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    We all know democracy doesn’t exist anywhere - the problem seems to be that some people thought that Archived Message

    Posted by CJ on August 30, 2019, 12:38 pm, in reply to "The day after"

    their vote at a general election or a referendum should be worth something. Many thought that a GE vote gave the voter power once every 5 years to combine with like minded people to put MPs into power that would help them with their problems! They thought that a referendum would decide a difficult issue and set the path for the country to follow!

    But most people forgot that voting involves making a choice between people or ideas which most of the voters never had a chance of promoting - the candidates are presented to most voters and they have to choose only from that list. Only those with enough funds and support and media coverage are able to stand for election - so most people never get to select the candidates, and for a referendum they never get to select the question. So any attempt at democracy falls at this first hurdle.

    The second hurdle in a “representative democracy” is that there is an automatic conflict between local issues and national issues and this is reflected in MPs acting on their own local promises and those same MPs acting in concert with others within a political party on issues that go beyond individual constituencies and affect national or international events. Unless national and international issues are separated from local issues by having different representatives covering the two it will never be possible to criticise MPs for taking any decision as they can follow party or local policies and even ignore both if an MP can claim to be following their own conscience!



    With Brexit we have the worst of all worlds - a combination of a referendum on a loosely worded question together with unaccountable organisations claiming to speak for sides of the argument with conflicting statements from both, and finally mixed into party political wrangling within and outside parties where power and who wields it is the only concern.

    It is against this background that we have to look at the behaviour of our politicians and media pundits.

    Finally we have to bring in the MSM through whom most get their “information” - I include social media platforms within the term MSM, for this purpose. We have been informed that X will follow if we vote Y e.g. if we vote in a referendum all the parties have agreed to stand by the result. Unfortunately no-one bothered to define X and this has conveniently been left to the party in power.
    We have also been informed that if our MPs we voted for in a GE form a majority in Parliament that they will be in charge of the supreme “sovereign power”. Of course no-one explained that they will be sovereign only within the confines of the rules of the system which include the power of the executive to send MPs on holiday for however long they can stretch it for within the bounds of precedent. For holiday breaks and party conference breaks the system allows MPS to object to a break if the majority vote to remain sitting - but the executive has total control over prorogation which it seems has never been challenged by the House of Commons. The crucial issue is : for what reason is Parliament being dismissed and are there sound reasons for this dismissal to be challenged.
    I would suggest that whether we are talking holiday breaks, conference breaks or breaks for a Queen’s speech - these are all minute compared to the need of Parliament to watch over the direction of the management of the country which would be affected by Brexit over decades.

    The Government and civil service are fully aware of the implications of restricting parliamentary scrutiny at this crucial juncture and every voter should remember that in future their once in every 5 year vote is only worth anything if the government allows it. Such is the true nature of our so-called representative democracy.

    One last thought for people who wanted to take back control - the person doing this was born in the US and only recently gave up his US citizenship.

    Don’t they just love it when a plan comes together!


    cheers

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