eurealist.co.uk

Eureferendum post says that the political elites have removed many subjects from political discourse.

For instance; “the way different issues are put in separate boxes and treated as if they were entirely unconnected issues. Thus, while “right-wingers” are no longer prepared to talk about “Europe” but will talk about taxes, no one is putting two and two together and suggesting that, if we left the EU, our government would be able to slash taxes without having to cut any of the “services” which we apparently hold so dear.”

“What seems to be happening here is a new and important development in that the chattering classes seem to be able to define (or are seeking to define) what is and what is not “political”. If something is defined as political, then we (and the political commentators) are allowed to talk about it. But, if the chosen ones don’t consider an issue “political”, it is simply excluded from the debate, any input being either ignored or dismissed as “banging on”. By this means is the debate shaped and controlled.”

By separating the issues from the main influence on most of them, the EU is removed from democratic debate and the resulting debate becomes practically meaningless. What is the point of a political party deciding what policies it is going to offer the voters at the next election, when those policies if implemented will be viewed from an EU perspective and will have to be in line with EU objectives. If the EU perspective is not part of the debate in the first place the policies will either be made within EU Rules or will have to be changed in order for them to become acceptable.

In the latter case this in practice means we cannot trust the politicians to even attempt to deliver on many of their proposals, because they do not want to be seen to be reneging on election promises we can look out for a very bland series of policy statements come the next election, we will be asked to vote for this one or that because he is nice guy, whom we should trust to do the right thing.

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“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum – even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.”
Noam Chomsky

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Technorati Tags: Political Parties, Political Elites, Elephant in the room, Political discourse
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