Now if we all stopped voting that way and voted for the candidate himself, then no candidate would fear his party and so party loyalty would just dissipate to a reasonable degree at least.
Agreed. But how is that going to happen? To make that happen itself needs a national leader, and you won’t get one without a political party. It is a vicious circle.
No national leader can solve this. If we vote party, then it's nearly guaranteed that the party leader is going to be the greatest of party hacks. He certainly won't want to undermine the party he worships. And if a certain MP does support the freedom of MP's to vote their conscience, he'll never become PM as long as we vote party.
So how do we change it? At the grassroots. There are all kinds of great ideas in life that people will support in word, but will wait for others to take the lead. Personally, I say if it's a good idea, I'll do it. If it fails, at least it won't be because of me. To take some examples:
Some people will say that the idea of Esperanto is a great idea for protecting lanuage justice, and if everyone else should learn it, they will too. See the flaw in that logic? Someone's got to be the first to learn it, but the first to learn it is not likely to see results. This means that he has to be willing to learn it for its own sake, but because of any reward that accrues from it, in the hope that he can blaze the trail for future generations.
Same applies with voting. I vote candidate even if I know that the best candidate doesn't stand a chance. My hope is that others will follow my lead.
In both of the examples, above, the simple thing is this: If it's a good idea, do it. if it fails owing to lack of support, at least you won't be to blame.
Some peopel have given their lives for a cause. Can we not give a bit of our time to a cause? Small sacrifice, really.
