BRITAIN: TAKE THE POLITICS OUT OF GOVERNANCE

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A CRITIQUE & PROPOSAL

The Royal family reinforces the existence of a rigid and unchanging social pyramid with various degrees of privilege.

By Eileen Noakes

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THE EXISTENCE OF THE MONARCHY, even with symbolic rather than real power, creates  a pyramid , with a huge gap between those at the top and those at the bottom. It also enshrines the notion of superiority by reason of birth rather than character and effort.  It cannot exist alongside a belief that all men are created equal and it is inconsistent with democracy.  The Royal Prerogative, the Whip System and the absence of a Written Constitution and Bill of Rights are all totally undemocratic.

The Royal Prerogative, with prerogative powers originally exercised by the monarch, does not require parliamentary consent and is  now always exercised on the advice of the Prime minister or the Cabinet. It gives the Prime Minister extraordinary powers to act without parliamentary approval , e.g. to declare war,  the appointment of Royal Commissions and officers, the award  of dignities and honours, declaration of an emergency, requisitioning of  ships, the  issue and revocation of passports, the appointment of bishops and archbishops in the Church of England, the expulsion of a foreign national from the United Kingdom –  to name but some. In the case of the Chagos Archipelago islands, the High Court of Justice ruled that the British Indian Ocean Territory exiling the islanders was unlawful, but was overturned by the exercise of the Royal Prerogative.

The Prime Minister has pushed through draconian legislation which constitutes an abuse of civil liberties and human rights under the pretext of security against terrorism.

The Whip System should be abolished or drastically reformed. The Whips  have too much power and too much say over what happens to MPs, from the appointment of members and chairmen of Select Committees,  to MPs’ accommodation. They  can decide which MP gets which room, favouring those who toady to them and punishing troublemakers. Their power inhibits democracy, fosters the herd instinct, and encourages partisan behaviour. They twist the arms of MPs to vote with the party leader, which stifles debate and the exercise of free will and conscience. Should MPs feel strongly enough to rebel, they stand the chance of  being de-selected at the next election. (Chief Whips receive additional salaries from the taxpayer.)

The relative merits of  adversarial and  inquisitorial forms of governance should be considered.  Under our present system, issues are opposed, not on their merits or benefits to the taxpayer, but as a way of scoring points. The level of debate at Prime Minister’s Question Time would shame the fourth form.

House of Commons: Candidates in an election should set out clearly their background experience and their proposed policies on, e.g. Education, the NHS and the Police in their manifestos and also at public meetings (both main parties  instruct their candidates not to attend public meetings, only those  limited to their own  supporters). Serious thought should be given to the abolition of the Party System, since MP’s loyalties are to the Party, to the leader (with their own careers in mind) and only last, if at all, to the people who elect them and pay their salaries. If this were done, all candidates would be independents. Since they are employed by the people, if they fail to honour their electoral commitments, they should be held to account by the Citizens’ Assembly, and, if necessary, sacked.

The House of Lords should be replaced by an

Elected Second Chamber:

Criteria to be established for election, e.g. experience in law, education, business, social work, charity work.

Citizens’ Assembly: There should also be established a body not appointed by and totally independent of the government, whose task would be to be vigilant about proposed legislation which served the interests of the government or commerce rather than those of the people. However, if the party political system were abolished, the second chamber could fulfil this function. Select Committees should ideally act as overseers, and sometimes do, but at present their appointment by the Whips may inhibit their impartiality.

Electoral Reform:

The first-past-the-post electoral system does not represent the wishes of the public. The number of seats a party holds in Parliament is not proportionate to its share of the vote, and with perhaps only 32 percent of the vote, a Prime Minister can push through changes  for which he does not have a mandate and which may be virtually irreversible. A system of   Proportional Representation – the Single Transferable Vote or AV+ would be much fairer to all parties and would more adequately represent the wishes of the electorate. As the Observer points out, under the current system, governments are formed by parties that have not won a majority of votes and owe victory to fewer than 200,000 people in marginal constituencies. Millions of votes are wasted, and those who cast them are disenfranchised. Under AV, current constituency boundaries would remain, but voters would number candidates in order of preference instead of simply marking a cross by their first choice. A candidate failing to get more than 50% of the vote would be eliminated, and the votes reallocated to the other candidates. This process would continue until there was a winning  candidate. But it still doesn’t allocate parliamentary seats in line with the parties’ national share of the vote.

Under the Single Transferable Vote,  voters also give numerical preferences, but a number of seats are awarded per constituency, say three or five depending on its size. If the first choice candidate does not need their vote, either because he/she is elected without it or has too few to be elected, the vote is transferred to the second choice. That way MPs are still bound to represent a fixed locality, but the final make-up of Parliament is an accurate reflection of national opinion.

A few immediate suggestions:

There should be a set term of office

A reduction in the numbers of MPs

Ministers should be barred from taking jobs with companies they have had dealings with in their former  departments.

The people’s assets have been sold off without their permission.  Much privatisation should be reversed, especially railways, and that of the Post Office Service should be fiercely resisted.

We should use boycotts in purchasing power, to protest against international injustice, e.g. Israel/Palestine

Press for people’s banks, preferably in post offices.

Join Credit Unions  and and Time Banks.

Press for maximum working hours, so that employment can be more widely shared and family life fostered.

Press for employees’ part-ownership of companies,  as in Scott-Bader and John Lewis.

Just as we now have a minimum wage, there should  also be a maximum amount that any one person can earn.  (This of course will never happen, since all politicians hope to get obscenely well-paid jobs when they leave politics).

Conclusion

Respect for politicians  is at a very low ebb, and many people feel that the system itself allows, and perhaps even encourages, the corruption and self-seeking that have become endemic. Can we claim that we have a right to invade other countries to impose on them our extremely flawed system?

Politicians need to be reminded that democracy is “government of the people by the people for the people”. Politicians are our servants, not our masters.  Every penny they spend is ours. We have every right to expect from them what all employers demand from their employees – efficiency and honesty. If they make mistakes, and everybody does, they should be prepared to admit them.

But somewhere along the way they have become totally alienated from the people they serve – they live in a little bubble of their own creation. The system has allowed this, so the system needs changing.

At 88, and still working tirelessly to heal the world, EILEEN NOAKES has participated in many fields requiring a compassionate, egalitarian temperament.  Her resume could easily describe several people. Among her many contributions, she has spoken on the environment and spiritual and other matters in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, India, Canada, and America. She is a founding member of  The Scientific and Medical Network.  For fifteen years she helped to raise money for Tanzania in East Africa, and has been out there and set up a number of projects including training courses for village and townswomen.  Her group provided the district hospital with the first ambulance that remote area has ever owned, and set up a scheme to provide bursaries for young people wanting to train as nurses. For some years she was also Co-Chair of the National World Disarmament Campaign.  As a true republican (small “R”), she has no use for the royals in Britain or elsewhere.