Spain shows us that to break old status quo and make proportional representation work, we need to outgrow adversarial politics

The Palacio de las Cortes in Madrid, home to the currently implacably divided Congress of Deputies. Photograph: Congress from Pixabay (License) (Cropped)

In twenty three days, Spain will go to the polls for its second election in just six months. Its first saw the seats in congress divided between Left and Right in such a way as to make forming a government unlikely (Tremlett, 2016).

Therein lies the challenge of proportional representation. While each political party may be able to make its ideas and its membership more homogeneous, there ultimately remains the need to be able to work amicably with those holding other such 'purified' stances.

Over the last five to ten years, Spain's has seen it political mainstream collapse. New parties of Citizen movements have sprung up, and through the proportional electoral system have found themselves to be collectively a third force, along with the regionalist parties, that must enthrone a new government.

Yet they have found an old social democratic Left, that might make the more tolerable ally, weakened and shrunken and the old conservatives the intolerable but only realistic option. The numbers did not add up and a new election awaits.

In the UK, voices on the Left and Right have considered how the break up of the present political alignment, itself an incoherent and inconsistent series of alliances, might be redrawn with more coherency.

Tim Montgomerie has envisioned Westminster's political parties rearranged into parties for Solidarity (essentially Democrats), Liberals, Nationals (Conservative Christian Democrats) and a party of the Far Right (Montgomerie, 2016). And Owen Jones has argued that Labour's internal strife may not be curable, with a split into more coherent groups inevitable and ultimately desirable (Jones, 2016).

Spain reveals that this is only the first step. In their incomplete breakdown of two party politics, the adversarial division remain. The old grievances are clung to as a marker of identity. The next step has to be maturity.

If the future of British politics splits the establishment in four parties then at least two will have to work together to form a government - and it may not always be the ideal two. That will require the parties to compromise and cooperate, and to find a way to do so without feeling their identity is threatened.

The attitude of the Labour supporters or Trade Unionists who hissed BBC Political Editor Laura Kuenssberg does not suggest a group of people ready to swap the UK's archaic adversarial politics for a system based on tolerances and compromise (Cowburn, 2016). Neither does the unbearable and vicious braying of the Tory parliamentarians every Wednesday at PMQs.

For the Left, finding a way beyond this confrontational, intolerant state is essential. Achieving progressive aims is only becoming less and less likely to be achievable through the medium of one, monolithic, party.

An alliance of progressives, of different strands, each on their own coherent - trade unionism, eco-socialism, democratic socialism, liberalism, social democracy and other various shades of centrism - requires those on the Left to find common aims, and to work amicably together with other progressives, while tolerating fundamental differences in ultimate priorities.

The introduction of proportional representation and seeing the old establishment parties split can only do so much to improve politics. Without the spirit of cooperation, without outgrowing adversarial divisions, we risk falling back into the same divisive patterns.

References

Giles Tremlett's 'Spain's left must unite to steer country on road to recovery: In December voters asked for a coalition, but have been ignored despite the need for cross-party deals to tackle Spain’s problems'; in The Guardian; 3 May 2016.

Tim Montgomerie's 'Who would be in the new parties? What would they stand for?'; from twitpic; as 2 June 2016.

Owen Jones' 'Why Labour may have to divide before they conquer: Britain has fragmented, and so have our political parties. Perhaps a permanent split is the only way forward'; in The Guardian; 2 June 2016.

Ashley Cowburn's 'Labour supporters hiss BBC's Laura Kuenssberg as she questions Jeremy Corbyn on EU referendum: 'Journalists are people doing their job. A party that stands up for workers’ rights should not allow to be booed and hissed at. End of'; in The Independent; 2 June 2016.