citizenship and Civic Engagement in 2018 found that:

the decline in citizenship education has a number of causes: the revision of the national curriculum in 2013, the fact that academies are in any case not required to follow it, the low esteem in which the subject appears to be held, the decrease in the numbers of trained teachers and the corresponding fall in the numbers taking Citizenship GCSE.

The House of Lords Liaison Committee revisited the report’s subject in 2022. In its follow-up, it noted, somewhat frostily, that the government had promised to make progress, but it was sharply critical of the failings of Ofsted in regulating citizenship education:

The Committee is deeply concerned with Ofsted’s disregard for citizenship as a statutory curriculum subject and its insistence on assessing it through personal development alone. Citizenship is an academic subject and when taught properly should involve the development of knowledge, skills and understanding that pupils need to become active and responsible citizens. Citizenship should not be treated solely as part of pupils’ personal development. To do so is to misunderstand the nature of the subject in its entirety.

The system is clearly not working. There were provisions to address citizenship education in the Schools Bill [Lords], introduced in 2022, but the draft legislation was abandoned at the end of that year after considerable opposition in the House of Lords. It never reached the House of Commons. There is no mention of citizenship in the Labour Party manifesto, though it was dealt with in a 2022 report by the party’s Council of Skills Advisors chaired by former home secretary Lord Blunkett. Again, however, even if a future government makes significant strides, and it must, in citizenship education, the electorate cannot sit back and wait.

Conclusion

Politicians have a huge task ahead of them and we must be rigorous in holding their feet to the fire. But we can do things for ourselves too. Apathy, whatever its source or motivation, is a choice, and we can decide to reject it. A healthy democracy needs honest, able, trustworthy politicians imbued with a deep sense of public service, but it also needs citizens who understand how institutions work, understand how to influence them and are willing to fulfil their responsibilities as well as claiming their rights. We need to be better informed, more active and more realistic. And here’s the essential truth: if we don’t do this, if we sit back, if we leave it to someone else, it is we, the electorate, the voters of the United Kingdom who suffer. It won’t be socio-economic elites or aspirant politicians or civil servants or members of the professions. It will be all of us. Enough. It’s time to pull our weight.