eurealist.co.uk

British political parties do not serve the interests of democracy because instead of representing the people, they impose their own ideas on the public. The party workers choose what policies they will offer for public consumption work out their arguments and those of the opposition parties, they will then only talk about their chosen subjects. Thus creating the impression of an open and all encompassing political debate whilst in reality they are confining the debate to their chosen areas.

In this they are backed by a supine main stream media who seem quite happy to go along with the impression that our political parties are actually offering us a choice, in the main the MSM is content to issue - in some cases line for line - the parties press releases, or invent a debate by only concentrating on the frivolous, there is no real attempt to widen the political debate or serious attempt to pursue areas not sanctioned by the parties.

Combined with this, as so much of our policy traditionally controlled by our national government is now dictated or heavily influenced by the EU the remaining areas of policy any government can affect without interference by the EU and other international bodies are reduced to a minimal.

This would not be so bad if the political parties actually represented a large proportion of the public, but in fact it is just the opposite, as their policies have become evermore detached from those that interest the majority of the public, they have been bleeding members, as voters have found the party they once felt best represented their view with its raft of policies now no longer fits the bill. Now the parties combined membership represents only about 1% of the public. This means the parties do not have a mass support and do not have a mass input into the formation of their priorities on which they build their policies.

This ought to be looked at from the other end, instead of the people leaving the parties the parties have been deserting the people leaving a vast majority of us disenfranchised.

The fact that the parties are only interested in their own survival can be seen if we look at the proposals for public funding of political parties debate. The proposals made by Sir Hayden Phillips were for the parties to be financed in the main from the public purse, Disregarding the fact that the majority of the people have expressed opposition to these proposals, the draft agreement between the parties was for there to be substantial public financing of political parties.

The Labour Party only has the support of a mere 19% of the electorate yet they totally control the House of Commons,

The title of the draft agreement - Inter-Party Talks The funding of Political Parties -making it clear that this was a debate only for the parties. They will be the ones who decide how much they will get and they will be the ones to vote it through parliament, they will do this without any input form the majority of the people of this country. As the majority of the people of this country have already voted with their feet, not to support the parties, and the party leaders have the unmitigated gall to call this strengthening democracy.

This is newspeak doublethink - we are leaving the parties in vast numbers because they no longer represent us - so they intend to force us to pay for them anyway -, basically because they cannot survive without our money - but the dress up this raiding of the public purse with a stupid argument that we will take more interest if we have to pay for them.

Another area where the parties have totally ignored the people is over the Lisbon Treaty. Where our so called representatives voted not to allow a referendum this is in spite the fact that poll after poll showed over 80% of the people wanted a referendum and the fact that practically of those sitting in parliament stood on a manifesto of allowing a referendum.

The Labour Party only has the support of a mere 19% of the electorate yet they totally control the House Commons, because the Conservatives who have almost the same basic support have 159 fewer seats. Yet put together both parties still do not represent the majority of the electorate. So which ever party wins an election they are totally unrepresentative of the majority of the people. But their absolute majority will enable them to force their own policies on the rest of us.

The political parties claim that they must be supported from the public purse is based on their conceit that our democracy depends on their existence, that democracy can only be realised though the presently existing party machines. When it is the parties themselves who are the major stumbling block towards the representation of the people. They have done this by constraining the MP we vote the party line, and forcing them to vote for party policy through the Whips office, so effectively our MPs are forced to vote for a minority view rather than supporting the interests of the local community which elected them.

I have argued that because our own MPs have over the years voted to pass ever more authority to the EU, that their numbers should be reduced by an amount corresponding to the percentage of power they have voted to outsource. This is confirmed because as they only represent the minority views of their own party leadership, in the interests of their own party, there will obviously be no loss of representation by reducing their numbers drastically how can we suffer a loss of representation when our political parties already refuse to represent the people.

If you will excuse the pun it is time we all told them that the party was over, they have by their own hands destroyed that which they were supposed to protect, have chosen not to represent their constituents and are engaging in a charade of democracy that is no more edifying than the non democracy offered by that other anti-democratic institution on the Continent.

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democracy, political parties, Lisbon Treaty, EU
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