RealNews

Minority factions dictating the agenda

The proportion of the electorate supporting the Conservative party in the 2008 local elections was just just 17.6% about 1.5% less than the poor level of electorate support in the last election of the Labour government at 19%. Even in the London Mayoral election, Boris Johnson in the first vote gained only 18.5% of the London electorate's support and just 21% of the London electorate's support once the second preference votes were added in. Indeed, Boris Johnson has a higher proportion of the electorate supporting him than the government and yet this level of support is inexpressive.

These results are a complete disaster for the prospects of the defence of the freedom of expression and the satisfaction of the preferences of the people of Britain because politicians with the support of a minority of the electorate can gain power so as to be able to impose their dogma on the majority, that is those who did not support them.

The real meltdown

The real meltdown is in the support of the British electorate of the British political parties with the parties struggling to gain some proportion of an irrelevant share of the electorate's cast votes. We now in Britain are confronted with a new low reflected in the fact that 62% of the electorate do not support any of the main British politial parties. Indeed, with the first-past-the post general electoral system we have a governing party imposing dogma on the 81% of the electorate who never voted for them.

Irrelevant policital parties

The significant issue is that the political party system is perceived to be irrelevant to people's needs and yet it remains the only thing on offer, those with a tendency to vote for political parties, a minority of the British population, simply stir the leaves in the teacup. The over-riding desire of political parties as tiny private organizations with inexpressive memberships (total British political party membership is less than 1% of the total electorate) is to keep the management of politics in the hands of political parties. As a result they have achieved, so far, an ability to deflect the attention of the population from this essential flaw in our democracy; the irrelevance of the political parties is seldom an issue for discussion. They insist in interpreting their irrelevance as a state of affairs which can be overcome by their "listening more" each time their support falls from one level of irrelevance to a new position of less significance. The opposition celebrates its rise from a level of insignificance to a marginally better level which remains inexpressive. The most important challenge facing the people of Britain is the debasement of our democracy arising from the ability of British political parties, as factional minorities, to sustains their grip on power.

When the vote share between the parties moves within the confines of the votes cast by a minority segment of the electorate, pollsters and others tell us of the "significance" of the changes. But the overall significance is that the results are insignificant from the standpoint of upholding the need to increase participation of the people in decision-making and to afford the people of Britain the means of defending their freedom, free from the meddling of minority factions clothed in the assumed semi-respectability of being the rumps of political parties which were better supported in the now distant past.

Will of the people ignored

All political parties remain in denial of their complete irrelevance to the general electorate, they only speak in terms of their shares of percentage of the electoral vote as opposed to percentage of the electorate support. They demand the loyalty of their elected politicians to the party rather than to the people who elected them. The sovereignty of the nation as the joint expression of the people of Britain suffers from a debasement with sovereignty being substituted by sovereignty being something defended by political parties in their own interests and image. The people, the majority, having been provided with "rights" by the minority factions will soon be called upon to uphold their "obligations" in exchange for those "rights". Constitutional reform, as set out by our minority factional government, has become something to be decided by the party with an absolute voting majority in the House of Commons. This is a direct outcome of the first-past-the post system and yet this minority faction does not represent any majority of the people nor does Parliament represent the will of the people. Parliamentary debate is largely irrelevant because of the large voting majority facilitates arbitrary decision-making such as the recent refusal to provide a promised referendum on the European Consistution, renamed as a European Treaty. Effective opposition can only be effected by members of the minority factional government party, such as the recent 10p tax revolt. In Britain, tyranny rules as all political parties collude to play act at debate. No MP ever calls attention to the outrage that under the whips, most Parliamentary debate is irrelevant. If they admitted this then the question of the relevance of the parties becomes exposed.

The prospects for change in Britain leading to broader participatory democracy and an enhanced freedom of the people have not changed as a result of these latest elections. These elections have simply highlighted the absurdity of what passes for democracy in these Isles and it heralds the increased likelihood of these political parties, working in close collusion, will move, as always, to entrench their power in spite of their insignificant levels of support of the electorate. This is a dangerous trend and the outcome of the recent elections will not change this trend.

4th May, 2008;
updated: 5th May, 2008 and 12th May, 2008.