Professor Colin Copus at De Montfort University and author of ‘Party Politics and Local Government’, says the election of independent mayors and the number of independent councillors show that the electorate is willing to embrace non-party figures, and believes that can be an antidote to traditional politics.
"Independents offer an approach that doesn't have a great ideological scheme of the world, and is less likely to degenerate into party political point-scoring and yah-boo politics. Parties have their role to play within any form of democracy, and I'm not arguing for party-free government. But parties produce a political discourse that is really about the advancement of party interests, and we need competition from people who think differently and are able to oppose parties. It is argued that political parties make government easy, but I don't want government to be easy. The more independents and other groups engaged in parliament and engaged in local government, the harder it is to govern, and that's good. It results in a more discursive, more engaged, more consensus-oriented type of politics."
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