eurealist.co.uk

This morning MEP Daniel Hannan in his regular spot at the Telegraph confronts the idea of state funding for political parties,

 “If there is one thing we politicians agree on, it’s that the rest of you owe us a living. That’s why you should be alarmed that the Labour and Tory leaders are meeting tomorrow to discuss state funding for political parties. People of the same trade seldom meet together, as Adam Smith says, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public. That we elected representatives want more of your cash is hardly surprising, but our blatancy ought to shock you.

 Embarrassed by the exposure of our fund-raising methods, we cheekily suggest that the problem is not our behaviour, but the absence of support from the taxpayer. And you, poor saps, fall for it. You are so outraged at our brazenness that you miss the real scandal, namely our equation of state funding with honest politics. You splutter that the taxpayer already has plenty of demands on his wallet; but you unthinkingly accept the argument on our terms, as a trade-off between subvention and corruption.

 In fact, that argument is impossible to stand up, either in theory or in practice. The countries that are keenest on state funding - which tend to be in Europe rather than the Anglosphere - are generally the ones with the dirtiest political systems. And the rankest scandals in these nations usually involve party funding.”

 
Hannan then proceeds to illustrate his point with examples of corruption in other European countries:  “the sleaze that brought down Helmut Kohl a decade ago”,   “France, also awash with state funding, where some 700 politicians have been charged with corruption in the past decade, almost all in relation to party financing scams”

 Many of us have often been appalled at the arrogance of some European leaders, Hannan asks

“Could it be that being able to compel cash from your constituents, instead of having to ask them politely, makes you arrogant? Is it not possible that state funding, and the magic circle of parties that it creates, encourages an "us-and-them" attitude towards those who are outside the system?”

 I agree with several of the points expressed and illustrated in this article:

The way that state funding widens the gap between government and governed.

State funding prevents new parties from challenging established ones

When the state pays for political parties, it assumes that it can tell them what to believe.

“The apparatus of public funding creates a lucrative career structure for politicians

A graduate can work for his local party branch, then put in a couple of years at the attached state-funded think-tank, and then stand for parliament. Throughout his life, he has been dependent on the largesse of the taxpayer.

So it is hardly surprising that, when he becomes a minister, he is comfortable with the idea of higher taxes. This is why even the notionally centre-Right parties in Europe tend to be corporatist: it’s not just that they have to keep finding state sector posts for their supporters; they simply can’t imagine a world in which most activity is independent of the government.”

It is for this reason that I take issue with the recently published Power Report,  although it correctly identifies the problems of a lack of public involvement in politics, its suggestion that each party should receive state funding in line with the level of votes it gets, will not in any way increase accountability of political parties, it will in fact do just the opposite, by obligating us all to support political parties and the political system will insulate politicians even further from the public.  

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