It is difficult to define the boundaries of democracy. Democracy is not just rule by the most popular faction. It is the process which everyone can feel part of; the system which guarantees everyone the same freedoms and confidence that they are being treated fairly by it. It is the structure which allows peaceful, open and honest debate between people who are ideologically opposed but agree that the structure should be supported come-what-may. It is the balance of power between “leaders” and “led”. Democracy is the rule of law and due process.
Britain was a democratic country long before it had elections to the House of Commons. The people forged the move from Catholicism to Protestantism. The people led the revolution from serfdom to the free market. The people abolished the Corn Laws and embraced free trade. However you define “democracy” it is clear that Britain is no longer a democratic country. A leader who was not elected now leads a cabinet of appointees undertaking polices which the people do not support. Specific manifesto promises have been smashed, proposed reforms make the last election seem a very long time ago. That the Prime Minister is left only with disgraced figures such as Mandelson, Darling and Hain and odd-ball outsiders such as Glenys Kinnock shows how few people of talent there are on the red side of the green benches of our elected chamber.
By why should Gordon Brown care about such electoral niceties? He was not elected to his current role. He regards the political process as an archaic way to get what he wants, rather than an enlightened way of reflecting the mood of the country. He regards himself as superior to all other beings. He believes he has some divinely-defined duty to perform before he leaves office.
Not long ago, his deputy, Little Mrs Dromie told us that people should be judged “in the court of public opinion”. Labour has just been judged in the court of free and fair elections. Labour has been found wanting. Labour lost more than half the seats it contested on Thursday. It lost all the counties it contested on Thursday. But that is of no importance to Gordon Brown. His word is law, according to himself and Ms Harman. An election is unacceptable and therefore it will not be accepted. Gordon rules by divine right and by decree.
Britain now has the kind of political system its citizens used to laugh at in other countries.
The other day I proposed some far-reaching changes to our political system. Many of you objected. I think you were right. My mind was changed when I saw Liberal Democrats arguing for a constitutional revolution. Britain’s long term political success has been based on piecemeal reforms and the people asserting their views on the ruling elite. The very democracy we cherish is based on glacial reform and historical anomaly. We are not allied to the continental view that the perfect constitution can be dreamt up and written down by the nations chief intellectuals. Britain doesn’t go in for intellectualism. Thank God.
We do not need some New Republic. We do not need proportional representation or a written constitution. But we do need leaders who respect the system within which they work. Brown does not respect the traditions nor the people he wishes to rule.
Brown will cling on until the bitter end. Of that we can be sure. But the electorate has learned a valuable lesson. We shall never allow this situation to arise again. We shall demand a method of removing the incumbent parliament before its five years have expired. We shall demand a means of deciding whether a new Prime Minister should take over without an election. We shall demand a stronger parliament to hold our government to account.
But first Gordon must go. He cannot “clean up politics”. He cannot “tackle the recession”. He has no right, no mandate, no respect, no good will. Gordon must go. We must have an election.
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Cameron could force a general election by ordering his MPs to resign.
The fact is that it is not the good of the country that is in the politician’s heart, but what is good for them.
What a fantastic post. You’re absolutely right – although trying to convince a Lib Dem that there’s actually more to our problems than a minor change in the way our politicians are elected.
One really interesting point about the ‘recall elections’ idea that’s been suggested is that any effectively organised campaign could theoretically trigger a general election. If enough people in each constituency signed a petition, the whole House (or at even just 50% of its members) would have to face a recall by-election. This could easily turn a majority into a minority in a political climate like the current one.
Giving us the power to recall MPs would effectively give us the power to recall the entire Government if we wanted to. Just imagine the power!
Well said, Blue.
On Friday, I listened to the election results and then heard Brown saying that (in essence) he still had work to do. I was left wondering just how much more clearly the electorate could have stated that it did not want Brown to do that work.
EK it is not the job of politicians to be “selfless”. It is the job of voters to make sure that their interests and ours are in sync. If every Tory MP resigned then they would all be re-elected in a few weeks time and nothing would have changed in Parliament. Don’t you see that the Labour MPs will not force an election because they know that a significant number of them will not be returned? Brown will not give in.
Stu – thanks, only a few typos and grammar mistakes. I blame the wine.
P – indeed.
Hope you don’t mind, but I liked this so much that I’ve done a piece on it and asked my readers to come and have a read.
Britain has never been a real democracy, having evolved into a new version of feudalism through parliamentary democracy – the euphemism for a present and flourishing plutocracy.
In the main, we are less citizens than we are vassals of that plutocracy, which in turn is reliant upon regional mafias in the same way our former Kings exploited manorialism. What is the point of and what will be achieved by the sacking Gordon Brown to replace him with another leader of a thoroughly corrupt Establishment, following political tinkering to appease the masses?
‘Citizens’ are rapidly losing faith in the major political parties. Long before apathy and disgust make voting an irrelevance, existing positions of power appear to have little recourse other than extend the might of a police state. This is the more likely outcome than the wonderful daydream of one million citizens marching on parliament to close it down and symbolically demolish the building.
“The very democracy we cherish is based on glacial reform and historical anomaly.”
Which is the conservative way in all things. Well, not so much glacial reform, but slow progress through measured and planned steps rather than huge radical leaps into the dark.
“We are not allied to the continental view that the perfect constitution can be dreamt up and written down by the nations chief intellectuals. Britain doesn’t go in for intellectualism.”
It’s true that we haven’t traditionally gone for this continental view, but increasingly it seems we are – as with the EU constitution and the supposed “Bill of Rights” which just about every party is dreaming up these days (even though we already have one which they choose to ignore or a regular basis). The reason for this is that Britain increasingly does go for intellectualism – take Cameron’s belief in the “nudge” agenda for example.
Democracy is a hard thing to define. It’s far easier to say what it isn’t – and it isn’t simply about more and more people having the right to vote for more and more things. If it were then the Soviet Union would have been a democratic paragon. There are four things required for democracy to exist in my opinion.
One: A demos – a group of people with a shared set of interests (monoculture).
Two: Real political choice – two or more parties with a realistic possibility of winning who have ideologically opposing views.
Three: A system of voting that delivers popular sovereignty – the belief that the government in power is there as a result of the true will of the people and governs with their true consent.
Four: A check and balance on the abuse of power of an elected government.
As things currently stand, we fail on most of those points.