Yesterday, Thursday the 4th of July, a new Parliament was voted for by all four corners of the UK. Below are reflections and thoughts for our nation’s next steps in light of this new government, by our CEO, Sarah Castell and our Head of Northern Ireland, Rebekah McCabe.
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From Sarah:
Voting gives us a moment of power in our democracy.
But we need the public to feel empowered not just on election day, but every day.
Putting a paper in a ballot box always feels like an iconic moment. At the moment of voting, whatever you think the outcome will be, there’s a moment of democratic power, where you feel your personal input could lead to change. Today’s new government has been elected on a very clear promise of change, and the media’s reporting overnight, with the language of “landslides”, reinforces this sense of a dramatic shift in one day.
But there are concerns under the surface - low turnout, low share of vote, and questions around how far dissatisfaction with the previous government, rather than a positive choice, has driven the results. The mood of the nation, like today’s weather, isn’t committing to either a sunny optimism or to a wary gloom, but has moments of both.
There are a number of reasons why this election is not a “1997 vibe” - and in the coming days we will see much expert analysis of who turned out, who did not, what drove their votes, and what that says about public opinion and how people are feeling.
One reason, though, could be that in 2024 we are too savvy, as a nation, to believe that our problems can be solved by any one moment of political renewal. On some level we know that the problems we face will require us all to work together and to build consensus around solutions, and this is a slower and less dramatic process.
Last night, King’s College hosted its Election Night Event, a great selection of panels and speakers, giving reflections on what needs to be done by a future government. Every discussion noted the need for long term thinking and policymaking. The problems we face are not easily solved by quick political fixes. Baroness Louise Casey, in her keynote, emphatically kept focus on the things that matter to people. The working poor, worried every day about money, whose needs are not met. The crisis in social care, affecting all of us and our parents as we grow older. The challenge of an economy that sets up home ownership as the only security, but makes it impossible for young people.
So many of these policy areas, however, remain in the “too difficult box” - and the real opportunity for a new government is to find a way to take them out of the box and examine them. Baroness Casey called for a new politics that creates a more honest approach to solutions - greater consensus building, greater collaboration, greater transparency about the trade-offs.
At Involve we are particularly interested in the appetite of all governments for this kind of work, solving problems along with the public. Work that brings the public in, harnesses their judgment, brings their energy, lived experience and expertise to bear on complex challenges, and allows both public and representatives to have more trust in one another. And then, perhaps, we will find solutions we can live with for the too-difficult challenges, and build a truly sustainable optimism for the future.
There are many democratic innovations which can give us a better shot at solving the long term challenges. We would like to consider these today, and see if we can make them a normal part of our democracy, so that the public feel their power - not just on election day, but every day.
From Rebekah:
Across the UK, this election in particular has taken place at a time when trust in democracy is at an all time low.
In Northern Ireland especially, election results tend to be a poor representation of what people actually want, and historically, we’ve elected people who are more polarised and ideological than the population they represent.
So, in Northern Ireland it is particularly important to be mindful that democracy does not begin and end at the ballot box. There is a real opportunity now to support a different version of democracy in NI. The new government in Westminster needs to focus on building new infrastructure for civic participation so that people can find ways to come together on the many issues for which there is a shared appetite for reform. As in the rest of the UK, issues like climate, health, housing, poverty, and education impact on the daily lives of everyone in Northern Ireland - and are tricky issues which can’t be solved by parliamentary politics alone. Over the last decade of working in Northern Ireland we’ve seen an appetite for deepening democracy through collaboration with the public, but without support and resources to match, NI had fallen behind. This gives the new government a great window to explore new ways of including the public in decision making, making NI an exemplar for the processes we would like to see everywhere.
It’s easy to reduce NI to its black and white, irreconcilable differences, but the reality here is a huge amount of grey, and that is where the potential for meaningful change lies. We’ll be working hard over the next few months to engage with the new government and our new MPs to advocate for proper investment in democratic infrastructure, to strengthen our deliberative muscles and to give a stronger, more empowered voice to ordinary people.
Involve’s work starts 👇
Our own work will start by launching a thought leadership series about opportunities for participatory and deliberative processes in the new, shifting political landscape. In the coming weeks we will share some of the key issues, and we are excited to hear everyone’s views.