Home page Why we need to substitute political parties by faithful representatives The irrelevant parties Recent changes in polls on the relative changes in the prospects of British political parties transmit a single unmistakable message. The degree to which single individuals, the party leaders, can determine the electoral prospects of their parties without anything within these same parties in fact changing reflects the low ebb of British politics. The British media has an obsession and over-indulgence in trying to weigh up our political future in terms of the views of single men who head tiny political parties. These parties hardly scrape up a membership, in total, of less than 1% of the electorate. The politicians who adhere to political parties are intellectually shackled to these tiny parties and measure their success to the degree that their leaders patronise them with positions in government. On the whole however, politicians within such a system are largely unknown faceless clones who represent their parties in Parliament and not their constituencies. Turning for the worse The nature of this unacceptable system is coming to a head and remarkably the politicians who focus first and foremost on their party interests remain largely oblivious of their fate. Two things have happened during the last four years which bring the irresponsibility of our political party system into sharp relief. These relate to the marginalization of public participation in European affairs and the other is related to a decaying European legal structure. Marginalization of the people British politicians have failed in an abject manner to defend basic British values in their handling of European Community affairs and now European Union affairs. There still remains to this day a bad taste, a dank smell, an enduring sense of mistrust of and dishonesty on the part of British Governments in their handling of Europe. The British public's baptism in this new continental experience was associated with the acrimonious armtwisting by Conservative whips and desertion of Labour ranks by Roy Jenkins to get the European Act accepted. The crowning and enduring insult consisted of completely dishonest statements by the British Government, under Edward Heath, assuring the British public that entry into the European Community would not signify any abandonment of the Commonwealth, that the British fishing fleet and industry would be defended and there were no implications for British political sovereignty. British politicians can lie and get away with it Our experience as a nation is that such promises were lies and more seriously, admitted to have been made knowingly as misrepresenting the likely outcome of British accession. Since that time, all British political parties have run their European affairs like some sort of off-shore activity which has never directly involve the people of Britain. Almost everything concerning European decisions seems to involve the need for Orwellian double-think. After some 30 years into this process, the European Community has become more political with interpretation of European Law resting in the hands of European judges whose decisions are increasingly supreme over British law. European legislation now enters our Statute Books at the rate of 3,000 items each year on the basis of a passive procedure and no Parliamentary voting. Quite often sectors affected by the legislation are unaware of its content. The reality is that Parliament is incapable of doing its job of debating and voting on each item because there is so much of it. The outcome is that the European Commission runs this agenda and if anyone wishes to complain they need to go to a European Court. The decisions committing Britain to this non-stop and uncontrolled onslaught are made at European Councils attended by our Prime Ministers or Ministers or both. This system is out of control. Unethical and immoral position of Prime Minister The degree to which governments do not refer to the people of the county when taking decisions has degenerated into a disgraceful attitude. People consider that this process has gone on long enough and it is time for the public to be involved. This has come to a head with the latest disgraceful act of cynicism of this Government in following Angel Merkel's irresponsible lead in 'repackaging" the old failed "European Constitution" as a "Treaty" as an openly admitted tactic to avoid a referendum. Gordon Brown's position that past treaties did not justify a referendum so neither does this latest treaty is an ethical and a moral failure. Ethical because everyone knows of the tactical nature of the repackaging and moral because such behaviour is wrong. One has to point out that this level of dishonesty and disregard for the electorate is typical of Central European politics and no matter what the media image of Angela Merkel is, her gentle actions combined with her open contempt of the European public is more than apparent. In the British context, there are those in opposition who keep stressing that as a "Parliamentary democracy" where "Parliament is supreme" we do not govern by referenda in Britain. Well, MPs are bound to say that, but then since when has the British Parliament ever been supreme? The Prime Minister of the day holds enormous power through patronage and the whip system controlling both the cabinet and the outcome of votes in Parliament. The Prime Minister holds a leadership of a government whose whole body of political party members gained just 19% of the electorate's vote and yet has a commanding voting majority in Parliament. For opposition politicians to claim, as several do, that everything should be debated in the House since Parliament is supreme is a ridiculous play-acting at democracy for public consumption. The first past the post electoral system creates winners and losers. The winners control the system and the losers, the opposition, control next to nothing and play out their role as losers. It is this weak system of democractic metaphor or simulation which has caused the European project to come to such a perilous state since no one acts in practical terms to understand and act upon the preferences of the British public. British politicians clearly care more about their status and collaboration with European politicians and the European institutions. The beginning of the end? But this cynical and yet protected irresponsibility on the part of politicians is coming seriously unstuck. This is because of the failure of the European Commission, as Guardians of the Treaty, to enforce the Madrid Conditions of accession during the last two enlargements of the European Union. In summary the Madrid Conditions required that the Governments and the judiciary of the countries wishing to accede should be conducting themselves in strict adherence with European Law. It is well known that this was not enforced. For example there were and remain widespread human rights abuses in all of the former Communist regimes, or other versions of totalitarianism, where the governments are the main guilty parties and the national judiciaries look the other way, as does the European Commission. The sad facts are that having been part of a very comfortable single-party stitch up for well over 40 years, party politicians, the police, intelligence operatives and the judiciary had a very cosey, protected elitist model of operation with absolutely no concept of constituency. The state was all, as one sees in the reversion in today's Russia, and the public, no matter how much in the right, feared and fear this wholly arbitrary machine which could and does harm people. Indeed this machine was carting millions of people to the Gulag and "managing" the returnees through to the present day largely to keep them very quiet so that most have died or are dying without embarrassing the political party, now under a rebranded operation, by pointing accusing fingers. The outcome of this twisted and savage affair of politcal corruption and serious social compromise, is that within a short period of seven years the European Court of Justice and the European Court of the First Instance Union each have a complement of judges, some 37% of the total, from these regimes. The habits and lack of impartiality developed during the last 40 years did and will not evaporate because these countries are now members of the European Union. However, their decisions, taken under whatever motivation, can affect British governments and subjects in an arbitrary manner. British parties have the wrong priorities British ministers when told of the European human rights abuses by knowledgeable British experts in the field are on record as writing letters stating that such European governments are very concerned about such abuse, as is the European Union and the European Commmission in particular, and they go on to assure the incredulous British reader that these innocent governments, politicians, are doing all they can to improve matters. Unfortunately this is a misrepresentation of the facts. It is wholly legitimate to ask why British ministers and a large number of British politicians proactively paper over the gaping holes in the democratic and legal infrastructure of the European Union. What on earth are the priorities of these people? We face an outcome of a continued marginalization of the people of Britain from the European political process at the hands of British political parties. This sustains a dangerous erosion of the ability of the people of Britain and, indeed, the Government to defend the individual freedom of the people of Britain from increasingly politically assertive European Courts. A long hot summer? In reality it does not appear that people are waiting for Gordon Brown or David Cameron in their wisdom to recognise the state of affairs and come up with their parochial solutions. There has been a spontaneous and proactive development of several voluntary initiatives which are gaining momentum to address these issues. There are petitions on the need for a referendum at the Daily Telegraph and the No 10 website, European Options will be dedicating the rest of the year to lobby in support of a referendum but also highlight the judicial failure in Europe. Open Europe has gained momentum in encouraging a more rational view on Europe and involving a large number of British businesses. E-mancipation has decided with Cybacity to develop an online polling system to make this available for the organization of a privately supported referendum for the people of Britain. This initiative has received promises of the necessary financial support but E-mancipation, which is a politically independent NGO, is setting out conditions to prevent such support coming with any conditionality other than relating to national cover, the technical capability of the system and transparent results reporting. William Hague and Lord Young have also mentioned their support for such an initiative although there is no connection at all between the E-mancipation initiative and any such actions by the Conservative party. Europe moves centre stage irrespective of the back peddling by the main political parties The overall outcome is likely to be a serious questioning of how the British political parties have landed this country in such a mess in their mismanagement of European affairs by putting at risk the inividual freedom of the people of Britain. This process is bound to question the whole issue of representation of the people being something of fundamental importance and something which should substitute the current corrupt representation by political parties. The British perspective on expectations of behaviour and their social expression has always focused on the role of the faithul advocate or representative in seeking rational settlements and decisions based not on power but reason. But British political parties and politicians have corrupted this common sense and transparent vision to substitute it with a representation of themselves and their own interests in seeking power. Indeed, British political parties seem to have more in common with the elitist mode of politicians who are members of European political parties. What other reason is there for their manipulation of the facts and their never failing to praise the collectivist motivations of European politicians and the Union? It really is time that British politics was transformed into something of direct relevance to the people. There is no doubt that the underlying decay in the European democractic and legal structures will become a justification for rejecting much that is European. This is a tragedy since some of the economic benefits arising from the old Common Market concept are beneficial. People need to focus on the political and legislative dimensions. This summer is likely to prove to be a long and hot one for all political parties as people become better informed as to what is happening in Europe. There is no doubt that a bare minimum outcome will be a general demand for a referendum on that treaty and, according to CybaCity, it is likely to be rejected by the people of Britain. This is more likely because of the negativity which will have arisen by the end of the summer. This will lead on to more proactive discussions, involving public participation and eventually a transfer of authority of decision-making concerning the other issues raised above.