Emancipation
England, Northern Ireland, Scotland & Wales
Freedom, It is
so important |
Emancipation, the essential unfinished business for Britain's constitution
The progress in the organization of communities, society and governance in the British Isles has taken place over many centuries. All of the beneficial changes in the physical status of individuals with respect to health, longevity and relative security have arisen from an evolutionary emancipatory process whereby advancing knowledge of humanity and the natural world have given rise to the development and application of technologies and techniques applied to the betterment of the condition of mankind.
In terms of the organization of communities and the governance such emancipation has involved a gradual constitutional process which has supported an evolution in individual freedom & thereby community welbeing. On the other hand, the impacts of constitutional changes have been very slow. This is because all changes in constitution and law involve subsequent changes in habits of both those managing political affairs as well as of the people. However, there has always been a significant negative inertia imposed on the process of emancipation by all political powers. Even those purporting to be defenders of individual freedom have demonstrated in practice a bias towards strenghtening their own institutional power. The outcome has been a manipulation of constitutional provisions through biased interpretation or the introduction of practices which have had the effect of slowing down the emancipation of all Briton's by preventing the population gaining an effective authority and control over the decisions which affect them.
The central problem facing the United Kingdom's political system is its very poor ability to take into account the preferences of the electorate. Preferences are shaped by people's own free expression and the degree to which governance upholds such preferences reflects the degree to which individual freedom is upheld.
Evidence on the current state of affairs
A recent publication1 identified some 58 significant constraints imposed by the political system and which prevent the reflection of preferences in national decision-making.
| Activity | Significant constraints |
| General election | 20 |
| Parliament | 16 |
| House of Lords | 2 |
| Application of the Law | 10 |
| Political party funding | 2 |
| Parliamentary reform | 1 |
| Sovereignty | 7 |
| Whole process | 58 |
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These are all specific instances of where individual free expression is severely curtailed or even prevented.
Analysis
It is notable that the most significant levels of corruption of expression of the free will of the people occurs in the two processes most often held out as being the essence of democratic process. 62% of the major constraints on the free expression of the population as essential inputs to decision-making arise from the way in which general elections and Parliament are managed. On the other hand, contrary to the commonly expressed opinion of British political parties, the House of Lords accounts for 0.3% of these constraints.
Sovereignty
The most significant overall threat to the ability of the people to defend their individual freedom lies in the area of sovereignty. Broadly speaking this relates to increasing subservience of British Law to European Law against a background of increasing decadence in the European legal institutions which are becoming increasingly politicized.
The mechanisms of manipulation of power
British political parties use several mechanisms to manipulate events to sustain their own power in spite of the fact they do not enjoy broad support in the country. Political parties in Britain are small private organizations with a total membership of less than 1% of the total British electorate. They represent an inexpressive proportion of the electorate. And yet they are able to make use of the British electoral system of first-past-the-post to lever the power of their organization made up of less than 1% of the electorate to a position of an absolute voting majority in Parliament whilst enjoying no more that 20% of the support of the total electorate. This minority support on the part of the population is converted, through the Parliamentary majority into a monopoly power over the public sector, some 40% of the economy, and an ability to impose legislation on the majority of the population who never agreed to its implementation. A device used to ensure that the Parliamentary majority remains to support the decisions of the minority faction in government, is to keep MPs who become part of the government (ministers and secretaries) remaining sitting in Parliament and voting on their own proposals. Thus the failure of the British system to separate the government and executive from a free voting Parliament ensures that the minority faction gets its way; an electorate dictatorship.
Lastly, the other principle fraud perpetuated by the political parties is their ability to have their members work in a conflict of interests between constituency positions and those of the political party. In reality, the consituency elects the MP but the MP does not take not of the views of the constutuency but only the views of their party, under the coercion of the party whip. With government positions lying largely in the hand of the Prime Minister who just happens to be the leader of the political party, the power of the Prime Minister over the executive and therefore over the outcome of voting in Parliament is excssive when it is taken into account that the party does not enjoy a majority of support.
Freedom, democracy and the rule of law?
All of these devices reflect a corruption of the political process which results in a failure to uphold individual freedom because there is no freely voting Parliament reflecting the will of the people. Our democracy in not upholding individual freedom, ignores people's preferences. The system, through the control Parliamentary votes by a minority faction enables the rule of law to be substituted by a mechanism whereby they get their own way by using the using law to rule.
The current state of British constitutional settlement represents a failure in progress in emancipation, that is movement towards greater inividual freedom as reflected in a Parliament which responds to the preferences of everyone.
Emancipation, remains the essential unfinished business of our constitution.
1 "The Briton's Quest for Freedom - Our unfinished journey", McNeill, H.W., Hambrook Publishing Company, 2007, ISBN: 9780907833017 |
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