We are witnessing a profound crisis of the political establishment, which is drowning in the stench of corruption. After various unsuccessful attempts by Parliament to block a series of Freedom of Information requests we have been treated to the daily spectacle of large sums of taxpayers money being spent on everything from country house moats and chandeliers and to blatant property speculation on second homes. Some MPs have been receiving interest payments for long paid-off mortgages or mortgages which never existed. Nor is it just expenses which are involved as the perks for lobbying cases in the House of Lords make clear.

None of this is in the same league as the billions creamed off by the bankers, of course, but MPs as a result have made themselves as least as unpopular if not more so. People who are struggling with the economic crisis watch the spending habits and corrupt practices of MPs with incredulity.

This has rightly led to calls for the right of recall — the right of the electorate to recall MPs between elections rather than have to wait for the next general election before they can challenge their positions.

With the European and local elections around the corner the main parties have been hit heavily by this, and almost anything could happen. Millions of votes are likely to go to the smaller parties in the form of a backlash of protest votes. Whilst the Greens are likely to do well the bulk of these votes are unfortunately likely to go to the right in the shape of UKIP and the BNP. UKIP are likely to improve on the inflated results they achieved in 2004 and the BNP are likely to break through into the European Parliament they have been predicting.

All this could lead to a dangerous development of anti-political right-wing populism with right-wing individuals putting themselves forward as well as right-wing parties.

Unfortunately the socialist left is struggling in these elections. Respect, as the left party with the best electoral record, was not able to stand this time — though given the course of events it might have done well if it had. We will therefore be working for the best possible vote for no2eu and with Respect we will support the Greens in the North West against Nick Griffin.

The efforts of the establishment parties to deal with this corruption crisis has been pathetic. Cameron was given completely unwarranted kudos by the media for telling his MPs to give the money back if they were caught with their hands in the till! This reflected the grossly pro-Tory bias of the media over recent months in preparation for the general election.

Brown, however, has been behind even Cameron with his response. He propped up the Speaker, who has presided over all this corruption, until it became completely untenable to do so, and is now saying that any Labour MP who has broken the rules will be deselected. This problem here is that the rules were so widely cast that it was hardly necessary to break them. Successive Governments have certainly taken their policies of deregulation seriously.

The issue of MPs expenses will now have to be sorted out one way or another, since there is no other way to defuse public outrage. The danger, however, is that this will be the limit of any change. If this happens it would be a disaster.

The expenses scandal is just a symptom of a whole political set-up which is deeply corrupt. We have an 800 member unelected House of Lords which needs to be abolished. The Prime Minister has the right to call an election on a date his or her choosing. And most important of all we have the first-past-the-post voting system for the Commons is totally undemocratic and produces undemocratic Governments.

In the last general election Labour only managed to poll 35.2% of the votes cast yet under first-past-the-post they got a massive 55.1% of seats in Parliament. The Tories polled 30.7% of the vote and got 32.3% of the seats. The Lib Dems polled 22.1% of the vote and all they got for this was just 9.6% of seats – less than half of their proportional entitlement. Small parties have almost no chance. George Galloway’s victory in Bethnal Green and Bow is exceptional in this regard.

First-past-the-post also means that around 70% of voters cast votes which make no difference what-so-ever to the outcome of the election, since they are in safe seats of one kind or another — and safe seats of this kind lead to complacency and arrogance and open the door to corruption.

Changing the electoral system for the Commons, therefore, has to be at the core of the changes which come out of this situation. Before taking office Gordon Brown suggested that he would do something about this state of affairs. This was reflected in the Green Paper ‘The Governance of Britain’ which was published in July 2007 and which is the basis of the current Constitutional Reform Bill.

Since then all this has been put on the back burner and proportional representation for the Commons abandoned altogether. If this attitude continues and so-called ‘reforms’ take place whilst leaving first-past-the-post in place a major opportunity will have been missed.

We therefore call for the following:

1. Reform the expenses system and end the gravy train.
2. A popular wide-based constitutional convention to overhaul not just the expenses system but every aspect of the structure of Westminster and voting procedures.
3. Fixed term Parliaments (the chartists called for annual fixed Parliaments in the 19th century).
4. The abolition of the House of Lords.
5. The right of recall of MPs between parliaments.
6. Proportional representation for the Commons.

Socialist Resistance statement 21.5.09