A referendum on the EU Constitution is crucial. The principle that how we are governed should be decided by the people - not the government, not Parliament , and certainly not an unaccountable political elite in a foreign land - is so fundamental to British democracy that I'm shocked that it is even being called to question!
But the threat from the EU is only one battlefront in the long war between the forces of anti-democracy and the people. Bureaucracy, political correctness, the nanny state, and the threats to individual freedoms presented by a burgeoning surveillance society - all contribute to the undermining of our Liberal Democracy.
A website that looks at the slow death of British democracy - and what we can do about it - is Voters Revolt, at http://www.votersrevolt.org.uk/ It aims to bring proper, truly effective democracy to the heart of all politics. For although much lip service has been paid to democracy by all parties, little has been translated into manifesto policies.
We've had the Power Report and Gordon Brown's "Citizens Juries", but both are a smokescreen of sham "consultative" democracy which is what the 1930s fascists used to set up their dictatorships. Consultative democracy is a dangerous substitute for effective representative democracy.
Accountability is the key, and as well as the empire-builders across the Channel, our own power-hungry politicians must be left in no doubt that their jobs are at risk if they ignore the people's views. As for the bureaucratic mandarins and the quango battalions - they have to be put back in their cages before their particular brand of institutional cronyism infects the whole body politic.
Voters Revolt appeals to democrats across the political spectrum, whatever their stance on other issues such as the EU. It is not itself a campaigning organisation. It has been described as a maypole round which dancers of every opinion can weave their many coloured ribbons. It needs your support. The war against tyranny will be won only by strength of numbers.
But the threat from the EU is only one battlefront in the long war between the forces of anti-democracy and the people. Bureaucracy, political correctness, the nanny state, and the threats to individual freedoms presented by a burgeoning surveillance society - all contribute to the undermining of our Liberal Democracy.
A website that looks at the slow death of British democracy - and what we can do about it - is Voters Revolt, at http://www.votersrevolt.org.uk/ It aims to bring proper, truly effective democracy to the heart of all politics. For although much lip service has been paid to democracy by all parties, little has been translated into manifesto policies.
We've had the Power Report and Gordon Brown's "Citizens Juries", but both are a smokescreen of sham "consultative" democracy which is what the 1930s fascists used to set up their dictatorships. Consultative democracy is a dangerous substitute for effective representative democracy.
Accountability is the key, and as well as the empire-builders across the Channel, our own power-hungry politicians must be left in no doubt that their jobs are at risk if they ignore the people's views. As for the bureaucratic mandarins and the quango battalions - they have to be put back in their cages before their particular brand of institutional cronyism infects the whole body politic.
Voters Revolt appeals to democrats across the political spectrum, whatever their stance on other issues such as the EU. It is not itself a campaigning organisation. It has been described as a maypole round which dancers of every opinion can weave their many coloured ribbons. It needs your support. The war against tyranny will be won only by strength of numbers.
By: Josephine White.
4 comments:
Yes indeed. The mainstream political parties have refined their products and marketing strategies to the point that, like shoe shops in the high street, they are all selling more or less the same thing and with the same intention: increasing the power of the state at the expense of the citizen. Talk of re-engaging disaffected voters is mere empty rhetoric. We've heard it all before, and from all sides.
Politics is now about the struggle with a cynical and instinctively authoritarian political class to maintain our rapidly diminishing liberties.
Blackberry?
Yes,
It's so I can keep track of the blog while I'm at work. I've got limited access on my work computer. This way I get all the comments as they are posted and I can write posts and publish them on my blog from the Blackberry. (via email).
In the meantime, vote online about Europe at www.FreeEurope.info. Vote YES to Free Europe Constitution!
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