“Take the Politics Out of It”!

 

Quite often I hear this phrase. Sometimes, it is from members of the public. But, sometimes, it is even from politicians (MPs on things like Question Time etc). The “It” could be anything. Favourites would be: Take the Politics Out of The NHS; Take the Politics Out of Social Care; Take the Politics Out of Climate Change, but it could just as easily be: Take the Politics Out of Planning; or Take the Politics Out of Railways.

 

I’ve always found such calls odd, weird even; perhaps, dystopian. But, they worry me most when even politicians say this and don’t defend their profession. I can just about see why members of the public say it when they see/hear politicians arguing. But, surely, politicians are the only people who say they should be taken out of their own job. I cannot imagine lawyers saying “take lawyers out of the law”, or mechanics saying “take mechanics out of mechanics”, or doctors saying “take doctors out of medicine”.

 

Any politician who endorses this view should get out of politics – if they don’t think politicians do a worthwhile job, they shouldn’t be in politics, and should leave politics. It is the very worst kind of a careerist politician. It is akin to a doctor who doesn’t think people should be made better, but decides to continue as a doctor coz it’s a career and pays the bills. 

 

The phrase “Take the Politics Out of It, e.g. The NHS” is a disguised euphuism for take “Take Democracy Out of It”. By “taking the politics out of it”, what you are calling for is a cosy consensus, where everyone agrees, and no one argues. It is a claim that there is only 1 possible policy. If there is only 1 legitimate policy, we don’t need elections and elected politicians, all we need is someone to determine what the policy should be. If there is a consensus, and only 1 legitimate policy option for The NHS, social care, climate change, etc, democracy has been taken out of politics. The logic next step is to say that we should take the politics out of politics and leave it to the Party to make decisions, just like they do in China, under Xi.

 

The point of politics and democracy is disagreement. Surely, the point of politics is to debate how much, and where taxes should be spent. But, if everything is settled in a consensus those debates don’t happen. The decisions, are pre-determined, and possible change to direction is foreclosed. It is far from clear how or why such a consensus could be achieved or desired. If I’ve got a mental health issue, I want NHS funding directed toward mental health; if I’ve got cancer, I want NHS funding directed to cancer treatment. What is desirable for 1 person is not desirable for the other. Decisions about how to allocate resources – what should be prioritised – should be political (for good or ill).

 

When the public say Take the Politics Out of It, they mean take the politicians out of it. When politicians say Take the Politics Out of It, they mean take the public out of it. A certain segment of the public and some politicians are happy to take the politics out of democracy, and allow a benign technocratic dictatorship to do politics. Taking politics out of the hands of politicians sounds delightful to a segment of the populous that has little regard for the plebs, and wants politics to be done by “experts”, by unelected bureaucrats. Decision-making becomes the preserve of unaccountable and unnamed officers, the product of officialdom and managerial professionals.

 

Those that seek politics by “experts” believe in a paternalism that makes democracy redundant, because they seek to reverse the view of the demos when they make the “wrong” decision. Where there is a worldview that the “demos” may get the decision “wrong”, elections are sham, because the paternalistic outlook believes that the “experts” must put “right” the bad decision of the demos. If an election is only valid, if the outcome is the “right” decision, there really is no point to the vote at all, and any claim to democracy is a superficial, skin-deep illusion.