Grocery retailer Iceland has pledged to present its customers a voice within the upcoming UK election. If that seems like a great idea, our democracy could be in trouble.
There are prone to be general elections within the United Kingdom second half of 2024 if greater than 45 million Registered voters have their say. There will even be countless opinion polls on voting intentions and the parties and their policies.
Some voters may additionally express their views through one other platform. Iceland recently announced it could be launching one “Customer Choice Manifesto”.
The idea is that a bunch of seven customers meet monthly and present their views on political issues within the run-up to the election. These will then be combined with surveys of 6,000 regular customers, which the retailer will publish as a “manifesto” over the summer and share with political parties.
At first glance, Iceland's customer manifesto seems like a fairly good idea. UK polls and elsewhere recurrently reveal that individuals don’t trust politicians to make decisions that improve their lives.
With Iceland's support, customers are rather more prone to bring their views to politicians and maybe even take motion. As Icelandic CEO Richard Walker said on the time of the announcement: “Customers have told me they are tired of being told what is important to them and want to take their chance to be the voice of the high street.” The Island Manifesto is their probability , to do exactly that.”
Iceland's reinforcing potential is especially great because Walker himself could be very politically energetic. He has been a vocal activist on social and environmental issues and in 2022 he’s introduced himself to run as a Conservative MP. More recently he has switched allegiances and now publicly supports Labor.
Such politically engaged executives are more likely than most to bring their customers' views to politicians.
However, the Icelandic manifesto also raises some troubling questions on what the corporate wants to attain. While corporate involvement in politics all the time raises eyebrows, Walker has long maintained “Iceland is apolitical”.
How he reconciles this claim with the proven fact that the corporate becomes a political platform for its customers requires further examination. One explanation could possibly be that Iceland sees itself as an impartial translator of its customers' political preferences to politicians. Ultimately, this will not be the dealer’s opinion; they’re simply those of his customers.
However, the concept each company stays neutral in all of this and plays no role in deciding what issues to boost with its customers and prioritize within the manifesto is difficult to sustain.
It seems not possible that positions which are contrary to the corporate's interests shall be prioritized in customer discussions or in the ultimate manifesto. Iceland tells us that that is the voice of the shopper, but it surely is the corporate that decides exactly what that voice should say and the way it should say it.
Basic problems
There are two big problems behind this. The first reason is the shortage of any external transparency of the method. Political participation, for instance Lobbyingis usually viewed as more democratic when it’s transparent.
However, Iceland has not committed to releasing the transcripts of its conversations with customers or politicians, nor the polls the country will use to form opinions. We simply must depend on the opinions of corporations and communicate them to politicians.
A second major problem concerns the methodology. Political surveys and focus group approaches have well-established methods to make sure their accuracy and validity. However, official polling institutes often make mistakes.
However, within the case of the Iceland Manifesto, there may be little evidence of any try to use robust research approaches. Relying on a core group of just seven panel members is already a red flag, especially when there is no such thing as a details about how representative they’re of the broader population of Icelandic customers.
And if the initial Reports If the primary panel meeting is anything to go by, statements like “100% claimed” and “83% said” are essentially meaningless from a statistical perspective, as they really mean “seven out of seven claimed” and “six didn't say out of seven said”.
Giving percentages from a sample of seven people is just bad practice and doesn’t bode well for sound scientific research into political views.
So should we welcome the Iceland Manifesto? Given these problems, the manifesto appears to be a case of great idea and poor execution. Finding latest and higher ways to hearken to residents is vital to revitalizing our democracy. In principle, there is no such thing as a reason why a dealer shouldn’t play a task on this.
However, retailers are private entities with primarily business objectives, and their role in collecting and reporting political views have to be rigorously planned to be sure that it’s legitimate. Why do you have to consider me? Because 100% of the individuals who wrote this text agree.
An Icelandic spokesperson told The Conversation:
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