There Is A Mandate, Even If We Hate It.

One word that has risen in prominence over the last decade is ‘mandate.’ A mandate seems to be the great macguffin that every party leader is scrambling for. The mandate is given by the people to the politicians as a blessing for the politicians to execute their will. It is an extremely powerful tool, it seems then, as it is the people’s mandate that has delivered Brexit, an independence referendum (and perhaps a second) and almost every other political event I can think of. It is arguably the mandate that has allowed for some of the toxicity of debate to develop, how easy it is to decry your political opponents as enemies and traitors when you speak with the will of the people behind you. 

The mandate is incredibly powerful. It should then be very clear perhaps as to how a mandate is bestowed from people to politician. This no longer seems to be the case. You will see politicians seek to use any evidence they can as an expression of the people’s mandate. Sometimes a poll will be seen as a mandate, sometimes it’s a by-election, sometimes it’s the last election, sometimes it’s the last referendum, sometimes it’s a combination of a number of these factors and sometimes a mandate is taken with no evidence at all. Further confusion is added when we look at the statistics behind an election. 

Look, for example, at the most recent election where Boris claimed a ‘stonking mandate.’ It doesn’t take more than a cursory glance to see who the winners and losers were. However, the ‘stonking mandate’ to deliver Brexit seems less clear when you realise over half of the electorate voted for parties that either campaigned for remain or a second referendum. The Conservatives only increased their vote share by a miniscule 1.2%.  Arguably the election’s biggest losers were the Lib Dem’s whose vote share actually increased by over 50% compared to the 2017 election. It’s hard to see a clear mandate when the statistics can be spun in many different ways. 

Politicians will always utilise statistics to drive home their own argument. Statistics will always be exploited to reinforce an argument, that is how politics works. It is easy for our  politicians to claim victories when they can posthumously move the goal posts.  The only way we can clear it up is by making it simple. A mandate is bestowed when an election is won on the terms its fought. This means, in the UK, a mandate is given to the party who wins the most seats. You can disagree with the electoral system and those arguments can be made but the votes were made on that basis, So, as much as it might pain me to say, the Conservatives did get a ‘stonking mandate.’ That doesn’t mean we can’t fight it. That doesn’t mean our democratic right to dissent is compromised. But stating the mandate is not legitimate is a dangerous claim to make. It’s not one that should be easily made no matter how convincing the statistics might be.