The point of democracy as opposed to any other form of
government is that voters have the power to bring about change. This is the difference
between previous forms of government such as absolute monarchy. The power that
voters have has always been limited. We have elections only every few years. We
elect representatives rather than have direct democracy. We have constitutions
either written or unwritten that may require additional steps or larger majorities
to change some laws. But it ought to be possible for voters to change policy or
law eventually if they consistently wish it, otherwise we are back in the days
of absolute monarchy.
The problem of democracy in the UK is not as the SNP
thinks that Scotland does not always get the government it votes for. This assumes
that Scotland is already an independent country in order to justify that it
ought to be become one. It is not problematic for a part of a democracy to sometimes
lose otherwise all democracies would be impossible.
If an independent Scotland existed, it would still be the
case that a small largely rural area like Aberdeenshire could be outvoted by a
large urban area such as Glasgow. But this is how democracy works the world
over. You don’t get extra votes because you are from Scotland any more than you
do if you are from California. You have to accept the will of the majority in the
demos that you are a part of. That is what democracy means.
The problem with democracy is not that Scots vote
Labour but end up with a Conservative government. The problem is that it doesn’t
matter who Scottish or English voters vote for as they are ignored. This is just
as much a form of absolutism as existed under Henry VIII.
There were two reasons why voters in the UK chose to
leave the EU. One was we wanted Parliament to be sovereign rather than
subordinate to the EU. Personally, I would have been happy to live in a United
States of Europe that was as democratic as the USA. But this was not on offer.
There is no equivalent in the EU of the structure of
power in the USA with an elected president, two elected parliaments with real
power and a federal structure for each state with genuine separation of powers.
Instead in the EU power rests with those who are appointed rather than elected.
So, we voted to take back control to the UK’s parliament,
because the alternative was to end up in an undemocratic United States of
Europe with no way out. We also secondly voted to control our borders and
determine who had and who had not the right to live in the UK.
Since 2016 we have had 7 years of Conservative government.
Parliament is neither sovereign nor has it taken back control.
It is quite clear that voters in 2016 wanted to limit
mass migration. We couldn’t do so while in the EU because of freedom of
movement so we voted to leave. But did it make any difference to mass migration?
No instead it increased.
The problem is partly international law that makes it
impossible to prevent anyone arriving illegally and almost impossible to deport
them no matter what they do when here. But the real problem is that our representatives
who were elected in part to limit mass migration choose to do the opposite.
We could in theory have direct democracy where each of
us every night voted on every issue with our phones and computers. We choose
representative democracy because it is less troublesome, and we hope the
representatives know more than ordinary voters. But this only works when the representatives
follow the wishes at least to an extent of voters. When they ignore voters
consistently the situation returns to absolutism.
Voters in 2016 chose to abolish freedom of movement
with the EU only to have it replaced with freedom of movement with the whole
world. This makes us worse off. At least when there was freedom of movement
with the EU we too could go to live and work in France or Spain. Now we have
open borders with much of Africa and Asia, but we still need visas to live in
these countries and the EU too.
It turns out that it was not enough to leave the EU to
make parliament sovereign and to bring back control. A series of treaties
signed by previous governments and laws made by previous parliaments not only
prevent us stopping people arriving, they also prevent us sending them
elsewhere e.g. to Rwanda.
But if parliament is sovereign, it cannot be prevented
by what previous governments signed nor can it be prevented from repealing
previous laws.
International law turns out to be just as undemocratic
as the EU. There is no world government nor ought there to be because there are
more people in the world who prefer absolutism and tyranny than democracy. The
only hope for democracy is the sovereign nation state. But even here democracy
is under threat.
But if international law is not made by voters, who is
it made by? It is made by unelected judges and unelected appointees.
But what guarantees my rights in the UK is not unelected
judges or unelected appointees nor is it the United Nations, nor various courts
in Strasbourg or the Hague. What guarantees my rights is my fellow voters who
can elect MPs to repeal bad laws. So long as I live in a democracy, I have no
fear for my human rights. The only thing that scares me is that I don’t live in
a country where parliament is sovereign, because then someone unelected can
take control of me.
Democratic values took centuries to develop in the UK.
They are very unusual in the world. There are only around twenty fully
democratic countries where I am sure that my human rights will be respected.
In each of these countries human rights are not
protected by international law which applies just the same in tyrannies as it
does here. The only countries that care a toss about international law don’t
need it because they are protected by being democracies.
But let’s say after many centuries you develop a
country where people accept democracy as the method rule and of making laws,
what happens if you allow migration from countries which overwhelmingly do not
accept democracy? The likelihood is in time you will get a country where the
demos ceases to believe in democracy.
If overnight you transfer the population of Saudi
Arabia to Britain and vice versa, then Saudi Arabi would immediately become a
democracy and Britain would become a theocratic absolute monarchy. It’s the
same if you do this gradually.
This is a far greater threat to my human rights in
Britain. It turns out then that international human rights law is the one
threat that in time could deprive us of our human rights by turning our country
into a country similar to those from which the vast majority of migrants are
arriving.
The problem of democracy in the UK is not merely that
parliament remains just as constrained as it was under the EU. In fact, almost
nothing has changed and instead we are merely worse off than we were. Parliament
is still subordinate to a whole body of undemocratic international law that it
can neither change nor cease to obey. But this once more puts us back under
absolutism.
It wasn’t enough for us to vote to leave the EU. We
need to replace our representatives who no longer represent. The first task is
to replace those members of the Conservative Party who view Conservative voters
with contempt and spend their lives ignoring those who vote for them.
If that means a Labour government, so be it. It will
help us in time to root out corruption in the SNP. Only a change in the
Scottish government can get to the bottom of everything. It may also be that
Labour will be better be able to deal with the NHS and it might like the social
democrats in Denmark better understand voters on immigration.
If on the other hand Labour turns out to be as awful
as usual it will be the task of voters to kick Labour out. We must continue to
kick out MPs until parliament is once again sovereign and MPs accept that they
are in control and unconstrained by anything that we the people did not vote
for.
Then we will have democracy.
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