Britain's Liberal Democrats today put reform of the voting system at the heart of plans to “break open” Westminster and Whitehall.
The party’s manifesto, launched today in the City of London, vows to put power back into the hands of people. Proportional representation and votes at 16 form part of a wide-ranging agenda to overhaul the “rotten” political system following the expenses scandal.
Allowing constituents to sack errant MPs, caps on political donations, fixed-term parliaments, a fully-elected second chamber and a written constitution also feature.
In a section titled “your say”, the document says: “As the expenses scandal showed, the political system is rotten. “Hundreds of MPs have safe seats where they can ignore their constituents. Party funding rules mean big donors have huge influence. Power has been concentrated in Westminster and Whitehall by a succession of governments. And Britain’s hard-won civil liberties have been eaten away.
“Liberal Democrats will do things differently, because we believe that power should be in the hands of people, not politicians.”
“The current system exists to block change,” the manifesto says. “We will stamp out corruption and abuse by giving people power to sack corrupt MPs, end big money politics, and make sure those who seek to sit in Parliament pay full UK taxes," the manifesto says.
“We will reinvigorate our democracy by dispersing power, breaking open Westminster and Whitehall and embracing fair votes for every level of election.”
The LibDem manifesto also pledged a crackdown on Britain’s “surveillance state”. The party said it would stop councils from spying on people and prevent children from being fingerprinted at school without their parents’ permission.
Innocent people would be removed from the DNA database, “intrusive” identity cards abandoned and unnecessary monitoring of e-mail and internet records halted.
“Liberal Democrats believe it is an individual’s right to live their lives as they see fit, without discrimination, with personal privacy, and equal rights before the law,” the party said. “Decades of Labour and Conservative rule have overthrown some of the basic principles of British justice and turned Britain into a surveillance state."
The party also pledged to introduce “the most radical, far-reaching tax reforms in a generation” if they win power in the May 6th election.
Central to the tax and spend policies set out in today’s manifesto is a change to income tax thresholds, so that no-one pays the tax on the first £10,000 they earn.
Party leader Nick Clegg said this would put £700 into the pockets of millions of people on low and middle incomes, and would free 3.6 million earning less than £10,000 from paying income tax at all.
The party says it will also introduce a £2 billion-a-year banking levy to ensure financial institutions pay for the state support they have received, said the manifesto.
The £16.8 billion cost of raising income tax thresholds would be paid for by closing loopholes and tax breaks that currently benefit the wealthy and imposing “green taxes” on polluting activities, the party said.
PA