Wouldn't It be nice if Everyone Boycotted the Tories.

The British government is increasingly revealing its authoritarian nature with its latest initiative that is a quite serious attack on democracy and freedom. All publicly funded bodies are to be banned in law from boycotting certain companies and particularly Israeli interests. Local councils, public and student bodies for example, refuse to buy from, or trade with, those considered to be unethical companies such as firms engaged in the arms trade, tobacco companies etc. In addition, they have deeply held convictions about Israeli policy towards the Palestinians and so exercise a boycott policy towards particular Israeli based firms. Now, whether they are right to do so is one question, and whether they have a right to do so is something quite different. The answer is that of course they have every right to do so, even if you or I deeply disagree with their decision. I have been a very keen student of the Arab/Israeli conflict all of my life and have very definite views about it. However, my views are of no importance on this issue, because this is not an issue about foreign policy or the Middle /East conflict, but about human individual and collective rights. This is about democracy and freedom and about the limits of central government. If a local authority engages in activities that people feel are unacceptable, we have a perfectly satisfactory sanction against them to prevent them doing it. It is called an election where we can vote them out of office. However, if their activity satisfies the majority of the people under their care, then it is absolutely no business of central government regardless of how odious they find it, and we ignore such central government interference at our peril.

I boycott many things. In my daily life I exercise my right to choose who I will deal with and who I wont. For example, I have never bought a Sun newspaper in my life. Neither have I bought a Daily Mail nor a Daily Express. I refuse to allow a government minister into my home and so, if the Camoron or any of his henchmen appear on my TV I immediately switch channels as I would have to move out of my home for a time to allow it to be deloused and fumigated if one of these creatures fouled my house by their presence. Mad Tony has been barred from my home since 1999. I have never bought a spoonful of petrol from Shell in my life. I could go on, but you get the point. You may think I am mad and I can assure you that you would be quite accurate, but those are my choices. If I am in a waiting room or a public place and they are providing newspapers for my convenience, I will read the Sun etc. to ensure that I am still doing the right thing. I often peruse the Mail and the Express in a tearoom that I frequent as it reinforces my conviction that they are deserving of my contempt and refusal to give them a halfpenny. You may think that is being hypocritical but it is my way of checking my own behaviour and that I am not being unjust towards those I hold in contempt. In his book '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.’

Thus, if the people of London, Glasgow, or Moreton-on-the-Marsh, wish to impose a boycott then that is their right, even if their motivation is wrong in your eyes. The people in Liverpool deserve our congratulations and praise for maintaining a very honourable boycott of The Sun over its deplorable and deeply dishonest coverage of the Hillsborough disaster. Another important point of understanding is that local government must genuinely mean government and not simply local administration. A proper system of democracy demands genuine limited government with clearly defined independent centres of power, legitimacy of power and decision-making, genuine representation and as wide a dispersal of power as is necessary. For example, representation in the Westminster pigsty is quite farcical and would be considered a standing joke were it not for the  serious repercussions it has on this poor democratically deficient nation. As a result, local government is not an additional extra, it is a necessary requirement for a healthy and functional political system. 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 or anywhere else, it is argued that 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. As local government enjoys a degree of autonomy from the centre, the power of the state is therefore fragmented and limited, indeed the elimination of local government is generally taken as a symptom of totalitarianism, a development within British politics I have now been highlighting for some years now, with one of the prime symptoms being an unrelenting war against local government.

The diversity of life in any modern state 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 London or Glasgow will be markedly different in style and implementation from that in Ross and Cromarty or Cornwall. 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. It is for those reasons that a decision (such as a boycott) by a local authority or any other autonomous body is none of central government's business and its intervention should be resisted as powerfully as is necessary. Thus, in response to this government's quite stupid proposal, I suggest we all boycott the Tory Party as a first step towards Britain regaining a semblance of civilisation. You have been warned.

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat