Thursday 26 May 2016

Britain a democracy? I don't think so!

The odds on Britain staying in the EU are getting stronger with the average odds from the top 12 betting organisations showing 1/5 to stay and 4/1 to leave. If this is accurate then the opinion polls are getting it pretty wrong and the support for remaining is far stronger than the polls suggest. For those of you from outside this sorry nation who read this, regardless of which side you support in this upcoming referendum, you would find it hard to believe the lies and disinformation spewing out of both camps in their efforts to persuade a public who are simply obsessed with immigrants. As I have warned repeatedly, Britain is in danger of slipping into a right-wing scapegoat mentality that borders on fascism. This has to be the most unintelligent and irrational campaign I have witnessed in my lifetime. I really thought that the Westminster pigsty had hit rock bottom in the Scottish referendum, but this one is even worse and shows the Tories up for the vermin that they really are as the hatred they exhibit for each other and for foreigners in general is nauseous. Britain truly has the most appalling political leadership imaginable; right across the political spectrum we are being led by a bunch of pathological lying criminals. Even within the newly elected SNP group we are witnessing people being beset by scandal and sleaze. I mean, where on earth do they dig such people up from?

Britain is a good example of what happens when the political system produces a leadership elite that becomes unaccountable and out of public control, and make no mistake it is the system that is doing it and entrenching it, the biggest culprit being the first-past-the-post electoral system. Britain is supposed to be a liberal democracy. Our political institutions evolved from a liberal democratic framework, buttressed by a liberal democratic ideology. However, to witness how far Britain has moved from its liberal democratic roots, we must note how the principal concept within liberal democracy is the concept of limited government. This means that government must be limited, both institutionally and in terms of power. Liberal government is accountable government, and must therefore be responsive to the wishes of those it serves. In addition, liberal government requires a genuine dispersal of power throughout society, and real choice and participation available to the citizens of that society. Liberal democracy, to be meaningful and effective, requires the existence of what are known as independent centres of power. In Britain, the two best examples of this principle have been the institutions of trade unions and local government, those institutions that governments of all persuasions have, since the election of Thatcher, waged continuous and unrelenting war against. It is surely obvious to even outsiders that Britain has abandoned limited government, choice, accountability and all the rest of the pillars of liberal democracy. As I constantly write we are governed by a pigsty that completely refuses, limitations on its power, accountability, representation and effective participation.


The underlying principle of liberal government can be described as the principle of subsidiary function. This means that, if any subsidiary organisation can perform a function efficiently and satisfactorily, then it should be allowed to do so, free from interference from the central power. The fundamental essence of a move towards totalitarianism is the degree to which governments remove power, autonomy and freedom from trades unions and local governments. Britain has gone a very long way down that route. The principle of subsidiary function means that, within a state structure there are many functions that can be readily achieved and managed by subsidiary organisations within the state. Education, housing, cleansing, policing etc. are all examples of functions that are usually considered to be better performed by subsidiaries rather than by the central authority and should never be farmed out to the private sector. This allows for a genuine dispersal of power and decision-making, but also provides the citizen with choice and opportunities for participation in the political life of the society. Very importantly, it provides for accountability. The central concept of such ideas is that the people of Glasgow, Manchester, Edinburgh etc. know what is in their own best interests, rather than someone from London who has never seen these places.


Another aspect of a democracy is that it needs to be representative, not a handpicked collection of white, male public schoolboys dominating all parties. It needs to be representative in terms of class, gender, race, ethnicity, and trades and professions. But above all it needs to be representative in terms of regions and localities. The penultimate Labour MP my constituency had was a handpicked barrister who lived 75 miles away and who only visited the constituency when it suited him. He actually used to hold meetings with his constituents in a local supermarket cafeteria. Needless to say Labour lost this constituency at the last election. The major political problem throughout the Western nations is an unrelenting centralism. Now, the EU is bad for that and desperately needs reform, but if we support Brexit and the sociopaths who are its leading spokespeople, then what is left of any semblance of democracy, along with all of our human rights, will disappear like snow off a dyke. You have been warned.

 Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat

No comments:

Post a Comment