In a profile interview in the Guardian this week, Zac Goldsmith, one-time editor of The Ecologist and influential green agitator, admitted that he wouldn’t resign if his new party, the Conservatives, reneged on green promises such as abandoning plans for Heathrow’s third runway. Goldsmith is a prospective parliamentary candidate for the Tories and it is worrying how this move into mainstream politics seems likely to affect his integrity on green issues. He was once an admirable green champion – and despite his protestations to the contrary – it is impossible to see how he can retain the same ecological resolve as an MP.
This is not a criticism of the Tory party, because the choice of party is irrelevant here. Goldsmith admits to Conservative weaknesses on the environment and promises to fight hard to improve its position. However, this is a worrying illustration of how our political system can act to drain the passions of good people. Goldsmith must compromise to survive.
It is my belief that there is a simple reason for this – the established electoral system. Our government and parliament is constructed by the parties. Loyalty to the party line will secure a safe seat and political advancement. Strongly held views which stray too far from the party message will quickly condemn you to the margins.
The system which gives a seat to the individual with the highest number of votes very often ignores the wishes of the majority. It also leaves many people with strong views on specific issues with no way of having their voices represented. If you are a passionate environmentalist disillusioned with the main parties, you have nowhere to go. The Greens, for example, will never have an MP under the current system. So, for a small but significant minority of Green voters, their views are completely unrepresented in parliament.
Until we have a fair system of proportional representation, those of us who care deeply about fair trade and green issues must either compromise with a best-fit choice of the main parties (and even then expect in the main to have no direct representation), or cross their fingers and hope the MP they end up with shares their views. Some form of PR, which offered a voice in Westminster and associated bargaining power on important parliamentary votes, to smaller but significant parties, could have a huge impact on the green agenda.
The current system forces people with strong single-issue positions to compromise to the wider party view if they have any ambitions of power. It leaves very little room for someone like Goldsmith to retain his green credentials and be active within parliament or even government, despite the undoubted influence his fame and breeding will have on David Cameron. However, to secure a long-term, significant role he must become a party generalist in the same way that the ardent unionists and socialists of the Labour Party so quickly faded to the centre to get on in Blair’s New Labour. He will have to be a Tory first and an ecologist second.
Ironically, discussing his new book on political solutions to the environmental crisis, he says: “I'm simply encouraging people to use their vote effectively and use their collective political muscle. We all have political muscle, and that's something we can all do, and must do.” We want to Zac, but we can’t. We can pick one of a group of mainstream candidates in our constituency and hope they have some green ethics. We can’t vote for particularly committed environmentalists and expect our vote to count.
We can only hope that Goldsmith does stick to his principles if elected, but the road to government is paved with good intentions. The single most powerful thing Goldsmith could do in parliament is campaign for a system which allows the political muscle of the people to be effectively flexed.
Good day out, bad electoral system