IT’S the oldest question in local politics – to party or not to party?Every once in a while, somebody suggests there could be benefits from party politics but the idea is rarely transformed from rhetoric into reality. The most recent serious attempt to establish parties came in the post-war years with the Guernsey Labour Group. It even managed to get some members elected, but this pioneering movement quickly fizzled out.

Since then there have been various party-like groupings outside the States. Remember the Guernsey Independence Party, led by Dr Baxter in the 1990s? I went along to one of their rallies for Channel Television and was bemused to find them addressing the audience against a backdrop of a large union flag. It turned out they were less interested in Guernsey independence than in seeing the UK quit the EU. In effect, it was a local branch of UKIP.

Currently, we have a political coterie calling itself the Guernsey Reform Group. This collection of politically-interested residents is unsure whether it wants to morph into a full-blown political party, but is in the process of drawing up a collective manifesto on which to invite candidates to stand in 2012. To my mind, that clearly makes it a political party but whether it will ever make the leap from backroom discussions to the hustings platform remains to be seen.

Of course, various States members past and present have been involved in UK political parties. Deputy Dave Jones uniquely manages to balance a dislike of the UK and its politics with active support for UKIP. Maybe the fact that they’ve never even come close to getting anybody elected as a Westminster MP makes them acceptable.

When Deputy Rhoderick Matthews was trying to get into local politics, he had really bad luck in the timing of elections. Aby-election came up in St Andrew’s at the same time as a council election he was fighting in the UK for his own, one-man ‘Electoral Reform Party’. Which election should he contest? In the end, he went for both and lost both.

I was a member of the Ecology Party – later the Green Party – when I was first elected to the States in 1982. A bit like UKIP, I suspect that was deemed acceptable by local voters on the basis that it was such a fringe party that it didn’t really count.

Over the years there have also been frequent allegations that various groups of deputies within the States act like ‘quasi-parties’ and always vote together.

Some of the senior members in the 1980s put me in a grouping that they dubbed the Flat Earth Society, together with Deputy Dave Fletcher and various other members whose ideas seemed wacky to the old school then but which are mainstream today.

In reality, I have never seen any hint of real party politics among States members.

Certainly some come together and act in concert on particular issues. Some may have similar political philosophies and therefore tend to vote together more often than not.

Very occasionally there can be examples of disgraceful political manoeuvring by small gangs of deputies with an axe to grind.

But a comprehensive and cohesive set of policies for the future of Guernsey, towards which a group of deputies work together?

I’ve never seen it. I doubt most States members have either the vision or discipline to create such a quasi-party.

Of course, the existence of such a cohesive programme would be the big advantage of real party politics. If a majority of deputies were elected on a common vision to which they had all committed – even if it meant compromising some of their personal views – then there would be a chance of real progress. No longer would one policy frustrate another as shifting alliances produced illogical and contradictory decisions.

It all sounds fine, but the downsides are considerable. Scarce talent squandered in opposition, see-saw politics as different parties gain power, members no longer able to vote the way that they honestly think is in Guernsey’s best interest on every issue.

It won’t happen any time soon.

Not least because most islanders don’t like the idea and so are less likely to vote for a party candidate.

Maybe one day that will change, but I doubt it will be in my lifetime.Party people