Home page The continued erosion in British freedom - Part 1 Many Members of Parliament have expressed their satsfaction with the coup they have devised by voting in favour of a fully-elected House of Lords. But this coup is not directed against the current incumbents of the House of Lords but rather against the interests of the freedom of the people of the United Kingdom. MPs have voted, it would seem, in favour of an election of membership of the House of Lords based upon political party lines. This clearly will be a boost for the failing fortunes of British political parties who all together hold the electoral support of about 50% of the electorate. The government, with an effective absolute voting majority in Parliament, has the support of just over 19% of the electorate. One has to ask what the objective function of the House of Lords will be? Structuring its membership on current political party electoral performance will simply produce an additional chamber serving to entrench the now abusive power of the government party in Parliament. The objective of the House of Lords as somewhere where there will be a weighed, often non-party political, assessment of legislation, will be lost and the ability of government to rule by law, as opposed to uphold the rule of law, will be strengthened. What is of particular concern is that political parties who have a collective membership of less than 0.5% of the British electorate have smelt a means of levering their power through the House of Lords. The objective of the Lords, its role in supporting participatory democracy, its possible role in safeguarding individual freedom, are issues cast aside in favour of a visceral political party collectivism in the direct interests of unelected party bosses who dictate how their "parliamentary members" will vote. This irresponsible behaviour of British party politicians in shading an elected House of Lords as a triumph of democracy is dangerous since they are now promoting this line through the media and many people are buying these defective goods. What seems to have happened is that because the House of Lords has been regarded as a place of priviledge based upon hereditary advantages or in the light of the honours scandal, illicit membership, then when a "solution" turns up in the form of a fully elected House of Lords, then there is a tendency to see this as good since emotively it appears to be more fair. It is this line that party politicians are pushing at the public. But the real trade off, masquerading as "more democracy", is more illicit control by the political party machines. Constitutional reform? If the government in fact stood to develop a House of Lords of value, to in fact be committed to constitutional reform, the first item of debate would have been to review and decide the functions of the House of Lords. But no, the whole emphasis was on how it was to be filled and this, of course, ended up in no debate of significance and a decadent thrust by politicians voting in favour of the interest of their parties. The interests of the people of Britain did not feature in this debate nor in the vote; as expected the people's representatives did not represent the people, but rather their own very personal interests which lie in the degree to which they support the political party collective. To be a successful MP in Westminster the name of the game is loyalty to party and not the people. Collective mindsets pushing the agenda Needless to say, one of the more popular suggestions on how the election for membership of the House of Lords should be organised, only gives more credence to the fact that this move is not in the interest of the people of Britain. It has been suggested that a form of proportional representation be used with a regional political party list system. This will ask hapless voters to place their crosses against parties and not individuals. This will leave the decision of who fills the seats to the unelected party officials. In other words the parties expect to fool the people by have them go through the motions of an election leaving the political parties free to appoint who goes to the House of Lords. The people are not expected to be given the opportunity to decide who goes to the House of Lords. The political party list system is alien and anti-democratic. It was used by the communist regimes and remains the favourite of political parties who have emerged from the communist regimes since they appreciate fully the power leverage it provides to each political party. This collectivist central-political-party-above-all approach remains popular with politicians in Central and Eastern Europe and with many EU politicians. It is, however, one which creates an "elected" assembly whose members have no commitment, interest nor any specific responsibilities, to those who cast their vote. Their full allegience, their effective loyalty, is wholly to those who gave them a well-paid job by selecting them, that is the political party bosses. This corrupt system extends the so-called patronage of the Prime Minister, and other party leaders, to fill yet more functions of State with what are in fact un-elected individuals, party sycophants and cronies. Such people are not elected in the popular sense because an election, based on the party list system, is to decide the relative size of party quotas for assembly membership. However, the actual appointment is made by parties, usually in exchange for very personalised undertakings placing party interest above all else. Such a system could never be a basis for democratising the upper house but rather will further weaken the ability of Parliament to represent the will of the people by dragging representation further from their reach and by extending party control to yet more, and as yet, undefined functions of governmance. A corrupt Parliament is the problem This House of Lords, fiasco-in-the-making, has become a convenient dispacement activity to divert the focus of the people of Britain from the more important problems of constitution. These can be summarised in the currently unfair electoral system which permits a minority party enforce its increasingly excessive legislation through an ineffective parliament, onto the hapless majority. With this vote on the House of Lords, politicians have heralded more of the same, this being their commitment to avoid personal responsibility for any effective representation, to keep things the way they are so as not to share any real participation in decisions with the people of the country. This incessant and brazen pursuit for power only serves to strengthens an increasingly unaccountable central collective, a Westminster cabal and is an example of the depressing and abject incapacity of our constitution to defend the people against such abuse by corrupt politicians. 8th March, 2007 Footnote: Part 2 of this article will outline a full proposal for constitutional reform of the House of Lords designed to strengthen the quality of British participatory democracy by making central the strengthening of the means whereby the people of Britain can defend their individual freedom. Part 2 will appear on the occasion of the publication of the book, "A constitution nearer to home" by Hector McNeill (Hambrook Publishing Co) upon which it is based.