[Ed: this concluding Part II continues from Part I which you can read here]
(2.10) In NO British General Election did millions of voters say ‘I have read every Party Manifesto, and I wholeheartedly approve of EVERY policy of THIS party and wholeheartedly disapprove of EVERY police of EVERY OTHER PARTY.’
(2.11) In NO British General Election did millions of voters say ‘We live in a REPRESENTATIVE democracy, so I’m going to vote for THIS candidate because he (or she) is one of the 650 most knowledgeable, most talented, and most rational people in the country. He (or she) can take whatever decision he (or she) likes, and do whatever the hell he (or she) likes because by placing my cross next to his (or her) name I am authorising him (or her) to take decisions on my behalf. I am authorising this candidate to ignore any promise made in his (or her) party’s manifesto.’
(3.1) In the 2017 British General Election, of the 32,161,991 crosses available, Theresa May got 37,718 or them. THAT IS – 99.88272492209826% of the electorate DID NOT vote to make Theresa May a Member of Parliament.
(3.2) In the 2017 British General Election, no one in the constituency of Louth and Horncastle said ‘I’m going to vote for Victoria Atkins BECAUSE I want Dawn Butler to attack James Oliver because she decided he used the word Jerk inappropriately.’
(3.3) China affects Britain. No one in Britain voted for Liu Kun.
(3.4) Saudi Arabia affects Britain. No one in Britain voted for Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud.
(3.5) No one in the UKofGBandNI voted for Leo Eric Varadkar. Yet he is affecting the electorate of the UKofGBandNI.
(3.6) James O’Brien’s parents conceived him. His mother gave birth to him. He has an effect on the climate of opinion. Who voted for that?
(4.1) et cetera.
So – What might Sherlock Holmes conclude from the above? I suspect he might conclude that the “Rule by the People” is not what it’s made out to be – Not what the likes of Nick Clegg, Chuka Umunna, and Baron “Alf” Dubs make it out to be. It does not mean “Rule by anyone and everyone who doesn’t wear a powdered wig, listen to harpsichord music, and walk around holding a perfumed handkerchief under his nose.”
I suspect Holmes would detect, as did Locke, the ‘frivolous use of uncouth, affected, or unintelligible terms’ and ‘vague and insignificant forms of speech, and abuse of language’ and ‘misapplied words, with little or no meaning’.
I suspect he’d detect confusion – an Orwellian fog designed to disguise rather than describe or designate.
I suspect he’d detect something as intangible as a four-sided triangle.
But what, then, is Democracy?
It might be something like – Rule by SOME people which 70-80% of the electorate didn’t ACTIVELY vote FOR, or voted actively AGAINST.
‘Somewhere between 70% and 100% of the electorate’, Sherlock Holmes might say ‘put their crosses (including tacit crosses) against the LEAST WORST OPTION. That is, they put their crosses at the side of the candidate they think MIGHT DO the LEAST BAD. They do not VOTE FOR the candidate they KNOW will do the MOST GOOD.’
They vote, on balance, to keep the WORST OUT.
So, to ask again, what is Democracy?
Aristotle, Politics, 131b6 – 1319a24, might give us a clue –
The many are more interested in making money than in winning honours. An indication of this is to be found in the fact that they put with tyrannies in the old days and oligarchies at the present time … To have the sovereign power to vote at elections and to scrutinise outgoing officials makes up for any deficiencies which those who have ambition may feel … Also, the class of person which is constantly milling around the city and the market-place, can all too easily attend the assembly. On the other hand, in a population dispersed over the country; its members neither appear at meetings nor feel the need of such gatherings to the same extent. And, in addition, where the people are widely dispersed, it is easy to make a good democracy and polity: the population have their homes far away from the market-place.
In other words – To give them the illusion of power, allow them to stick a cross on a bit of paper every five years, and make the actual processes of government, the barriers to government, so tortuous and tangled and labyrinthine that anyone who has to spend time making a living will be selected out and driven away.
Democracy is an illusion. It’s as intangible as a four-sided triangle. Some of us have known this for a long time. Since 2016, it should have become obvious to everyone.
Of course, some people don’t give a toss about democracy, freedom, or winning honours; they’re happy just sitting in front of their 60-inch screens and shovelling pig swill down their throats. These people we know as Remainers.
Very entertaining comments. – I had never thought of your description of ‘Remainers’ in quite the same terms, so well done !
I feel that one good point of the ‘Make Votes Matter’ movement, is that the end of FPTP will bring to an end ‘Strategic Voting’, and at last we can concentrate on what we want, rather than what we don’t want ! As for a Party of Government ditching manifesto promises, this has an effect by being remembered by a voter, (or is that just me ?). UKIP has a huge advantage in that matter as they have no Governmental past, and therefore can’t be tripped up on that. (The Lib-Dems coalition with the Tory Party comes to mind, with their manifesto commitment of binning education fees, for the joy of Mr Clegg becoming Deputy PM). All that being said, it is a wonder to me that so many folk vote for the old Parties at all. – We must all be a most forgiving lot of people !
Let’s not get too deep into this slough of despond or we will all be giving up and joining the remaoners in front of the TV with their pigswill. The voters have the power to upset the current cosy applecart provided that somebody decent stands for their interests – we just have to persuade them . . . and given that our current politicos are now so obviously working for someone else, our task becomes easier by the day – in many cases we are pushing at an open door. Yes we need to correct our deficiencies, yes we need to guard against infiltration, yes we need to align our policies more closely with our objectives (and we need to define these more closely too!) but if not us, then who?
Let’s look at what we can do, and not dwell on how dreadful it all is today. We are the agents of change and the first priority is to agree on the changes, and how we get them. We need a policy team to work through the detail. The interim manifesto acknowledges this in its very name.
I didn’t intend it as a council of despair. Quite the opposite. Democracy is an illusion. So I can see only one alternative. If I gave details – I’d be arrested.
So how do you justify your membership of UKIP, which is a Party wedded to democracy?
I agree that our current democracy is illusionary, but surely our task is to get elected and to transform our democracy by democratic means to something that is not so open to corruption? No doubt matters would see-saw from there, but the price of freedom is eternal vigilance . . .
As I stated – This piece is not intended as a counsel of despair. If you can give me a better analysis of Democracy than that given by Aristotle, I’d be glad to hear (or read) it. You can’t be suggesting that, for example, Diane Abbott is in any way better than Jean-Claude Juncker. They’re as bad as each other.
Given that are politicians are owned by the central banks for which they are just pimps and debt collectors the situation is even worse than this article suggests.
The government borrows money from the central bank against future taxation and as the debt gets bigger, we’ll never be able to pay enough taxes to service the debt, letting millions of immigrants into the country is one possible solution, but even that will have its day.
Banks use debt as a weapon to exert control over our country and its politicians, while they slowly asset strip our country.
As the article suggests and I agree: democracy is a complete farce, just like the law is an ass.
The Bank of England is owned by HM Treasury; the Treasury raises money either through taxation or the issuance of Treasury bonds. The National debt relates to the total value of unredeemed Treasury bonds.
@forthurst Could you enlighten as to where the debt created by quantitative easing fit into this arrangement?
Quantitative Easing does not create new debt as it involves the purchase of previously issued Treasury bonds.
@forthhurst Sorry for labouring this one but I can’t work out where, if the government is already hugely in debt, does the government find the money to purchase the previously issued Treasury bonds?
Hi Jake, the BoE creates it.
“However even though the Bank of England is now state owned its important to note that up to 97% of the UK’s money supply is privately controlled being in the form of interest bearing loans created by the big commercial banks.
The bank holds very little government stock and the Bank’s profits primarily come from the issuing of coins and notes for use by high street banks. Therefore it seems the Bank of England has reduced in size and importance over the years and is now mainly a regulatory body that oversees the existing banking system and since the 1997 Labour government it’s main role is to control inflation and the base interest rate used by the country.
Referred to as “the lender of last resort” one of it’s other main functions as “the bankers bank” is to support banks that get into difficulty such as during the financial melt down of 2008.
On the surface at least it seems that the Bank of England has returned to state control however in America the Federal Reserve is still a privately controlled bank. This comes as a surprise to many people who don’t know the history of the preceding US central banks that went before it but were closed down due to worries that the bankers had too much power.”
http://www.darkpolitricks.com/2013/01/who-owns-the-bank-of-england/
I agree that our representative ‘democracy’ is neither democratic nor representative. It was proven by the Gina Miller legal action that MPs have the right to ignore the expressed will of the majority. The antics of our political establishment since the EU referendum demonstrate the contempt that many of our so called ‘representatives’ have for the views of the voters. However, there does exist a system of democracy in which the majority of the electorate have the right to directly influence policy.
Switzerland’s system of direct democracy, in which referenda decisions are mandatory, seems to ensure that Switzerland regularly features in the top five of the world’s happiest countries. In the light of the Swiss experience, it seems regrettable that UKIP seems to have retreated from its former commitment to a limited form direct democracy.
http://direct-democracy.geschichte-schweiz.ch/
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Absolutely splendid. Can I put it on a leaflet please.?
Please do. I’m assuming it’ll be alright with the Ed’.