Take back control ? - Really ?
Posted: Sun 27 Jan 2019 12:33 pm
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.
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.