UK Election 2015

EU Referendum: Don’t Trust The Party That Doesn’t Trust The People

Samuel Hooper1 Comment

 

What to do when the political party you support and spend every waking moment campaigning for adopts a stance which is not only breathtakingly arrogant, but which runs completely contrary to the fundamental principles of democracy and respecting the will of the people?

Well, if you’re the socialist website Left Foot Forward and the case in question is whether or not Britain should hold a referendum on leaving the European Union, you simply convince yourself that the public are dangerous idiots who can’t be trusted to know what’s best for themselves, thus justifying your benevolent left wing dictatorship.

The editors of Left Foot Forward, clearly feeling a little uneasy that their man Ed Miliband is actively campaigning on a platform of denying the British people a say on their future governance, decided to do some unofficial polling to make themselves feel better. And sure enough, it transpires that 63% of their readers are also opposed to letting the British people decide.

But the left need some reasons, however flimsy, to shore up their indefensible position, and Left Foot Forward staff writer Ruby Stockham comes armed with plenty of them:

EU-sceptic Conservatives say that the knife-edge balance of public opinion means it is undemocratic to block a referendum. There are several problems with this argument. The first is that it’s cherry picking: we do not hold referendums on most public issues. There has not been one, for example, on TTIP; there was not one on military intervention in Syria or Libya.

The reason for this is that most of the electorate do not have a deep understanding of the intricacies of these issues; to build up a full picture of the economic, social, or security benefits and disadvantages of both sides would be a full-time job. What the electorate are exposed to is the simplified bias of parties like UKIP or the Eurosceptic press, who present an easily digested one-sided argument. The government cannot decide whether or not something is democratic based on whether or not it suits their aims.

Actually, the reason that EU-sceptic conservatives want a referendum is nothing to do with the fact that the public opinion is on a “knife-edge”. It’s more to do with the fact that power has been continually given away from Westminster to Brussels, from democratic British institutions to their opaque and largely undemocratic EU counterparts, without the British people ever having granted their permission for this to happen.

The 1975 referendum doesn’t count – the British people voted to join what was then known as the European Economic Community because as its name suggested, it was presented as a matter of free trade. Since that time, “common” European policies have sprung up in all manner of areas which impact British life, and which are traditionally fall to the nation state to control. Therefore, to present the question of Britain’s continued membership of the EU as being the same as any run-of-the-mill government decision – like raising taxes or deploying the military – is an entirely misleading comparison.

Stockham then tries to suggest that the British people are too ill-informed to make an educated decision. But this would be the whole point of a referendum campaign – to educate the British people on the pros, cons and detailed implications before letting the people render their judgement. Of course it does not suit Stockham’s purpose for the British people to become more educated on the subject of Europe, because then they would realise the extent to which the common market is just a façade for the far more wide-reaching European political union which was always the end goal.

And it is certainly not the case that the public would be overtly swayed by the “simplified bias of parties like UKIP”, as Ruby Stockham so haughtily suggests. If anything, the simplified bias is all on the pro-EU side. The majority of big businesses (who are naturally risk averse) are for the status quo – funny how the opinion of big business matters to the left on the topic of Europe, but nowhere else – as are all of Britain’s political parties, besides UKIP. In terms of funding and finding suitable mouthpieces for their talking points, the pro-Europeans would have no problems whatsoever – but of course it suits Left Foot Forward’s aims to portray themselves as the underdog.

But Ruby Stockham saves her best argument against holding an EU referendum for last:

Fourthly, the European Union has over 500 million citizens. A UK exit would affect all of them. It is truly undemocratic to allow the UK minority to dictate the future for all EU citizens.

That’s right. According to Left Foot Forward, the British people are not entitled to determine their own future because to hold a referendum would infringe on the rights of people in Lisbon and Warsaw – nearly all of whom would be supremely indifferent in any case – to keep Britain tied up in an unwanted political union.

Truly, no argument is too desperate when it comes to the British political left trying to find excuses to override the will of the people.

To quote a much younger Tony Blair: Weak, weak, weak.

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“If you don’t vote, you’re taking the colour out of Britain” – A Horribly Divisive And Misguided Message

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Operation Black Vote - The Sceptic Isle - 1

 

By Ben Kelly, blogger and editor of The Sceptic Isle.

The Operation Black Vote campaign is, in some ways, quite admirable. Sadly, their latest campaign sends out the wrong message entirely. It seems to me to be rather tasteless, divisive and pandering to the prevailing concept of identity politics.

A multi-racial Britain needs to be unified to be at ease with itself. It needs to be unified to facilitate the inclusion of minority groups. The dream must be that all who believe in our virtues as a nation and make up our diverse society are British, we are one nation and one people. Identity politics divides creates a victim mentality and weakens our social and political bonds. This latest “whiting up” campaign is good intentioned, but seems to create a divide between Black Britons and white Britons in a way that is counter productive.

“You’re taking the colour out of Britain”, next to the whitened face of a black man seems to put across a strange message that by not participating in the election you are allowing “the whites” all the power. Is it sensible or moral to divide us like this? It seems to create a sense of victim-hood, bitterness and resentment. It aggravates a sense of otherness rather than encouraging inclusivity in the British identity.

Once you enter the polling booth it does not matter if you are white, black, Asian, male, female, rich or poor. All these minority groups and all classes of people become indistinguishable. In that booth you are a British citizen voting in the democratic process to decide the government of your country. It is the great equaliser, one person, one vote. When we have the lamentable situation of rotten boroughs rife with electoral corruption, MPs that target racial groups for their own gain, government communicating with certain minority groups through “community leaders”, that is the ideal that we should be striving for.

Are we British? Or are we white British, black British, Asian British, female British, male British, gay British, trans British, etc. This is where identity politics leads and it is this inglorious tradition that the “taking the colour out of Britain” is perpetuating.

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Election 2015 Uncertainty Makes Everyone A Fair Weather Constitutional Reformer

Samuel Hooper2 Comments

UK Britain Constitution General Election 2015

 

With just sixteen days to go until we cast our votes in the 2015 general election, politicians and commentators of all stripes are suddenly waking up to the realisation that the party they hate most – be it Labour, the Evil Tories, the nationalist parties or UKIP – may very easily end up in government despite failing to win anything close to a popular mandate, thanks to some unpredictable and largely unstoppable backroom deal following a hung parliament.

In response, every commentator in the land seems to be turning into a bad-weather constitutional reformer, bemoaning the impending political chaos now that it is nearly upon us, despite having taken almost no interest in these dull, un-sexy  constitutional issues when there were other, more fun things to write about.

Here is Philip Johnston’s contribution for The Telegraph:

If neither Mr Cameron nor Mr Miliband were able to put together a viable government, a second election would normally follow; but the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act 2011 complicates matters. It provides for a dissolution of Parliament only when there is a specific vote of no confidence in the government or if two thirds of all MPs vote for an election. This makes the prospect of another early general election less likely. In any case, the parties may have little appetite for one given the expense and the prospect of losing support in a fresh contest.

Without a dissolution we would have a legislature but no government, a bit like Belgium, where the prime minister resigned in April 2010 and no new parliamentary majority could be established for almost two years. The country was run by a former prime minister brought out of retirement and a caretaker administration. It didn’t do them much harm. A report by academics at the University of Leuven noted that the government continued to make “legitimate decisions” on urgent matters of public finance and national security while MPs squabbled. They concluded that “in mature democracies, a power vacuum is taken care of in a constructive, creative, and responsible way”. Do we have such virtues? We might be about to find out very soon.

One thing is clear: a minority Labour government, with fewer seats than the Tories, running the country while in thrall to a nationalist party that has only 2 or 3 per cent of the total UK vote, would test our constitutional structures to breaking point, and maybe beyond. More than that, it could test our creaking, centuries-old Union to destruction.

Isn’t it funny how Britain’s growing ranks of amateur constitutional scholars and reform zealots have only come crawling out of the woodwork now that they are faced with the prospect that the party they dislike might end up calling the shots while not being the largest party in terms of either vote share or seats?

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George Osborne’s Lloyds Bank Share Sale Pledge Is Cynical And Short-Sighted

Samuel Hooper1 Comment

George Osborne - Lloyds Bank - Lloyds Banking Group Share Sale - General Election 2015

 

It isn’t always easy defending Conservative policies. While left wing parties have the luxury of flaunting their “compassionate” credentials with every unfunded pledge and extravagant promise to spend other people’s money, those on the right have the trickier task of explaining that a smaller, less interventionist state and a safety net reserved for those in real need is the only true path to a happier, more self sufficient population.

Visit any left-leaning website or listen to any left-wing activist speak, and it won’t take long before you hear a tirade against the “Evil Tories”, who in the minds of their accusers are not just wrong, but positively eager to hurt the poor and hound the vulnerable. Whether it’s on healthcare and the NHS, welfare reform, tax policy or public services, British conservatives always begin every argument ten points behind, having to battle against the widely-held assumption that conservative policies are motivated only by greed and a desire to protect the interests of those at the top.

Countering this false, pernicious narrative is hard enough at the best of times. And it really doesn’t help when patrician-sounding Conservative politicians like George Osborne announce the “sale” of partly nationalised Lloyds Bank to the public at a discounted price, a giveaway for the middle classes, the politically engaged and the financially literate at the expense of everyone else.

From George Osborne’s triumphalist announcement, published in the Telegraph:

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Labour’s NHS Party Election Broadcast: Jo Brand Is A Big Fat Liar

Samuel Hooper5 Comments

 

“A decent society looks after its people” is the moralising title of Labour’s latest celebrity election broadcast about the NHS, starring comedian Jo Brand.

That Jo Brand is a loyal supporter of the Labour Party hardly comes as a shock – the comedian was a supporter of the People’s Assembly anti-austerity coalition, and performed at the Stand Up Against Reality Austerity gig organised by that group last year. And credit where credit is due: she puts her time and money where her mouth is, supporting a cause she believes in. But unfortunately, in the case of Labour Party scaremongering about the NHS, that cause is a blatant falsehood.

Brand opens Labour’s latest celebrity ad with one of those “oh! fancy seeing you here” introductions, as though we were the last people she expected to encounter as she exercised on a lone cross-trainer slap bang in the middle of a brightly lit TV studio:

“There’s an election coming up. You might know that. And we all have our own personal axes to grind. Mine is what’s gonna happen to the NHS. Not because of my undeniable status as a national fitness icon, but because once upon a time I used to be a nurse.”

Establish credibility? Check.

When debating healthcare reform in Britain, nothing sweeps away logical debate and replaces it with hushed reverence more effectively than uttering the words “I’m a nurse”, or “I’m an NHS doctor”. Suddenly the speaker becomes an oracle, imbued with deep and mystical wisdom about national healthcare policy thanks to their selfless occupation on the front lines of clinical care.

If you are employed by the NHS, that huge organisation, the largest employer in Britain and fifth largest in the world (just behind McDonald’s), is there not the slightest possibility that working for such a vast branch of government – with a bureaucratic life of its own and a very strong survival instinct – and relying on it for your pay cheque just might skew your judgement when it comes to changing structures and working practices? Apparently not.

Regardless, Jo Brand then whips out the first of her many personal axes to grind:

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