Emancipation
England, Northern Ireland, Scotland & Wales
The Parliamentary resolution of the European Treaty - where British liberals are failing
Most European Treaties agreed to by different British governments of the day were not ratified by the people of Britain in a referendum. This has been a serious defect in our system because the electorate was not involved in such decisions and the political parties, wishing to sustain this state of affairs, discouraged politicians making the required efforts to understand and to articulate to the electorate what was involved and what the likely outcome of each decision would be. This tendency of governance to prevent an effective role for direct public participation in decisions has been exacerbated by the British Parliament having become a forum where minority governing parties force through their decisions, on the basis of the Whip, on the majority. The meaning of the term "minority governing party" simply means that British general elections have, for some time now, resulted in the formation of governments where the party of government has an absolute minority of votes in comparison with the total size of the electorate. The current Labour government enjoys the support, as reflected in general election votes, of the equivalent to just 19% of the British electorate. The first past the post electoral system essentially converts this minority status of national support into one of a majority status of votes in the House of Commons. Thus we have governments who are in power but who do not enjoy the support of the majority of the people of Britain. Their House of Commons governing party voting majority, not to be confused with any electorate majority support, enables them to enforce their own policies on the majority of the population. It is important to acknowledge that this has been a basis for decision making in the United Kingdom throughout the time following our accession to the European Union in 1975.
It is therefore somewhat alarming that these minority factions, either as the Labour party of Conservative party, have taken decisions which have paid no regard to the majority, and worked to increase the power of the European Union institutions over decisions affecting the people of Britain. In doing so they have also handed over decision-making on a wide range of issues to the European Court. This process continues to advance without the support of the majority of the people of Britain and as such our political evolution is not driven by any values or principles of participatory democracy.
The British political party system has been geared more towards the survival and the defence of the power of these tiny private organizations than in seeking to widen the degree of participation of the people of Britain in the decisions which affect them.
A current evolution of a more liberal agenda on the domestic front speaks of government having become more arbitrary and authoritarian and for the need for people to gain command over the decisions which affect them. And yet, amongst the people who advance this position there are those who undermine such liberal principles through their refusal to acknowledge the fact that most European Treaties were agreed to without the participation and therefore without the full agreement of the people of Britain. Past agreements to European Treaties have been thoroughly inequitous for they were not based upon any sense of the majority position. It is therefore unacceptable to set such behaviour as a standard against which to judge similar unscrupulous behaviour by political parties today. But this is exactly what political parties are doing. Even with all political parties admitting the need for a referendum on the European Constitution, two parties have now reverted to denying any such participatory involvement of the people on the shabby basis that past European Treaty decisions took place on the basis of ignoring the views of the population. On this dubious standard they now refuse to hold a referendum. On the other hand the position of the Liberal Democrats is very disappointing and, indeed, even more unacceptable because with an even smaller proportion of the British electorate's support, they are seeking to force their own party position, which is also to refuse participatory decision making, on the majority of the electorate, hiding behind Labour's renaging on a referendum promise. In terms of moral and ethical standing the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats stand as perverse examples of those who do not trust the people of this country to make their own decisions on matters of importance to them.
Rather than acknowledge the inequity of this arbitrary behaviour on the part of political parties in government, these factions struggle, not to promote democracy, but to effectively prevent a more open vote on major European decisions, and in particular, this Treaty. The Liberal Democrats have committed the fundamental sin of inconsistency under their new leader, Nick Clegg, by undermining their work to distinguish themslves as being more pro-participatory on a range of issues by openly rubbishing this philosophy through an overt demonstration of refusal to admit the lack of fairness in having Parliament decide on the ratification of the European Treaty. Because of our inequitous general election system which elects political party representatives as opposed to faithful community representatives, and where the government party only has a massive majority in Parliament and not in the country, debate and review are essentially irrelevant; the outcome is given. MPs want to give a show of participatory democracy, of "debate" and of "decision making" being undertaken "as it should be" in Parliament. But this folly is a thinly veiled attempt to camouflage the disgraceful process of their colluding in a decision to run roughshod over the majority of the electorate and, indeed, over the Parliamentary opposition. And yet all parties mumble and try to fool the public into thinking that voting on a fait accomplis Treaty has some meaning. The captive intellectually-shackled Members of Parliament continue to take their leads from their shabby parties and shun the people who put them into power and whom they barefacedly pretend to represent.
A commitment to liberalism requires a commitment to the right of individuals to have the power to influence all of the decisions which affect them. This includes commitments to be made by the nation under any European Treaty. The fact that political parties, and currently these being the Labour party and the Liberal Democratic party do not want the people of Britain to be able to decide on this matter is an outstanding example of how minority factions can get their way in a selfish manner and impose their view of the world on the majority of the British electorate.
Freedom, it
is so important
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This shameful behaviour will continue until the people of Britain realise that such political parties are not a force for emancipation but rather are reactionary factions who work to prevent the free expression of preferences of the people.
Political parties far from being essential to democracy are destroying it. MPs and the managers of these tiny private organizations possess the appropriate visceral insticts to grope carefully forwards towards their shifting objectives of self-interest whilst making sure the people of Britain have no say in what those objectives might be.
Lastly, the Conservative party are avoiding a question which has arisen from their support for a referendum. This is that if the treaty were ratified by Parliament, which is likely to happen against the will of the people, would they insist on a referendum if they were elected. The answer to this question on ethical and moral grounds and in line with the imperative to uphold a more participatory democracy in Britain is yes. The reason David Cameron cannot say this, but quibbles by stating he does not want to answer hypothetical questions, is not that he feels it would be wrong to do so, but rather because he fears the reaction of segments of his own political party. So even, on this question, where some idividuals express views closer to those of the people, we continue to see the destructive and arbitrary sway of the will of British political parties. Such tiny private organizations bent on power have become destructive to the prevalence of common sense. Political parties have become a highly corrosive and subversive element in the ability of the people to uphold individual freedom and a community participation founded upon such freedom. |
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