Take back control ? - Really ?

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erol
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Take back control ? - Really ?

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Post by erol »

Lesson to be learnt from Brexit so far ? Or more accurately how Brexit has for me just reinforced and highlighted things that I always felt to be the case anyway.

UK politics, as far as it is a system where by ordinary people can have an effective say and voice in the decisions that shape and control their lives, is broken and not fit for purpose.

The 'big lie' for me is that voting to leave the EU was a vote to 'take back control'. We, 'ordinary people', never really had control, not before joining the EU and this will still be the case after we leave it. Brexit may change which entities have ultimate control of what but rest assured what ever outcome 'brexit' ends in, it will not be the 'people' that gain such control or greater control.

It would have been a simple process to have required that our initial entry in to the EEC and / or any subsequent treaty renegotiation of it required consent of the people via referendum. It is clear to me that no politicians in the UK have ever wanted to give such 'control' to the people out of motivation for such an ideal. Not before we entered the EEC not whilst we were in it and not once we are out of it. Of the two times we have been 'asked' neither was on our initial entry or at a time of treaty change within in. Both times we were 'allowed' a direct say were at a timing and result of the needs of political parties and driven solely by the narrow needs and interests only of those parties and nothing to do with any genuine desire to seek the 'will of the people'. Those politicians, political groupings and parties that today talk about the importance and preeminence of the 'will of the people' do so not out of any sincere belief in the ideal but simply out of convenience and if and as soon as they they get what they want by lauding such ideals they will revert back to the same position they have always had which is to do everything they can to limit the 'say' of the people to singular limited binary 'choices' every 5 years.

We get the politics and politicians we deserve. The percentage of the population that is prepared to put time and effort in to 'politics' is tiny. The percentage of the population that stands for or would be willing to stand for political office or who even joins a political party is in total around 1 million people out of a population of 60 million odd. We allow ourselves to be whipped up in to divisive passionate righteous fury over an issue like Brexit but how much time or effort do any of us spend considering or caring about how we might change things such that 'the people' do have a more effective say in the decisions that shape and control all of our lives ? What chance would a campaign to require all national and local elections to have a specific counted option of 'none of the above' have of inspiring ordinary people to care ? Such could, in my view, have much more real and long term impact on the effectiveness of people to have 'a say' than if we stay in or leave the EU or how we leave the EU but let us be honest here, we do not really care.

We,'the people', have only ever had the merest limited 'control' and will continue to do so whatever out future relationship to the EU turns out to be and that is because we, 'the people' are in reality indifferent as we get on with our day to day lives and looking after our own interests as best we can in whatever environment those who really do have control grant us.

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Re: Take back control ? - Really ?

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Post by turtle »

I agree Erol the people will never have direct control but what we will have is the ability to vote from time to time in who asks our questions and puts our cases forward in parliament and if they fail they will be not voted for again,. My opinion is just watch the next election whenever it comes there will be major seat losses on all sides because of how the MPs have treated this Brexit fiasco..

MPs who have shown total disregard and contempt to the very people they are supposed to represent.

Don’t really understand your comments about joining a political party or “getting involved in politics” on them views I would suggest people generally get tied to one particular party and rarely change to another,.. people generally get a bit fanatical about their original choice and don’t appear to look too closely at party manifesto’s anymore...Take some of my family all brought up and lived in a working- class Steel city of Sheffield and will not vote any other way than Labour irrespective of their manifesto or past history performance absolutely bonkers in my opinion.

As regards not being interested I think a large number are not interested and I think that is because politics is not made interesting to the average joe,..politics is so far detached from the public in most countries makes it out of reach of most people.

This Brexit Fiasco will only add to this and I would predict the next election turnout will be abysmal.

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Re: Take back control ? - Really ?

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Post by EnjoyingTheSun »

Can't argue with the general thrust of your argument Erol but will make a couple of comments.

I don't think what you say is limited to the UK but is a world wide thing.
62% of the German people when polled were against the Euro but they leaders still put them in the Euro.

I think that you can make sound arguments against parliaments against governing by referendum.
We abolished hanging and legalised homosexuality in the 60s when a referendum of the people would have almost certainly been against both.

My own bias is towards a death penalty but I have no desire to penalise people based on their sexuality. That said we never seem to get the balance right. If you ask for less regulation you will be shouted down by some saying so you believe in anarchy then? No lets just be sensible, it really isn't that hard is it?

On that subject lets look at homosexuality. We of course respect peoples desire to be what they are comfortable with, within reason. Should people go to prison because they are gay? Of course not. Should people of the same sex be allowed to marry? Again I have no real problem with that. I personally think same sex church weddings are a headline grabbing bit of tokenism and most gay people would feel that equal pension rights are far more important but I guess I'd be accused of putting words in peoples mouths.

What I do object to is when there is a campaign to hound people who for some deep seated religious beliefs do not wish to marry a same sex couple or bake them a wedding cake etc. As we should respect the wishes and beliefs of gay people then surely we should offer equal respect to people who are saying that whilst they wont campaign against same sex marriages it makes them uncomfortable to participate in them.

As for people being lazy and not taking an active part that isn't an unfair comment but it can lead to the democracy of the committed. The device where a handful of committed fanatical activists can take of local political parties. It was a tactic of militant to hijack the local Labour party to whom 3 men and a dog attended meetings. Half a dozen committed zealots can then hoist on their candidate. It is a tactic that Momentum have revived.
To me that is hiding under a democracy banner not embracing it.
The no platforming is another tactic. Such and such a university won't give a platform to someone because of their views.
People have died for freedom of speech and it was their greatest gift to us.
I remember the outcry when Nick Griffin was allowed on Question Time. What ended up happening was he came over as an odious shifty sweaty inarticulate moron and most have cost the BNP countless votes. If you have a good argument then argue it, don't censor the other side.

As for peoples laziness, are they not entitled to examine a party's manifesto, expect them to follow it and leave them to it? The government works for us. Doesn't it? When I take my car to the garage I don't expect to stand over the mechanic for 8 hours watching him carefully. If it works I pay him if it doesn't I don't or at least don't go back there. We vote a government in, if they don't do what they said or what they said didn't work, we vote them out. It isn't perfect but it is more transparent than the EU way where our Euro MPs actually have very little power effecting the EUs regulatory powers.

Re the EU or EEC votes there is a massive difference between voting to join something and voting to stay in it. People generally vote for the status quo. On the day Britain joined the EU, a Mori poll found that 38% were happy, 39% were unhappy and 23% undecided. I would take an educated guess that if you put a gun to their heads the undecideds would have probably gone 10% yes and 13% no, as people aren't big on change. So after 40 odd years we have 52% who don't want to be in the EU and 48% who do. Not much changed there.
The EEC was only a tiny part of Heath's manifesto as well.

EnjoyingTheSun
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Re: Take back control ? - Really ?

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Post by EnjoyingTheSun »

erol wrote:
What chance would a campaign to require all national and local elections to have a specific counted option of 'none of the above' have of inspiring ordinary people to care ? Such could, in my view, have much more real and long term impact
To be honest I think the vote for Trump was essentially none of the above.

If the elite experts always know what's best for us and the ordinary people or deplorables are not to be trusted with decisions that affect their lives then those that they feel do speak for them on even a couple of issues get some traction.

When you label anyone criticising Obama a racist or anyone criticising Hilary Clinton a sexist then don't be surprised when you drive them into the arms of truly nasty extremists. There is a lot worse than Trump out there.

Democracy has countless faults but it is better than the benevolent despotism that some champion

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