Cynics' distrust of e-petitions no longer serves democracy

The fact that public pressure can prompt an EU referendum debate heralds a new chapter in British politics
    • The Guardian,
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The Union Jack and the flag of the European Union stand next to each other at the EU council building in Brussels. Photograph: Federico Gambarini/EPA

Monday's European showdown in the Commons is a perfect exhibition of everything that's wrong with how we have come to do politics in Britain. But it also contains the first inkling of better ways to organise our democracy in this time of protest and confusion.

Let's start with what is wrong. The twists and turns of Tory whips' thinking about how to minimise any revolt – Cameron tough, Cameron appeasing, Cameron toughly soft, or softly tough – have been played out through the press and rightwing blogs in such intricate detail that any reasonable person long ago went mad with boredom watching them.

What we all understand is that we are seeing a return to internal Conservative splits on Europe which, for those of us who remember the 1990s, are as grainily nostalgic – and about as amusing – as the later Carry On films. What we also know is that since the real battle-to-electoral death between the Major administration and the anti-EU ultras, the centre of balance in the Tory party has shifted well towards the Eurosceptic argument, and that the country feels no happier about "Brussels" than it ever did.

That is at least interesting. Except that we all know there will not be a referendum. Europe's economic crisis is too serious. Cameron is too worried about his own authority. So all this hyperventilating in the Commons – will that parliamentary private secretary resign? Who exactly signed which motion? What compromise will be selected? – is meaningless party-political game-playing.

It is exactly what wearies and disgusts so many people, and not only Eurosceptics. For years the Eurosceptics have felt excluded from the parliamentary game. But their sense of exclusion is shared now by many more, from the inchoate but rightly angry anti-City protesters in their tents to older people seeing their pensions vanishing and university-leavers without the chance of a decent job.

It is as if our politics, like our economy, has been hollowed out. The parties and unions have comparatively tiny memberships. Informed argument about economics and social policy is elbowed aside across many newspapers. Real displaced worry and anger bubble violently but mostly impotently online. And the Commons, which ought to be the cockpit of all argument, often seems more like a circus to distract us.

Yet despite all of this, what is happening offers a glimmer of hope. For the reason the EU referendum issue is being discussed at all is that the Commons backbench business committee put it on to the agenda of the house because more than 100,000 supporters had been gathered by e-petition. It's up there in a melange of issues which have excited supporters of causes as various as full disclosure of all the government documents relating to the 1989 Hillsborough football stadium disaster (140,000 people) to a call for all convicted London rioters to lose their benefits (248,000 sign-ups).

Other issues on the list of e-petitions jostling for Commons time include a campaign for cheaper petrol and diesel (104,000 so far); changing the inflation rate for pension increases from RPI to CPI (66,000) and making financial education a compulsory part of the school curriculum (85,000).

Arguments against e-petitions range from the high-mindedly constitutional to the cynical. Ever since Edmund Burke, MPs have fiercely defended their role as independent-minded consciences, free to vote as they see fit, rather than as the mandated human tools of their electorates. Plenty would argue that the slow-moving, formal nature of parliamentary politics has saved Britain from foolish populist spasms and barbarities. And after all, even 100,000 people are only a tiny fraction of the public.

E-petitions, being presumably easiest to arrange around populist topics (Europe, hanging) might well be seen as the thin end of the wedge, making parliament coarser and less thoughtful. Because already-existing organisations (the church, the National Trust, Unison) might find it easier to garner large numbers of signatures, these petitions could also become a way for vested interests to further advance their causes.

Finally, plenty of people in politics see e-petitions as obvious window-dressing, an occasional nod to public opinion which, because they are debated in backbench time, not government time, will change nothing. They certainly cannot mandate the government.

None of these arguments really work any more, or should be allowed to stop the greater use of e-petitions. Self-evidently, the e-petition only gets an issue on to the parliamentary agenda; MPs can be as independent-minded as they like in response. Yes, they put a bit of pressure on parliamentarians, particularly when fanned by media interest. But their job is to respond to public pressure; party whips threatening their careers are a far greater weight on their consciences.

Nor should we have any time for the elitist argument that e-petitions allow populist campaigns to get going. We trust people, or we don't. From the banking crisis to immigration, the danger of millions of people feeling they have been shut out of parliamentary debate is far worse than any danger in allowing "difficult" ideas to make it on to the floor of the Commons.

As it happens, there was a lot of hype about hanging returning as an issue because of e-petitions: the last time I looked, it hadn't exactly attracted a mass movement of supporters. Even if it does, then it is up to progressives to get out there, mobilise, argue their case and defeat the argument, rather than having any truck with trying to muffle it.

Of course e-petitions will favour those who are organised and motivated enough to get them going. But the old days of party mass membership favoured those organised and motivated enough to join, and turn up to meetings. There has always been a "middle layer" of politically interested people who are not themselves politicians but whose influence is greater than those who only turn up to vote.

That's fine. That's democracy. Perhaps as old party loyalties loosen, e-petitions will become one of the ways people feel engaged again, not all the time, or across every issue, but where their emotions are strongly involved.

Far from being a bad thing, debate should be welcomed by everyone concerned about rejuvenating our ailing, wheezing democracy. Yes, the Tories' response to it has been a classic example of old politics. But the fact of the argument is good news. As a political device, we should make this the beginning of something far bigger.

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