Hilary Benn MP

Commitment to multilateral foreign policy would bring people back to Labour
January 26th, 2007

Leeds Metropolitan University Annual Politics Lecture

Thank you for inviting me to give this lecture today.

Last time I was here, we had a really good debate about international development. The photos from that event show me waving my arms about - which is always a good sign.

We talked about many difficult issues: the impact of migration on culture; debt and debt relief; and our responsibilities in the world.

But what really struck me was how much the discussion focused on the ethics of political decisions – both in Britain and in other countries.

So today I want to talk about the relationship between trust and politics in modern Britain.

I have always believed that politics should be practical, that it should be about making a difference in really tangible ways. And for politics to work best you need trust.

As International Development Secretary, I’ve seen just how important this is in countries across the world. What really makes a difference in developing countries is the quality of their governments – the extent to which politicians are accountable to their people, and respond to their needs.

Too many developing countries are in the state they are in today not because of a lack of talent or natural resources, but because their people cannot depend on their governments.

My argument today is straightforward.
Trust in politics and politicians is an issue, but I simply do not accept that we are becoming apathetic and cynical or that politics doesn’t matter to people as much as it did.

I think these are lazy arguments.

The reality – like many things in life - is a bit more complicated. And in some ways more encouraging.

The reality is that trust in individuals has remained roughly stable for more than twenty years.

According to MORI, who have been carrying out polls on this for decades, trust in doctors, teachers, politicians, government ministers and the man or woman in the street to “tell the truth��? is broadly the same as it was in 1983.

In 1983, 16 per cent of people said they generally trusted Government Ministers to tell the truth. Before the election in 1997, only 12 per cent did. In last year’s survey, the figure was 22 per cent did. Trust isn’t declining, although it is much, much lower in politicians than it is in doctors or teachers.

There’s a similar story for trust in each other. According to the British Crime Survey, community spirit – the feeling that “people in this neighbourhood tend to help each other��? - is now higher than at any point since 1988.

This is pretty encouraging, as well as reproach to the notion that there is no such thing as society.

But trust in institutions and systems - trust in the capacity of politics to make a difference and in business to do the right thing - is altering, largely as a result of fundamental changes to our society and way of life.

And to this we must respond.

Because in the world of 2007, and the world of the 21st century, trust is becoming and will become more important. Without it, government is impossible, and as we look to the future, many of the most entrenched and emerging challenges and problems we face will depend on greater trust to solve them. Why?

Because we as politicians will not be able to solve them on our own, and nor will the public. We need to do it together.

Take crime and antisocial behaviour. Research shows that one of the strongest predictors of whether an area suffers from these problems – regardless of class, poverty, ethnicity and geography - is whether people trust each other in the community and whether they are prepared to intervene in antisocial behaviour and say “that’s not acceptable here��?.

It’s about whether they think that local people will back them up. The values that communities share make more difference than almost anything else.

Here in Leeds, the changes for the better that have happened in Halton Moor and New Wortley in my constituency have been built on a bedrock of people coming together, enabling their voice to be heard, and then working with others to change things. People and government doing it together.

Or take climate change. Internationally, this depends on countries trusting each other to take action. For business, investment in cleaner technologies depends on having the confidence that politicians are really serious about climate change, and that the measures we’re putting in place to create a carbon price are going to be here for the long term.

Or take security. An issue that is fundamentally about trust. Will our government protect us?

So what’s the nature of the problem and what do we need to do to renew trust in institutions, and in politics?

Let’s look at the facts.
We all know that formal political participation is declining. Voting turnout in Britain fell to 61.5 per cent in 2005 – compared to 82 per cent in 1950. The story is the same in most other liberal democracies. And turnout in local elections is even lower.

And yet, more than a third of people who did not vote in the last general election were members of, or active in, a charity, community group, public body or campaigning organisation.

We know that membership of political parties has also fallen dramatically. So much so that today the three main political parties have just a quarter of the members they had in the mid-60s.

Some say these are signs that people are less interested in political issues. But this is wrong. What has changed is the way that people engage in politics.

Perhaps the most telling change has been the rise of what Douglas Alexander calls the “me politicos��? and the “we politicos��? – those whose political action is grounded in acts of personal or loosely collective, often consumer-based, forms of political campaigning.

These people – and there are millions of them - join single issue groups and participate in less formal ways.

While only one in a hundred people campaigned in the last general election for a political party, three times as many have taken part in a political campaign which is not defined by party political activity.

Make Poverty History is a good example: hundreds of thousands marching in the street and 8 million wore a white band.

This kind of activity is not a minority pursuit.

In the last two years nearly half the British population has signed a petition and one in five has boycotted something as a protest.

And the Fair Trade market is growing by more than 40 per cent each year, because an increasing number of people are choosing to help someone in the developing world to get a better price for their produce.

So it’s not that people aren’t interested any more in changing the world. They are, but it seems that many people have lost faith in the way that collective party politics work.

The proportion saying the government can be trusted to put the interests of the country before the interests of its party has halved since 1986.

And we need to recognise that this collective loss of faith has been sharpest amongst those who depend on the state more than anyone else: the most socially excluded and deprived.

Among those living in the most deprived areas, a minority say they are interested in politics and one-quarter appear unwilling to engage in any form of activity aimed at influencing decisions. This stands in stark contrast to those living in affluent areas.

Nearly seven in 10 of the richest say they would be certain to vote at an immediate general election compared to less than half of the poorest. It’s the reason why a majority of electors didn’t vote in Leeds Central in the last General Election.

This is something we have to acknowledge as politicians. It’s a problem, because politics – party politics - is the best way to resolve competing arguments, and because politics changes things. And that’s what democracy is all about. Single issue groups and campaigns are vital for getting things raised, but in the end you need politics to decide on priorities.

Before I turn to what we should do about all this, I just want to say a few words about why this has happened.

It would be easy to blame recent political controversies. But we should remember that every generation has them. Just think of Watergate, the Profumo Affair, cash for questions, or even the Zinoviev letter.

These all had a short term impact. But what has really underpinned the changing nature of politics in Britain has been much more profound social changes.

Class structures have shifted hugely. Class has become less important in determining how people will vote.

We are a more diverse society.

Media scrutiny of government and public sector transparency has increased enormously.

The Freedom of Information Act has made government a lot more accountable and open to question.

The internet and blogging have hugely increased the number of commentators and investigators. People are better educated and less deferential.

The rise of 24 hour news and greater competition in the media has meant that politicians need to comment and act much faster than before; for journalists and broadcasters it’s no longer enough to report what happens - to stay ahead and interesting, news channels now have to present opinions and not just facts.

But perhaps most importantly, partly as a result of us all getting richer, people are used to greater autonomy and control in their lives.

Now, these changes are for the most part enormously positive.

But they have changed the shape of the public realm. And we need to think hard about what they mean for politics. And we need to think hard about how to enable people to be involved in the way that they want.

The truth is that most people don’t want to think about politics all the time.

If you spend a lot of time in Westminster you might think politics is all people ever talk about. But most people want to get on with their lives most of the time.

This isn’t to say that people don’t care about politics. They do.

According to the ESRC citizen audit, less than one in seven people said they had no desire to take part in any form of political behaviour intended to achieve a form of social change

But people want politics on their terms. They want politics to work when they need it.

Nobody expects always to have the final say. People understand that there is a difference between having a say, being listened to and having your views really taken into account, and taking responsibility for making the final decision.

But people want to be taken seriously, and to know that getting involved does make a difference.

So what do I think we should do? What kind of new politics do we need?

I think there are three things we need to do: to discuss frankly the difficult decisions that we have had to take and which governments have to make; to make some fundamental changes to Britain’s political institutions; and set out how we can work together better in future as we do this so that people see the potential of politics to help them.

Firstly, telling it straight. People want their politicians to talk honestly. So let me speak plainly about three issues.

Iraq. I am only too aware of the huge well of bitterness and anger on the part of lots of people in the party and beyond.

The current situation is grim. The intelligence was wrong, the de-Ba’athification went too far, the disbanding of the army was a mistake, and we should have the humility to acknowledge those things, and to learn.

But there are other truths too. I do not wish that Saddam was still in power – which is why I voted the way I did in March 2003 – and I don’t think a majority of the Iraqi people think so either.

And whether people agreed with the war or not, we should all support the fragile democracy in Iraq which offers the people the best and only hope they have for a better future.

And the reason I say that is because Iraq under Saddam, Afghanistan under the Taliban, Sierra Leone when the RUF and the West Side Boys were at work, Rwanda in the genocide, and Kosovo when Muslims were being murdered in Europe’s backyard all raise an uncomfortable question. What do we do when states or those within states commit crimes against humanity ?

As we look to the future, I think we have to answer that question by making a renewed commitment to multilateralism in our foreign policy.

A multilateralism  that commits to work with the United Nations, the European Union, the African Union, NATO and the widest range of partners, whenever we can.

A multilateralism that pushes for reform in these international institutions to make them work more effectively – to deal with conflict and defeat poverty – and make the responsibility to protect work in practice, with all the authority and legitimacy that only the UN can command.

Because the more we can demonstrate that multilateralism can answer that uncomfortable question, the stronger we can make the argument with those who would act unilaterally that there is another way.

And as we look at the really big challenges we face on climate change, on trade, on security, on global poverty, on disease, on state failure – all of these can only be dealt with by working in closer cooperation with other countries.

And we should also recognise that such a commitment would bring many people back to Labour.

Secondly, party. It is clear that the current system of party funding and spending is not sustainable.

I am looking forward to the final report from Hayden Philips in a few weeks. There needs to be increased transparency; additional public funding for activities that are clearly in the public interest, such as policy development and training candidates; and a low cap on expenditure both locally and nationally. I am strongly in favour of this. I do not want to see British political parties forced to move in the direction of the US.

Indeed it is one of the great strengths of our system that when I tell a member of Congress how much I spent on my last general election campaign – around ,000 – they look at me in utter astonishment.

Trident is a third really big issue that we – the whole country – needs to have a proper and well-informed debate about.

The last time a Labour Government took a decision about our nuclear deterrent, most of the cabinet weren’t told, never mind the public. This time, we’ve published a white paper that sets out the arguments, and Parliament will decide.

The Government’s view – and my view – is that we should maintain our deterrent. Why?

Because in this uncertain, differently dangerous world, I don’t think we should give ours up. Nor do I think it would persuade others to abandon theirs. And having said in our manifesto that we would maintain our deterrent, there is also an issue of trust in keeping our word. But others take a different view and we should not be afraid of debate.

Next, what about our political institutions?

Labour has done a lot to change the way that politics works in Britain. Devolution, the Human Rights Act and House of Lords reform marked the largest constitutional changes for decades, but we need to go further.

I think we must remove Prime Ministerial patronage for appointments to the House of Lords by making the second chamber majority elected – 80 per cent with the remaining 20% co-opted by the elected peers on advice from an independent appointments commission. I support electoral reform with an alternative vote system in single member constituencies.

But there are other, perhaps less obvious, ways that Labour has fundamentally changed the way Britain is governed. Making the Office for National Statistics independent is an important step, and the establishment of the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee.

This is responsible for setting interest rates, and has just one aim: to keep inflation at 2 per cent per year. It’s independent and it is extremely transparent.

The MPC explains its thinking and decisions. The minutes of its meetings are published two weeks after the interest rate decision, giving a full account of the discussion, including differences of view.

The MPC engenders trust and confidence. And in financial markets, trust and confidence are almost everything.

It has been amazingly effective. In 1997, no-one would have predicted that we would have ten years in which inflation had never deviated by more than one per cent from its target, or the longest period of growth in recorded history. This is a very different way of organising government, and tribute to Gordon Brown’s far-sightedness.

In this case, it’s about politicians setting targets and objectives – based on very clear values – within which those responsible for making the system work get on with doing so. People who are accountable to the public and whose decisions can be examined in detail.

But while this model works for interest rates and statistics, we need different approaches for other issues.

We should be devolving more responsibility to local communities, letting the determine priorities in policing, dealing with anti-social behaviour and the local environment.

Where this happens, and I’ve seen it work in my constituency, people feel less isolated and more confident, they can see how their choices have an impact, and – most important of all – they gain a sense of community: that network of relationships, one with another, on which society is built – including a relationship with politics.

Politics is, after all, about the difference we make to people’s lives and to be practical – to listen and to respond – is the best way to make this difference.

It’s why we have used pilots and evaluations to test out the best way of delivering services – rather than introducing a flawed model across the country straight away. It’s about constant improvement, and learning lessons from what works and what doesn’t.

So as we look to the future, it seems pretty clear to me that we should think about how this approach can help us deal with other issues. Not only because it is an incredibly effective way of organising government. But because it helps politicians focus on what really matters: outcomes. And it helps build trust and confidence, by making decisions more open and transparent.

But to make this work, we need to change the culture of politics. If every time a government – having listened to the arguments and decided to do something different - gets attacked by the media and others for making a U-turn, then we increase the risk that bad decisions will be taken. Surely the right response is to say “Great. Sensible step. That’s politics listening and working��?
 
Lastly, there are some changes that we all need to try and make together

I’ve focused a lot on how politicians and the government, through frankness and some institutional reforms, can help build trust in politics. But that’s only half the picture.

The other important part is how we all behave as citizens. What we contribute and how. Our expectations. What’s really important is that we’re honest with each other.

One of the most striking things about politics is that many people don’t believe their own experiences are representative. I call this “I’ve been lucky syndrome��?.

Take hospitals.

If you ask people about whether they were treated well at their last visit to a hospital, about four in five say they were. But if you ask them about whether the NHS is providing a good service nationally, just half say it is.

Or take crime.

If you ask people about crime in their local area, about 65 per cent of people say they are confident about the way crime is dealt with. But if you ask people about the way crime is dealt with nationally, less than half say they are confident about it.

How can people be encouraged to have more faith in their personal experiences? When it’s good, tell people. And when it’s bad, complain and make a fuss. Write to your MP. start a campaign. Use politics to get it changed.

If we do that. If we deal with the unsustainable cycle of excessive optimism followed by inevitable disappointment that is bad for personal relationships, let alone relations between government and governed. If we hang on to hope and encouragement, then these are the best ways to overcome the greatest threat that politics and democracy faces – cynicism.

For the past three years I’ve been fortunate enough to work in international development. I’ve seen one of the most sustained, vocal and impressive public campaigns ever: to Make Poverty History.

As a cabinet minister, I can tell you that this made an absolutely enormous difference. To politicians like me, and to my colleagues around the world, it gave the backing, legitimacy and urgency to make unprecedented commitments to the developing world.

And for some of the poorest people in the world, it’s helped to change their lives.

The debt deal done at Gleneagles has meant that Zambia has been able to abolish health fees for people living in rural areas; as a result many people will have access to free healthcare for the first time. It’s meant that in Tanzania, the government will be able to build another 31,000 new classrooms and 1,000 new schools.

Don’t tell me that politics never changes anything.
Just two small examples of politics making a difference.

A politics built on trust.

And a politics that can help us to change the world.