Last month the Liberal Democrats took an official stance of abstention on a vote proposed by Labour. By doing so they washed their hands of the decision as to whether Mr Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary, aught to be investigated for alleged breaches of the ministerial code of conduct (BBC, 2012).
But what can we read into this abstention, and the general role of abstention in politics?
Some media outlets have taken this abstention to be a tacit condemnation of Mr Hunt by the Liberal Democrat leadership (Wintour, 2012). In this case it would seem that abstaining has allowed the Lib Dems the space to make a political statement without breaking with cabinet collective responsibility.
Now while this certainly seems to be a method of manoeuvring which allows a political party to have their cake and eat it (Eaton, 2012), it also stands in stark contrast to some of the more damaging ways to express discontent. Particular comparison can be drawn with the SNP of the 1970s, who - after failing to get the Labour party onside with plans for Scottish devolution - triggered a vote of no confidence on Mr James Callaghan and his Labour government.
The exercising of a veto - although in this case an informal one, such as it is, created by circumstance - is highly problematic, due mostly to it being a threat to destabilise a government. So on the one hand abstention helps preserve stability, yet it only does so by carrying in its breast the very same threat.
Such problems only increase when a political system is neither formally two-party or multi-party - neither of which categories the UK's Westminster system properly fits. As a result we end up with a system containing the assumptions of singular-leader-led one-party governments and no multi-party accustomisation to compromise-based coalition governments, but with major parties that lack the consistent polling strength to govern without coalition.
This forces bigger parties to ally with smaller groups - but rather than partnerships, the unequal balance of parliamentary seats between cooperating groups creates unusual situations. Not least being the large amount of power afforded to the smaller group. And this creates the problem of 'king-making'. This is when smaller groups hold the balance of power through their ability to ally with either of the main parties and so can demand any concessions they wish.
As political systems tend towards the multi-party, more proportional and particularly towards consensus such issues are both compounded but also dampened. As a system moves in that direction, power shifts towards smaller groups - even towards individuals - having the power to refuse their acquiescence in exchange for concessions. Yet it also has built in checks against that same power - that it is dispersed relatively equally to a larger number of groups.
In the UK, abstention represents a difficulty that its political system needs to overcome - that it is caught between different systems and so enjoys none of the stabilising checks and balances of other more formal systems. The Liberal Democrat abstention - contrary to the dismissal of the Conservative Corby MP Ms Louise Mensch as the Lib Dems 'just being silly' (Wardrop, 2012) - needs to be understood in the light of the threat of veto; where abstaining presents a less volatile and less extreme demonstration of opinion. There-in is also represented something that liberals have long wished for in British politics: a more subtle, less polemic, understanding of political action.
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References:
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+ BBC's 'BSkyB bid row: Lib Dems to abstain in Commons vote on Jeremy Hunt'; 12 June 2012.
+ Patrick Wintour's 'Nick Clegg leaves David Cameron high and dry over Jeremy Hunt'; 12 June 2012.
+ George Eaton's 'The Lib Dems' Hunt abstention is a miserable little compromise'; 13 June 2012.
+ Murray Wardrop's 'Louise Mensch: Lib Dems are being silly by abstaining on Jeremy Hunt commons vote'; 13 June 2012.
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