Democratic Deficit In the UK and EU
Successive Conservative and Labour governments have been busy exporting democracy around the world in recent decades. However, there is ample evidence that British democracy is currently in crisis. There are so many instances of British governments acting in an undemocratic manner. Indeed sometimes directly in opposition to the known wishes of the electorate – it is hard to know where to begin.
EU Joining/Leaving
We were taken into the then Common Market by Edward Heath in 1973 without a referendum. And were subsequently offered a referendum by Labour in 1975. On whether we wished to REMAIN members of what was then supposedly just a free-trade area. When we voted to LEAVE the EU in 2016 all the combined forces of the REMAIN establishment. Politicians and the judiciary conspired to frustrate the democratic wishes of the electorate over the next 4 years.
The UK was not given referendums on any of the EU treaties
Although other member countries were. The results were overridden when these were contrary to the aims of the EU. Conservative PM John Major stubbornly pushed the vote for the Maastricht Treaty through parliament in 1992. He suspended those in his party who were against it. This treaty was the most significant to date, essentially establishing the basis for a single currency and freedom of movement.
With the accession of eight Eastern European countries in 2004
Labour said 13,000 Eastern Europeans would come to the UK!! How were they SO precise and yet SO wrong? Possibly 2 million, mostly low-skilled, have come and they have most definitely depressed the wages of native Britons. Labour could have had a bar on entry for migrants from these new accession countries for 7 years. But they chose not to and the same happened with the accession of even poorer Romania and Bulgaria in 2007. Labour also said any immigrants from these EU8 countries would not be eligible for social housing, which they were. As fellow members of the EU, they could not be discriminated against in favour of the indigenous people. I recall that those who voiced these concerns were dubbed right-wing xenophobes. Tories talk about housing shortages without ever mentioning the 350,000+ yearly net migrants, as though migrants don’t require housing.
fast-track immigration
As if that were not bad enough, Boris Johnson recently offered a fast-track immigration route to the UK. For up to 3 million Hong Kong citizens. The latest in this ‘welcome the world, house the world’ attitude of those in power. Is the Homes for Ukraine scheme which has seen 100,000 Ukrainians welcomed into our country. Essentially to be kept at the expense of you and I, the taxpayers. As the end of the initial 6 months of this scheme looms. Many of these people are now being classed as ‘homeless’ and joining council-house waiting lists. Thus ensuring that indigenous people are pushed even further down the queue.
The Tories are now trumpeting building 300,000 houses yearly – houses undoubtedly built BY immigrants FOR immigrants.
We can thank Gordon Brown when Labour Chancellor that we did not get taken into the EURO. His 5 economic tests for entry were fortunately not met. Tony Blair (an enthusiastic exporter of democracy to the Middle East). Was all for the UK joining the Euro without consulting the electorate. Not one of the other 27 member countries’ electorates was consulted. As to whether they wished to relinquish their national currencies. And it is well known that the German people were loath to give up the Deutschmark. And they were probably not alone.
War
It is unlikely that, given the chance, the populace would ever vote for war. Wars are therefore undemocratic in the extreme.
Tony Blair misled government and the people on WMD in order to take us to war with Iraq. Both Labour and the Conservatives were eager to get involved in Syria and force regime change of a legitimately elected President Assad. We now have Foreign Secretary Liz Truss promising Ukraine ‘ whatever it takes’ in their conflict with Russia, thereby giving President Zelensky no incentive to pursue peace in a conflict he can never hope to win.
With their foreign interventions, both parties have helped to create the flood of immigrants to the UK.
Immigration
Politicians know that there is a majority for reform or indeed an end to unrestricted immigration and yet seem unwilling/unable to address this – they spout ‘Diversity is our strength’, while Islamic terrorist attacks increase. They continue to allow low-skilled immigrants in to do jobs that could be undertaken by our own legions of economically inactive. They allow the expansion of universities offering vocationally useless degrees, while pushing for an increase in visas for dentists/doctors – why not skew the education system towards training our own people to fill these skills shortages rather than encouraging them to do useless degrees that have no vocational value?
Electoral fraud
The Electoral Commission overlooked massive fraud in Tower Hamlets but continued to pursue Leave groups (Darren Grimes) on technicalities. There is also an appetite for electoral reform to allow Proportional Representation for Parliamentary elections but this is ignored as it would benefit small parties like the National Housing Party and other patriotic parties, whereas the First Past The Post system favours the two main parties who are essentially both liberal variants – British people are therefore denied the opportunity to vote for a REAL alternative – How democratic is that?
The police have become politicised
They can often now be our persecutors rather than our protectors. They stand by as ‘peaceful protesters’ attack them and desecrate and tear down our monuments, but suddenly spring into action at a supposed right-wing thought crime (Grimes/Starkey interview). All right-wing activists will have first-hand experience of police protecting left-wing agitators who attack any peaceful gathering of those of an alternative persuasion.
UK Citizenship
Citizenship has been devalued when it seems to be handed out to all and sundry, thus creating a disconnect between indigenous people and their country. How many times have we heard ‘A British citizen has been arrested in connection with terrorist offences’, knowing that the person in question will almost certainly be a first or a second-generation immigrant? Even when found guilty of terrorist offences, the British government are reluctant to remove citizenship from those intent on murdering true British citizens.
COVID-19 / LOCKDOWN
The government, led by the nose by scientists who cannot even agree amongst themselves as to the best strategy, has introduced never-before-seen infringements on our civil liberties, and it now looks as though the remedy may be actually worse than the virus itself, with lost jobs, a ruined economy and huge mental-health issues down the line.
This is by no means an exhaustive list of the infringements on our democracy, they are too numerous for a short article. There is a ‘boiling frog’ element to this steady erosion of our hard-won freedoms, with a gradual chipping-away, that the average voter would be oblivious to.
Politicians have an urgent need to fix our own broken democracy before they attempt to lecture others for their supposedly authoritarian leaders, as they are currently doing with both Russia and China. China’s Ambassador to Grenada, Dr Zhao Yongchen, recently pushed back against claims his country is “committing genocide” against the exploding Uighur (Muslim) population by accusing US and European leaders of pursuing a “genocide policy” against their own populations. Ambassador Yongchen continued: “In Europe and America, the birth rate of whites has fallen very seriously. Is this the result of the genocide policy pursued by their leaders?”
Democratic Deficit In the UK and EU
