"TOMORROW’S parliamentary debate about a referendum on Britain’s continuing membership of the European Union is, like every other travesty performed on the slime-green benches at Westminster, a complete charade."
Do read the entire article as it is vintage Gerald Warner.
I was remiss in the first post under this title as there is one aspect of this debate that not many, if any, have mentioned, namely that David Cameron is no believer in democracy. Witness the fact that he creates an e-petition scheme whereby the electorate can propose a subject to be debated by their elected representatives and then promptly kills the initiative by instructing his MPs to vote against it. But this is not the only example of Cameron's idea of 'democracy' as witness:
- From the Coalition's programme for government: "We will bring forward early legislation to
introduce a power of recall, allowing voters to force a by-election where an MP is found to have engaged in serious wrongdoing and having had a petition calling for a by-election signed by 10% of his or her constituents. This they did, however they did not mention in their 'manifesto' (one on which no-one had the chance to vote) that the final decision would rest with a committee comprised of their own political class.
- Likewise, the promise to allow local people to demand a referendum on local matters suffers from a similar 'block'. Section 59 of the Localism Bill states that if a local authority wishes to ignore the result of any referendum, it may do so.
- There does not appear to be any haste to establish the 200 all-postal primaries, nor the 'public reading days' - both of which were promised in the same document.
All of which makes a mockery of the introduction to 'Political Reform' which is a heading in the Coalition's 'programme for government'. That introduction states:
"The Government believes that our political system is broken. We urgently need fundamental political reform, including a referendum on electoral reform, much greater co-operation across party lines, and changes to our political system to make it far more transparent and accountable."
Cameron is quite correct to state that our political system is broken, but in acknowledging that fact he is doing his utmost to ensure it remains broken. For someone like Cameron, who has lied and used obfuscation, having previously written about the need to make our political system more transparent beggars belief and also begs the question how he sleeps at night.
As I have posted previously, Cameron and the political clique are assisted in their efforts to lie and obfuscate by members of the media and this is an example. As I posted in the comments, Jonathan Jones needs to go back to school!
That I 'bang on' about the European Union and the lack of democracy in our country is readily acknowledged - and if that bores some readers then I can only apologise. It is important though that those two subjects are brought to the attention of the 'public at large' who rely on their daily dose of 'truth' from the media, especially the BBC. To misquote an unattributed quote from Lenin; the more the truth is spoken the more chance it will be accepted as the truth!
That Cameron has 'faith' in his political beliefs, regarding renegotiation of our membership of the European Union, is best illustrated by a quote from Eric Hoffer:
"There are similarities between absolute power and absolute faith: a demand for absolute obedience, a readiness to attempt the impossible, a bias for simple solutions to cut the knot rather than unravel it, the viewing of compromise as surrender. Both absolute power and absolute faith are instruments of dehumanization. Hence, absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power."
Eric Hoffer, The New York Times Magazine 25/04/1971
