I wrote this two tweet thread yesterday in exasperation at the contempt the government has for Parliament, and the role that the current Speaker has in enabling this:
- Let MPs call ministers liars when they are
- Let MPs take control of the business of the House of Commons as parliamentary sovereignty demands
- Allow any MP to bring forward legislation to hold ministers to account
- Permit MPs to vote to sack ministers who lie to them— Richard Murphy (@RichardJMurphy) June 14, 2021
It was subsequently pointed out to me that some of the things I suggest are not possible at present. My response was simple: if we really had parliamentary sovereignty they would be. It makes my case that Parliament is so constrained.
It seems to me that we are watching the death of our democracy in something that no longer looks like slow motion.
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“All that is required for evil to flourish is for men to stand by and do nothing”. I completely agree – PMQ’s is so disgusting that I would prefer to go to the dentist.
Bagehot famously divided the workings of the English system into “dignified” and “efficient”. Parliament has let itself become “dignified” as purely a tourist attraction (Mother of Parliaments as part of some historic romance) which explains the obscene amount of money being spent on its refurbishment.
I hate to point this out but do you not think that what you propose above is what the Tories have actually been doing themselves? They’ve actually been taking control of Parliament. It’s the dark mirror image of what you are proposing. The Tories are taking executive power to new levels. They’ve made out that everyone else is lying.
How I miss John Bercow.
My view is that your ire should be directed at HM Opposition’s largest party. These chinless wonders are coming up seriously short.
Looking back, our ‘democracy’ has always been in limbo like (between life and death) – in other words it did not really exist because it was always ‘tolerated’ by the Establishment. There was never any ‘gentleman’s agreement’ at all. All we got was what ‘they’ allowed us to have – to be whisked away whenever ‘they’ felt like it. And one party always claimed to be the ‘natural party of Government’ – a baton passed down to them from (they would claim) the the kings of old apparently.
Well bugger me – here ‘they’ are. What a surprise eh? Yes – I’m being sarcastic but only out of sadness.
My family has been working class for as long as I can remember. This so-called ‘democracy’ you say we live in has been kicking our arses and playing God for as long as I can remember. This day was always going to come.
Look at how this country has treated the Irish, the Scots, West Indians, the Welsh, working people – with the ingrained contempt. It tells you something. Real Democracies do not behave like that Richard.
So the question is – are we losing a democracy? No I don’t think so. It was always false and even the world began to believe the guff we put out about it (the ‘mother of parliaments’ my arse). We’re losing something – but I would not call it ‘democracy’.
Hopefully what it is we are losing may lead to something better and which may yet be called democracy proper.
But its a long dive down now, so take a deep breath is my advice and keep doing what you are doing for as long as you can.
Pilgrim Slight Return,
As a middle class person, I’m a Socialist because I recognise, as too few in the middle class do (though everyone in the ruling class does), that all our freedoms were won by working class struggle and sacrifice, mainly in the 19th, and early 20th, centuries.
Anyone who thinks that the power of the Commons (circumscribed and charade-like though it may, in your above-expressed opinion, be) would ever have been granted without the threat posed by the Chartists in the mid-19th century, the displays of Trade Union power in the late-19th, and early-20th, centuries, and above all by the blood-letting of mainly working class victims in WW1 – all ultimately based on the power of the people demonstrated in the Civil War and the Protectorate – anyone who believes that is sorely deluded. Everything had to be struggled for and seized.
Further, the top 2 quartiles (the 51% to 75%, and the 76% to 99%) were quite content to join in on the “skivers not strivers” demonising rhetoric of the last decade, never realising that they were next in line, and that once the 1% could break sufficiently free of Parliamentary oversight, those top 2 quartiles would also be subjected to the same demonisation and disempowement as the bottom 2 quartiles, as the 1% brought in the neo-feudalisation of society, in which the new Barons/1% have ALL the rights and NONE of the duties, while the new serfs/99% have ALL the duties, and NONE of the rights, which will have been transformed into “pay as you go/paid for” services that used to be free.
And those payments by the 99%, along with the Government’s power to create money, will be the source of wealth under neo-feudalism, where land was in the original feudalism, as the new Barons are granted access to Government revenue streams – the corruptly awarded PPE contracts being the model for the emerging neo-feudal State.
And the neo-feudal State will not even possess the merits of its original, where there was at least a sort of contract – compact is a better description – between the classes, in that your Lord owed you a duty of protection in return for your service to him.
The new Barons would happily feed the 99% to the wolves, as they feel no such duty of care to the wealth creators. Look at Jeff Bezos – about to launch himself into space on the back of his $200bn mainly expropriation fortune, accumulated from the exploitation of his work force, who are underpaid and non-unionised, in stressful work conditions that closely approximate to servitude. Or serfdom.
Andrew – interesting – but our ‘lords’ do not need our services anymore – automation is seeing to that so then what?
If this so-called ‘compact’ you talk of was based on our useful value to the rich then that is all going to come undone.
Automation (and mass redundancy) not only destroys such a ‘compact’ but also renders whatever human links (obligations etc.,) the classes had between each other redundant.
There will be no return to an old style patrician attitude to one’s servants Andrew; you will not have to worry about your ‘Alexa butler’ or self driving care not having enough to eat or somewhere to live.
It’s a further decoupling by the rich from the rest of society. And it renders even Marxist analysis redundant too – there can be no arguing where output or ‘value work’ lies because there will be no effing human beings doing it. Now, this IS a possible ‘end of history’ moment that I’m not sure too many grasp.
This is why all I’m trying to do in my own clumsy way is reframe the debate so speak.
And to think, when I was younger I was told that in the future, we’d have less work time and more leisure time.
Ha! What is actually happening is that it will be only the rich and affluent who will be able to have and afford leisure time – not the rest of us.
I’m telling you – the rich and affluent have already seen the future. We – the people – just don’t count any more. We’re expendable.
Thanks.
Coincidentally I have just sent this letter to the Guardian:
So Sir Lindsay Hoyle has complained that ministers were “once again … running roughshod over MPs”
“The most important announcements of government policy should be made, in the first instance, in parliament.”
When is everyone going to wake up and recognise that this government has nothing but contempt for democracy, particularly parliamentary democracy, and will do everything they can to undermine it?
The wake up call was clear when parliament was illegally prorogued to stop it interfering with government Brexit plans. Their response was the plan to limit the powers of the judiciary and for good measure extend the use of the anti- democratic FPTP voting system. There’s truly none so blind as those who don’t want to see