Short money goes some way to redressing our woefully disproportionate voting system
This week the government will formally announce its final plans to slash public funding for opposition parties in Parliament.
The formula for calculating how the money is given to parties with fewer than six MPs will be ‘reworked’, according to today’s Independent. In other words, their money will be disproportionately cut. It’s an incredibly backwards step.
UKIP received nearly four million votes last year, but ended up with only one MP. The Greens received over a million votes and likewise ended up with just one MP. Slashing their funding is an affront to those millions of voters who were not fairly represented.
Currently, Short money — allocated in large part on the basis of number of votes rather than just seats — partially compensates for our woefully disproportionate voting system. Making it less proportional is hugely regressive given that we are now a pluralistic, multi-party democracy, with a need for a strong and diverse opposition.
Polling by BMG Research at the end of last year showed that 57 per cent of the public think a publicly-funded political system would be fairer than the big-donor dominated one we have now. And this cut will do nothing to improve people’s perceptions of politics being stitched-up by the big parties.
Short money is designed to level the playing field and ensure that opposition parties can hold the government of the day to account, so this cut could be deeply damaging for accountability. Indeed, an OECD report recently released shows that Britain already has one of the lowest proportions of public funding for parties among developed countries, spending just a tenth of the European average.
The whole party funding system is a complete mess as it is, but this measure risks making it worse. By reducing public money from the mix, this cut risks making parties even more reliant on big donors – with all the potential for corruption that entails.
Until we see a cap on donations and a lower spending limit, taking away public money from opposition parties will just make things worse.
Let’s hope the government thinks again and stand up for the millions whose voices were ignored last May.
Josiah Mortimer is communications officer at the Electoral Reform Society
One Response to “Short-changing voters: why the cuts to smaller parties are wrong”
Kimberley Griffin
Democracy is a fragile thing and needs to be protected. openlines.co