When the Digital Economy Act (DEA) passed into law, it prompted many anguished posts and tweets about a broken political system, asking how MPs could cave in to lobbyists and vested interests, impose censorship, remain oblivious to the online debate (or "social media whingeing" as it was also called) and fail to recognise the impact on young people.
These articles point to the implications of more public engagement in politics, and the issue of how Parliament and political parties respond to the way the internet is lowering (some) barriers to participation.
Leave aside the rights and wrongs of the DEA, the way it was pushed through Parliament in the 'wash-up' and the stances of the different parties.
The interesting question to ask is perhaps: Do politicians really want the public to be engaged?
How representative?
I can't imagine many politicians would actually say the answer to that question is 'no'.
But systems of representative democracy are structurally incapable of dealing with the consequences of a strongly engaged public.
They are based on the principle that it is MPs that make decisions, not the public. The electorate's only conclusive say in the process comes once every four or five years at election time.
There are, after all, manifestos to be implemented. And governments say they are elected to 'take decisions'.
But what if a government has one manifesto commitment which proves particularly unpopular? Can it claim a mandate to implement it even if tens or hundreds of thousands of people protest at that specific policy? The whips are there to ensure that power remains with party managers rather than the public. It is party leaders who decide if the public's voices are heard and act as gatekeepers to political decision-making.
Other factors also impose themselves between public demands and policy outcomes. These include:
- The views of the civil service; the policy experts and the people who have to deliver the policy.
- The consciences of the individual MPs and whether they feel able to vote for what the public might demand (the death penalty being the classic example).
- Local concerns versus the national interest (as seen in big planning decisions like Heathrow expansion).
- Conflicting views from constituents and campaign groups which need to be assessed and balanced.
- The need to take unpopular decisions (such as energy taxes to tackle global warming).
- Financial constraints which mean that some policies, no matter how popular, cannot be afforded.
- And as I've written previously, political parties have their own vested interests and often would seem to prefer that the public does not ask too many questions about their 'closed shop'.
Even putting all these to one side, public participation raises a fundamental issue to which there seems no easy solution.
Constraints of time and knowledge mean that thousands of constituents could be lobbying their MPs about the minutiae of legislation, far exceeding the capacity of one person (or their parliamentary office) to get to grips with the details to a sufficient degree.
This is one of the reasons why MPs fall back on trusting their parties to make decisions on the fine print of legislation - even some of the independents who get elected can end up frequently taking the whip of one of the bigger parties for precisely this reason.
Given these obstacles to 'people power', it might not be too unkind to suggest that in general politicians can't imagine a future without politicians being in charge. Although in fairness, it's not just them - much of the media seems to take the same view too.
David Cameron's 'Great Society'
The Conservative election manifesto represents perhaps the most thoughtful response to some these issues from any of the main political parties.
One of the most interesting lines in the document acknowledges:
"Having a single vote every four or five years is not good enough – we need to give people real control over how they are governed. So, with a Conservative government, any petition that secures 100,000 signatures will be eligible for formal debate in Parliament. The petition with the most signatures will enable members of the public to table a Bill eligible to be voted on in Parliament. And we will introduce a new Public Reading Stage for Bills to give the public an opportunity to comment on proposed legislation online."
This kind of public engagement is part of the Conservative plan to encourage a 'Big Society' in which citizens are more active.
Much of the engagement talked about by David Cameron (politicians of all colours, really) is at the micro level, with charities, community groups and so on doing more to promote well-being through small projects.
But can engagement be confined to such small-scale activities? If people become engaged, is it going to have national consequences?
The Digital Economy Act
This brings us back to the DEA and the views expressed around #DEbill/#DEact.
The contributions to the discussion (albeit from a rather narrow group) seem to suggest that the public is already imagining a situation where people make decisions rather than the politicians.
Of course, it helps when everyone is united in agreement that the policy in question is 'a bad thing'. It is harder when society is more divided.
But should the Conservative proposals be introduced, they would provide a fascinating opportunity for those seeking repeal of the Act, or at least those sections relating to online copyright infringement.
The Conservative proposals would offer two opportunities to change the DEA.
First, during the 'Public Reading Stage' of any new piece of communications legislation there could be a campaign to insert simple clauses which repeal parts of the DEA. A less likely option would be to seek an amendment to the Conservative Party's proposed UK Bill of Rights which would add in clauses guaranteeing a right to internet access.
Second, secure at least 100,000 petitions calling for the DEA's repeal to force a debate in Parliament. Securing more signatures than any other petition would allow a Bill to be tabled to take the proposal forward.
Given that so many people have taken an interest in the DEA, it may not be too difficult to renew the campaign against it.
There is also an interesting question about whether or not this is the intended consequence of the Conservative policies.
They might argue that the goal is public participation and more scrutiny to deliver better laws. In which case, rewriting the terribly-written DEA would be in line with such aims.
But the agenda of those opposed to the DEA is a more liberal one than that which the Conservatives might prefer to see as 'the voice of the people'.
Could the anti-DEA campaign then move on to libel reform or copyright reform?
Or imagine LabourList and ConservativeHome running competing campaigns which urge opposing amendments to a Bill (something I've written about before).
If this is what happens, will the government see the entire effort as more pain than its worth, or persevere with it as Number 10 did with their petitions system despite the problems it caused with the introduction of road tolls.
Should targeting illegal file-sharers become politically impossible because of campaigns against the legislation, that also raises a question of how long it would be before public attention turns to other issues equally open to populist campaigns, such as speeding tickets.
Would it become even more difficult to legislate against any activity which much of the country participates in, even if it would deliver a public good? How would that have impacted the introduction of drink-driving laws, the compulsory wearing of seatbelts and laws against smoking in public places?
Wither Parliament?
If there was to be such online campaigning – and presumably encouraging such campaigns is the whole point of the Conservative proposals – then it has a number of important consequences.
Perhaps the foremost of these is the impact on the role of MPs.
As noted above, MPs already have a difficult balancing act when it comes to deciding which factors should influence them the most.
Faced with a major online campaign for a particular policy, what should an MP do?
Is the public's voice decisive? Should they vote the policy through even if they disagree with it?
Do MPs become a backstop, there to occasionally reign in any excesses but otherwise stand back from the process of implementing what citizens demand?
Such changes, which are of constitutional importance, carry risks for the Conservatives.
Either they accept the public's views and downgrade the role and judgement of MPs, or they reject the public demands and dash expectations which they have built up.
Perhaps it is revealing that while they promise a vote in Parliament, there is no promise that the vote will go the way campaigners might want, or that there would be an assumption in favour of it.
It would, really, be impossible to give such a promise.
But if the public becomes more participative in politics and the work of Parliament, then are the political and constitutional structures ready to cope with the consequences?
This question is important because if they are not, the result will either be disillusionment and a loss of interest in participation, or growing demands for more radical reform of the political system.
Footnote: I've focused on Conservative policies here but the Liberal Democrats have said they would repeal and replace the sections of the DEA which relate to file-sharing. So voting for them would be another option for those interested in such things.
Footnote 2: I wondered above if it could really be a Conservative aim to downgrade the role of MPs. Having just caught their latest election broadcast, I wonder if it actually is. David Cameron says: "This is our big idea: Smashing apart the old 'politician knows best' system which just doesn't work and building the Big Society where we work together to make life better."
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