Hector McNeill |
"I believe that the concept of politics or democracy as being about power starts off with the wrong premise. This subsumes that the popular vision of politicians as being individuals bent on power and money is something which needs to be controlled by passing power back to the people. No one handles power adequately or fairly and this is why any definition of democracy or politics should not see that as the main thrust of consideration. Rather it is important to view democratic process as one which upholds individual freedoms based on a natural process of each being able to exercise their freedom of thought, speech, expression and action to the limit that they might impinge on the freedom of others.
The importance of this approach is that it makes each and every individual central to the general consideration and anything which erodes that dynamic balance should not be given sway.
I was intrigued at one point in the report where there seemed to a likelihood that serious consideration was being given to alternatives to political parties. I was disappointed that this failed to materialise. This is odd because the description of the dualistic situation of formal democratic institutions losing out in the public arena to self-initiation activities, focused on specific issues, describes a situation where people have clearly abandoned political parties. In practical terms the message is even stronger, people do not consider political parties to serve any useful purpose. With voting, party memberships plummeting and the general unease about how they get in the way is all stark evidence that the party is over.
But because the Power commission presumed all of this to be about participation in power, they did not recognise this or rather did not articulate this. This oversight meant the report veered off in an attempt to recommend ways in which political parties could be "rehabilitated" and survive under a situation of power sharing with the people.
Just to recap, what we should recognise in the growth in self-initiated issue-related activities, referred to in the Power report, is not a paradox at all but is the natural process of people exercising their freedom of expression and action unencumbered by interfering and irrelevant political party processes. It is also important to recognise that this is seldom about power it is about getting things done and righting wrongs. Freedom of thought and expression and acts based on these which uphold or enhance the freedoms of others is a totally self-fulfilling and inspirational process. It gives justifiable value to everyone. It is the stimulation of this process which needs to be encouraged and this means getting politicians, political parties, and indeed so-called democractic processes out of the way.
I do need to emphasise that one thing which the Power report did not pick up on is the gradual intentional politicization of voluntary groups and NGOs (non governmental organizations) by large funding institutions including governments and the European Commission. This is less about developing dialogue and participation but in many cases it is about using funding and grants to gain leverage over such institutions. I have personal experience of a very large and well known NGO charity based in London censoring its staff. This was to avoid "upsetting" governments and donors and thereby risk losing funding support. This involved hiding known facts concerning discrimination against minorities in Central Europe by national governments. There has been a massive growth in NGO and charity activities. Under the present politial climate many pursue agendas similar to political parties and many of their leaders act like today's politicians. In seeking solutions we need to avoid the trap of assuming all civil society activities are devoid of the same agendas of seeking power and money, supported by image generation and spin.
A serious oversight of the Power commission's work was its somewhat naive approach to legislation as being some national preparatory issue. They therefore failed to point out that some 70% of our legislation, which comes in from Europe, by-passes normal parliamentary processes and ends up on the statute books. The people and their representatives are simply not involved. And yet such statutes have limited appeal structures and do not involve the community conscience in the form of a jury. Appeals to Europe come before a jury-less court where the judges are political party appointees or worse. This process has been proactively supported by our politicians and political parties and represents a removal of defense of the freedoms of the individual. This process has been one of deception and a clear example of politicians placing party power ahead of the interests of the nation.
It is very well worth reminding ourselves that political factions (parties) have been traditionally regarded with great suspicion in England, for well over 300 years, because of their tendency towards exclusion, arbitrariness, and corruption when in power. Indeed, early English constitutional texts introduced devices to prevent the formation of polticial parties. It is self-evident that if anyone gains their status as a result of serving the interests of an institution, such as a political party, then one is no longer dealing with a free unfettered and objective mind. This is the problem with party politicians. Why on earth should the people of the United Kingdom be expected to place the responsibility of their representation in parliament in the hands of someone who admits to be answerable to a clique, a small private organization, whose membership is less than 1% of the population of the nation? This expectation is a self-evident insanity but yet it is one to which politicians, even today, cling. Politicians thereby are in an isolated arena within which they suffer from a self-inflicted widely recognised reduction in their relevance to society. The bizarre fact is that they are paid very well from the public purse to act out this piece, even although the ratings have plummeted and the theatre has negligible live public attendance.
The Power commission did not use the evidence of the complete rejection of political parties to good effect because I suspect they think that to advocate their removal from the political scene would create a vacuum or even perhaps no democracy, anarchy perhaps? Coming back to the central core of political process it is essential to uphold that anything goes as long as individual freedoms are upheld so that each is able to exercise their freedom of thought, speech, expression and action to the limit that they might impinge on the freedom of others. This makes each and every individual central to the general consideration. This is what political parties have destroyed and what politicians have absolutely no interest in."
Part 2 of this article will accompany the launch of the book "A constitution closer to home" by Hector McNeill, to be published by Hambrook Publishing Co. |
