Concerted non-party campaigns now weave more citizens together than the parties can dream of, and raise a lot of money in the process. They do so not with intensely political ‘values’, but with a chance to pit ‘the people’ against ‘the politicians’ on a given issue. For better or worse, this has a broader appeal than the starkly partisan campaigning we are used to.
The challenge Parliament has to deal with is what all this means for elections, in which non-party groups may increasingly express a preference for one party, or even a group of parties, over the others. Whether it is a group of farmers and rural residents coming together in an association, or a trade union, or a big email list of broadly left-wing people, it is only right and natural that together such organisations should be able to say whom they most support to defend their views and interests. The question is whether the wealthier organisations – or even maverick millionaires – should be able to drown out the poorer ones. I strongly believe they should not.
In the last fortnight the fundamental right of free speech has been conflated with the supposed right to spend unlimited sums of money influencing election outcomes. To confuse the two is to dispense with more than a century of electoral law. Gladstone’s Liberal Government first introduced strict limits on spending in elections, in the Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention Act 1883. There is nothing new in that principle, as anyone who has taken on the responsibility of Agent knows.
In 2000, Labour presciently put in place national limits on spending at elections by non-party campaigners, permitting each group to spend just under £1 million in the year before an election. The Coalition does not believe that these organisations should be “gagged”, but it does believe this limit is too high.
The Transparency Bill will create a level playing field on which membership organisations without rich backers can compete. The new limits are still generous at £390,000 a year. And thanks to a Lib Dem amendment from John Thurso MP, which the Government have agreed to implement at Report Stage, it will be totally clear that charities can continue to campaign on policy issues. This reinforces the Government’s position that charities will be just as free to campaign on policy issues in 2015 as they were in 2001, 2005 or 2010.
Of course, Liberal Democrats want to reform party finance rules reformed as well. Had we succeeded in this endeavour, the Bill might have been – and been seen to be – more balanced. We favour at least a £10,000 cap (there are good arguments for it to be lower still) on individual and corporate donations to political parties themselves, and a reduction by 15% of the existing party spending limits. There are now signs from John Denham that Labour is belatedly accepting this case, but they have done so too late in this Parliament to secure the tripartite agreement necessary to make progress. In the cross-party talks, less than a year ago, they dragged their feet about the union link and in so doing let the Conservative Party off the donation cap hook.
In that light, the Bill before Parliament is the minimum necessary – and the maximum possible – to help ensure the next election is won not by the flourish of a millionaire’s cheque book but by the support of millions of people persuaded to use millions of votes in a fair campaign. Gladstone’s Liberals supported these same principles in 1883. We should support them still in 2013.
* Paul Tyler is the Liberal Democrat spokesman in the Lords on constitutional reform issues
