Democracy must go

A good insight into the mind of a neoliberal elitist was displayed on Question Time last night by the Daily Telegraph journalist Peter Oborne. During a debate on energy, Oborne was promoting the need for a much expanded programme of fracking, the controversial and environmentally damaging method of tapping into gas resources. He got quite agitated because as most people are very opposed to such activities being conducted in their own neighbourhood, local authorities are very reluctant to grant licences for fracking to take place. Without actually saying so, Oborne indicated that central government should override local councils by making the statement that 'democracy can be an impediment.'

What Oborne was suggesting was the wishes of local residents should simply be ignored because there is a greater need at stake and the locals are simply too selfish and too stupid to be trusted with making decisions that directly affect them. This is exactly the attitude that Blair employed over the war in Iraq.

Since the election of Thatcher, local authorities have been systematically stripped of all their traditional functions and been subjected to endless reform based on neutering them and centralising their functions so that they can be privatised. In his ‘Representative Government’ John Stuart Mill argues that

‘The very object of having a local representation, is in order that those who have any interest in common which they do not share with the general body of their countrymen may manage that joint interest by themselves.’

A genuine Liberal and democratic society requires a system of limited government with defined independent centres of power. It requires legitimacy and representation and as wide a dispersal of power as is necessary. The principle of local government is designed to satisfy such requirements as is neatly summed up by Mill. If such local responsibility were to be replaced by centralised administration from London, such local individuality of approach would be sacrificed to uniformity, and that the adaptability of local decision-making would give way to rigidity and the centralised imposition of a bureaucratic ‘only one way’ of doing things, and I trust I don't have to remind you that the repeated mantra of the neoliberals is that there is no alternative. As local government enjoys a degree of autonomy from the centre, the power of the state is therefore fragmented and limited. As the political theorist John Kingdom notes, the elimination of local government is generally taken as a symptom of totalitarianism.

Kingdom notes that local government is found in virtually all developed states as a complement to central government and is generally seen as a sign of a healthy democracy. The diversity of life in a modern state such as Britain requires different approaches to similar problems. For example, consider policing or refuse collection. It is not rocket science to understand that the solutions to both such fundamental requirements of modern life require differing methods of implementation in different locations. Policing and refuse collection in the City of Glasgow will be markedly different in style and implementation from that in Ross and Cromarty. The principles remain the same, but the methodology will differ quite considerably. As a result, direct responsibility for the government of a locality can harness powerful forces on behalf of that community and imaginative and meaningful solutions to local issues.

As I've continually stated in this blog, the dominant free marketeers in our society will not tolerate constraints on their activities. Oborne highlights a serious threat to our nation as he openly states that democracy is now a nuisance; his words should not be taken lightly. You have been warned. We must get free from the corruption of Westminster as soon as we can.

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat