The UK general election made it abundantly clear that the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats did not have the confidence of voters. In the face of that defeat, the respective parties have begun their own internal debates over their future. One of the questions that both parties will be asking is whether either of them need to claim the political centre ground to recover their electoral fortunes.
Labour leadership candidate Yvette Cooper has already made it clear that she won't back a 'lurch' to the Left or Right (Gayle, 2015), and the Lib Dems are also being cautioned against straying from the 'liberal centre' in search of the more radical liberalism for which they built their pre-Clegg reputation in opposition (Tall, 2015).
What isn't necessarily clear for many observers is what exactly is meant by the 'centre'.
There are, in essence, two of them. The first is the position of compromise between the grand historic ideological positions of liberalism, democracy and conservatism. The other represents a shifting point which acts as the 'centre' of a space shaped by the dominant voices of the day on the main issues - usually the media outlets with the broadest audience and the main political parties.
The Historic Centre
The historic centre represents a kind of Roman ideal, holding the space where the interests and sections of society are brought together - where the Romans were seen to have built a polity that incorporates elements from all of them. It is the place of mixed government, mixed economy and compromise between the grand polemic ideological positions - which represent ideals like individualism and communitarianism,
progressivism and conservatism, libertarianism and authoritarianism.
While the shifting centre depends upon parties each appealing to a perceived majority opinion, the historic centre is the both the result of the development of distinct ideological positions and a place of compromise between the sections of society these ideologies have been seen to represent.
In Nineteenth Century Europe, the stranglehold of monarchist conservatism found itself challenged by radical new ideas. The enlightenment ideas of reason and progress - that had played a significant role in the American and French revolutions - had led to the formation of political groups and associations of radicals, republicans and reformers.
That new republican Left-wing of politics was broadly composed of two separate ideological groups: the liberals and the democrats. During the revolutionary struggles of 1848 the dividing lines between the two became apparent. While the liberals had been content to reform the old system slowly - accepting limited concessions in the form of a constitution, small extensions of suffrage and more freedom for merchants and burgeoning industry to open up a free trading free market - the democrats had wanted more.
The democrats wanted control placed in the hands of the people. During the strife of 1848, the democrats decisively split from the liberals and from amongst them came the early developments of socialism - including the works of Karl Marx. That division between the liberals and democrats, on the road to their own versions of progress, allowed the conservative establishment to survive. A counter-revolution followed, but what that reaction could not suppress was the emergence of these three broad positions, two upon the Left and one upon the Right, which were seen as each representing broad progressive sections of society.
Between these positions - each with their own distinct, historical priorities: the democrats for equality, community and the workers; the liberals for opportunity, the individual and the professional and merchant classes; and the conservatives for tradition, security and the traditional hierarchy - there lies a centre ground balanced in a compromise between these positions and sections.
The use of that place has been ascribed to the Roman system of mixed government, referred to and interpreted by renaissance thinkers as civic humanism. The primary concern at this centre was to avoid tyranny of all kinds, of any ideological or sectional type, by creating a society that balanced the various parts of society within the establishment's institutions. In Roman terms that meant singular monarchical figures in the form of term-limited Consuls, the aristocratic wealthy interests in the form of the Senate, and democratic participation in the form of direct democracy and civic assemblies.
The Shifting Centre
Though it may not feel like it, what with all of their similarities, Britain does still have three main parties representing these three grand historic ideologies - Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives. Their connection to these distinct historic positions has however been weakened by their competition over the Centre ground - in the name of chasing the power to govern.
The Centre the parties compete over today is not, however, a true compromise between each ideological viewpoint and sectional interest of society. The contemporary Centre has been shaped by the times. Tony Blair's Third Way social democracy, David Cameron's attempt at a warm and fuzzy conservatism, and David Laws' Orange Book liberalism all represent responses to a Centre that shifted to the Right, deep into Conservative territory, due to the drastic changes to the balance of power between sections of society that took place in the 1980s and 1990s.
All three accepted the possibilities created by the flimsily founded wealth generated by the aggressive speculative capitalism of the 1990s and 2000s. All three accepted deregulation and light touch management, only interfering as much as was needed to ensure a small amount of wealth redistribution to serve those social purposes prioritised by the party ideology - broadly speaking equality, opportunity and security, for Labour, the Lib Dems and the Tories, respectively. All three accepted that the balance of power had shifted significantly into the hands of wealthy vested interests and so adjusted their approach accordingly.
That has, however, proved a dangerous game. The question that many will have asked over the last twenty years is: what is the point of having power if you have lost what makes your use of it distinct?
Disillusionment with the tripartite status quo, where the big three parties appear to have become indistinguishable, has fragmented the old system. Even though the Conservative Party managed to just about squeeze out a majority, it is a narrow lead on a poor mandate - less than 25% of eligible voters - which, by prizing a majority to the Conservatives, has done little to re-establish the legitimacy of the old system. If anything, it may simply accelerate its collapse.
A Decision to Make
The trouble for Labour and the Lib Dems is that to 'win' an election, under the present system, means receiving votes from the broadest groups of voters, not simply representing a section of society. That has led both parties to make compromises with the dominant social attitudes of the day in order to appeal, not to the historic centre, but to the shifting centre - first in the 1990s and 2000s with the wealth created by an economic boom, however shaky its foundation, and then in the 2010s with the growing cynicism towards welfare, free movement and immigration.
The big decision now ahead of both parties is whether to return to a purer form of the party ideology, with the risk of becoming little more than a sectional voice for a particular interest, or to embrace the chase for the votes at the shifting centre, with the risk of alienating more idealistic supporters in order to gain the support of those whose views have been formed from the dominant attitudes of the times. That decision comes with a lot of questions to answer.
Should the parties give up their distinct arguments to appeal to as large an audience as possible, in order to gain the power to implement their vision? What would then make any party distinct from another? Would there be something dishonest in that approach?
Or, should the parties be up on a platform, making their distinct arguments heard and trying to convince people of the merits of their ideals, each representing a small portion of voters? And where society remains divided in the aftermath of an election, place trust in coalition government?.
There are no simple answers. It is, however, worth considering a few things: whether we believe or not that people are fixed entities, with definite and fully formed views, bound to the narrow interests of their section of society; whether we believe or not that ideologies can offer a broader civic vision, in which people from all parts of society can find merit, without a party having to give up its distinct ideals; whether we believe that it is the justly democratic act to attend to the dominant social attitudes of the day, regardless of the evidence, or if we can or should challenge that popular consensus with idealism and evidence.
The popular consensus of today has pulled the shifting centre far into conservative territory. The voices advocating for business, for low taxes and for nationalist priorities like restricting immigration are writing the contemporary political narrative. To deviate too much means risking being seen as an idealistic extremist. To play for votes from the midst of that consensus means progressive parties straying a long way from their idealistic alternatives.
What stands before those who have to make the decision is a choice between a pragmatic path to the power to govern and a, potentially, politically impractical pursuit of idealism. The path each party has chosen won't be known until their newly elected leader begins to shape new policy ideas. But it is to be hoped that a decision to tread a practical path can still find space for presenting visions of alternative societies outside of the present limitations and boundaries. That there might be included the aim of changing minds and reconstructing social norms, values and structures so that in the future we might see our ideals represented rather than sacrificed on the road to political office.
References
Damien Gayle's 'Yvette Cooper warns against Labour lurch to the left or right'; in The Guardian; 23 May 2015.
Stephen Tall's 'Why the Lib Dems should stick in the liberal centre. Not because we have to, but because we should choose to'; on stephentall.org; 14 May 2015.
Mike Rapport's '1848: Year of Revolution'; Abacus; 2008. [Buy Now
]Andrew Lintott's 'The Constitution of the Roman Republic'; Oxford University Press; 2003. [Buy Now
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