One thing often said about healthy democracies is that they have peaceful transfers of power. In fact, that principle can be broadened: a representative democracy should also be about peaceful transfers of representation, as well as of executive power.
By “peaceful”, of course, it is meant that there should be no violence. But even absent violence, the transfers of power and of representation also need to be accepted as legitimate.
For once those transfers of power and of representation are denied, and alleged to be invalid and corrupt, the fundamentals of a democracy are undermined. The legitimacy on which a functioning democracy rests is pulled away.
The United Kingdom is no stranger to disputed votes. The 1973 border poll in Northern Ireland was boycotted by the nationalist community. The result of the 2016 Brexit referendum was alleged by some on the losing side to have been brought about by the winning side’s dishonesty and breaches of spending rules. The results of neither of these plebiscites have universal approval.
But, until recently, completely disputing the legitimacy of organised votes was not often extended to parliamentary elections. The people may vote, and the people may be wrong, but there was a general sense that fair play meant that you accepted defeats.
As such, the other candidates on the podium would congratulate the winner, alongside thanking those who counted the votes. Sometimes there were exceptions, but that was seen as sore losing.
Last week, however, we had at the Gorton and Denton parliamentary byelection result the spectacle of not just a sore loser, but a strident and instant national publicity campaign to discredit the winner.
The result had been secured by cheating, said the leader of the second-placed party immediately on hearing of the result, without showing any proof. A national newspaper devoted its front page to amplifying the “incendiary” allegations. A police investigation was called for. The second-placed candidate wrote long social media posts complaining of the defeat.
Here it does not really matter which party won and which second-placed party complained in such terms. The worrying thing is that this was the instant reaction of the losers: to discredit the election as quickly and as widely as possible, and to not wait for due process.
This discrediting exercise was therefore as much a political campaign as the campaign to win the seat, and with at least as much effort and coordination. Indeed, more determination seems to have gone into discrediting the result than into actually winning the byelection.
Of course, elections are a legally regulated activity with its own specialist body of (often) complicated law and guidance. And from time to time breaches of election law are found, and judicial and other remedies applied—or not applied.
In the Gorton and Denton parliamentary byelection itself, for example, the second-placed party published materials without the correct mandatory wording. A court looked at the breach and said it was not serious enough to warrant any sanction. That is election law in action: practical and impartial.
If there is evidence of irregularities at some polling stations at the Gorton and Denton byelection, then that evidence should be properly and promptly investigated in accordance with due process by the proper authorities. And that is what is being done. Any denunciations of the election result should thereby await the result of this process.
The losing party spokesperson candidly admitted the day after the election that any irregularities were not enough to have affected the result, which was emphatic. But this did not prevent the losing party’s leader from loudly promoting grave allegations of sectarian voting, corruption and dishonesty. Yet if the irregularities are not upheld on investigation as invalidating the result, it is unlikely that those findings will be shouted about.
And such a response is irresponsible. Parts of the United Kingdom have a history of sectarian violence. Parts of the United Kingdom have histories of racial tension. Responsible politicians should not exploit such allegations for partisan advantage. Making such allegations is to play with fire, literally.
Responsible politicians should be careful to avoid subverting the very fundamentals on which a functioning democracy rests. Such “poisoning of the wells” is familiar to those following the politics of the United States, and it lay behind the lethal violence that took place in Washington DC on 6th January 2021.
When elections face partisan smears of being “stolen” then it can be a very short journey to people being hurt. Once transfers of power and representation face the mass allegations of being “stolen” then they may cease quickly to be peaceful.
