Last Wednesday evening, the Conservative Party lost, or rather surrendered collective responsibility for its own direction on Brexit.

With it, democracy in the UK may have been served a terminal blow.

Whilst we now know that the latest stage of Britain’s political chaos began when the present incumbent of No.10 first boomed out ‘Brexit means Brexit’ and meant no such thing, this has been a much longer process. One delivered by Political Parties of all colours and shielded from open view by our own trust and reverence for politicians being massively misused, taken for granted and abused.

Yet a watershed moment arrived when that contempt for the people went too far.

Our politicians miscalculated the response that would come back in the form of a decision on policy which they tossed out to us on the pretence that there was a decision that was itself simply too big for elected representatives to take themselves.

They did not get the result that they were expecting and had complacently assumed was coming when the Vote for the UK to Leave the European Union was won.

Not only did these self-aggrandised leaders not like it. Many of them have and continue to do everything that they can to frustrate the will of the people.

After creating a completely avoidable mess and continuing attempts to frighten everyone else into to the spurious admission that their decision to Leave was wrong, then propagating the myth that there is no better option available for a secure future for our Country than the one they have created, they are now advocating a second referendum to try and fix the problem. The blatant inference being that it was the decision and not their own obfuscation and failure at every turn to implement a proper Brexit since the Referendum that is fundamentally wrong.

The simple truth is that the decision of the British People to Leave the EU called the bluff of the political class.

Members of this self-serving non-representative culture have and still believe that they have the natural right and authority – once elected – to manipulate anything and everything to suit what they want, what serves their own purposes and everything else required to ensure that they get their own way.

The narrative that suggests the decision of the People went the way that it did because Leavers didn’t understand what they were voting for isn’t just a lie. It also demonstrates a complete misunderstanding and contempt by many of our MP’s for their own position and responsibilities. They operate contrary to what the purpose of an elected representative of the People is actually there for.

Yes, most of the Electorate didn’t understand the detail or rather the minutae of what they were voting for in the EU Referendum.

But it is not the Electors who are supposed to understand the detail of any Policy.

It is the Elected themselves who have sought and as the direct result of their Election to Office been given the responsibility to deal with the details, thereby accepting their obligation to deliver upon the direction they have been given by the people though a legitimate plebiscite.

By Parliament voting by a considerable majority to give the decision on our Membership of Europe to the People through a plebiscite, MP’s surrendered any right to dictate the direction and end result of the choice that was made.

MPs also obligated themselves to then do whatever would be necessary with the detail that they should all clearly understand, to execute our departure from Europe. Not with the bells and whistles and ties ins that work for them. But with the result that was intended, which was and remains very clear. That is to Leave and not be restricted by any form of tie to the European Union anymore.

To now seek to overturn the original and democratic decision of the people demonstrates either that those advocating it are wholly unworthy to hold public office.

They have already failed to do what they were told by the People to do.

What is more, they have done and continue to do everything they can to frustrate the process and with it, the Will of the People. And now, believing that their game of bluff, counter bluff and pretending that they have done everything that they were supposed to do has began to pay off, they wish to deliver the final insult to the Electorate that gave each and every one of them their position of responsibility, by making the clearest statement possible that it is only the People and not they who have ever done anything wrong.

The problem is that as with most things that our Politicians have been doing for so very long, they have completely misread the People. They have underestimated the ability of people outside of the Westminster bubble to accurately perceive what they are up to. To still think that by simply telling People whatever they decide the truth should be, the People will simply believe.

The Electorate has been tired of Politicians and their behaviour for a very long time. But the nature of our current political system and the monopoly of the Triumvirate of Political Parties which has existed over a period of decades has meant that Tribalism itself has played the most significant role in Elections.

This has left very few Electors in marginal Constituencies to place a Vote that will really decide who gets the opportunity to lead us. It’s little more than a choice from the same-old same-olds, rather than being given the option of new blood that might make a difference and bring legitimacy back to our democracy. Fundamentally, it’s simply a case of leaving the corrupted apparatus of Party Politics to decide.

This is a story of the Politicians own making.

But there is now a future for politics, because politics is going to be reclaimed by the People.

Politics will be prized from the hands of the Political Parties who have boundaries and collective views which are set against, rather than in the best interests of the People – The same People who innocently Elected this shower of MPs. MPs who have self interest at their core and no longer possess a mandate to hold Office because their own purpose and the will of the People is not in any way aligned.

If MPs continue with this travesty and push a referendum upon a referendum back to the people, it will not be the result of that referendum upon which the future of the Conservative, Labour or Liberal Democrat Parties will be defined.

For within every Election that follows a Referendum which will give the lie to the existence of a respect for democracy within our sick political system, there will no longer be a choice which follows the direction of the Political Parties as we now know them.

When the choice comes to appointing the representatives of the people, it will from then onwards be set between electing Politicians who represent only themselves, and electing Politicians who represent us all.

A Referendum upon a Referendum without having first delivered the instruction from the former, questions the legitimacy of the latter, simply because it questions what the first was actually for.

This is the act that could kill off democracy in the UK once and for all.

image thanks to unknown

The idea that a new political party will be the cure to all ills in politics is not a new one.

As I have written at length before, the way that the Electorate interacts with British Politics doesn’t lend itself well to what the Establishment portrays as outsiders. Unless that is there is an issue at work over which the Establishment does not have control.

We only need look to the rise and fall of UKIP and it’s inextricable link to the EU Referendum and then Brexit itself to understand what happens when the Establishment has dropped the ball – whether for good or bad.

For decades there has been an embedded form of monopoly in politics held between the Conservative and Labour Parties, with the Liberal Democrats and its previous forms being held up or utilised from their position which is mislabelled as being between.

Breaking open this racket has been all but impossible for what seem to be very simple, but nonetheless seemingly impossible challenges to answer. Many have tried. Some have had significant bank balances to enable them to do so. But even when UKIP gained around 4 Million votes in the last General Election, it was simply the case that there was no new parliamentary real estate for them to be found.

In as succinct terms as possible, there has existed an unwritten and assumed covenant between Electors and the Elected, which has benefitted this triumvirate mode.

The purpose and responsibility of being a representative of the people, both given and received at the ballot box was understood.

A reverence and trust for politicians has been the default standard for all politicians in the psyche of the Electorate.

That is unless there has been some big scandal, usually focused on the actions of an individual politician rather than the Party itself, and once removed, the default position would quickly be resumed.

All, that is, until the straw arrived that broke this heavily burdened camels back. A straw which came in the form of a decision being tossed back over to the Public, after which the Establishment simply assumed the status quo would be returned once more.

The problem with that decision, the decision for the UK to leave the EU had its genesis in the inference that this was a choice too big to be left to the delegated powers of our MP’s alone. For a decision with such implications, the Electorate itself would be trusted with the choice, and once that choice was made, their decision would be delivered and not returned – as that itself would bring into question what the very purpose of the Referendum had actually been for.

Overnight the lines of that once apparently straightforward interaction between the Public and Politicians was overturned. Instead of Voters who are typically Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat or of a mind to sit on the borders located in between, there has emerged a new understanding and assessment of our Political Masters which rather than being fluid between 3 or maybe even more possibilities, has now become a binary choice – only presented as being many others and not least of all, the direction of either Leave or of Remain.

But as with everything that relates to the human condition, it is far from being even that simple and the options which relate to those choices are now unlikely to ever be viewed by voters as being anything like the same.

That choice itself when it comes to appointing the representatives of the people, is now between electing Politicians who represent only themselves, and electing Politicians who represent us all.

The dividing line is democracy itself.

Not party lines or any kind of political philosophy.

This is about the choice of our elected representatives being to work unquestionably for others, or working for oneself and the accumulation of position, status and wealth for personal gain plus more.

This dichotomy is not false. Politicians can only have one master. It’s the Electorate or their own ideas, party and dreams.

The insidious nature of this dynamic crosses across all of our Political Parties, but it is within the Conservative Party where the divide between the two principles has now become so very clear, that the change that many of us for so long have been advocating, may have finally found the right place and time to actually gain traction and the process of creating a new electable party which puts voters first in every sense and can command a majority wherever it runs, can finally begin.

No, I don’t for one minute think that the Tory Party will split whilst they seem to be in power, simply because until it is set in stone that the Party can no longer win anything in its current form, there remains a chance, albeit a very slim one, that sanity is restored and comes in the form of those who vote only for themselves recognising the change in the Electoral terrain and what its true purpose is for.

But when the point comes that the Conservative Party in May’s image hits the buffers – which if the current chaos and uncertainty continue it inevitably soon will, there will come a point where all the Conservative MP’s who make up the subsequent wreckage will have the opportunity to return true democracy to the UK once more.

If this was a perfect world, we wouldn’t need political parties. In fact, we wouldn’t need politics at all. Things would just get done without reference to anyone.

But we don’t exist in a perfect world, and after recognising that there is such a thing as mutually shared interests between us all, democracy, facilitated by the necessary evil which political parties (or groups of people working together) are, when it comes to getting things done on behalf of us all, is pretty much the next best thing.

At some point however, the working framework which political parties were only ever supposed to provide, got exchanged for something perceived as being bigger than that laudable purpose itself. Political Parties are now all about the Party itself, and they have forgotten one very big and fundamental thing.

Political Parties are not and never will be more important than the People that their elected members represent.

A vicious circle exists where we cannot get sufficient numbers of good people into Parliament because Political Parties work coercively to ensure that almost all of their elected members are on message, and because that message is simply wrong, it ensures that the Parties keep on recruiting the same kind of people in the very same image.

Whilst this problem is increasingly evident within all the established political parties, it is today the Conservative Party where this malaise is so clearly evident.

It is an example of a Party where blind ambition and nothing else has delivered us a Prime Minister who is out of touch with the People. She is so convinced of her own infallibility, that she is using the Party apparatus to try and force Members to agree she is doing the right thing.

Conservatism is not synonymous with what the Conservative Party is now doing.

The Conservative Party has lost its way under this and past leadership. It is blinded by the arrogance of power and many years of believing the self-prorogated myth that it is the ‘natural party of government’. Many Conservative politicians now carry an obtuse sense of entitlement and the belief that they possess a magic formula which means any decision they make will always be accepted by the People as being correct.

Pride comes before a fall.

In its current form and with the words being spoken and undemocratic action being taken by so many of its prominent Politicians, the Conservative Party’s days are very much numbered.

This itself is perhaps the biggest shame of all. Because out of all the Political Parties capable of being in Government with the peculiartities of our Electoral System as they are, it is only from the basis of Conservatism that Policies be delivered which will really be beneficial to and considerate of the needs of all.

May’s abuse of the Party apparatus and their combined attempt to force Local Conservative Associations to herd MP’s into the correct Voting Lobby over her Brexit Withdrawal Agreement now demonstrates how out of touch CCHQ itself is with its own people on the ground.

Without radical change, the Conservative Party no longer has the promise of a shared ideology with its own paid-up supporters, let alone the grassroots conservative-leaning voters who will be essential going forward if they are now to secure seats or victory in any campaign.

When the change comes in No.10, as it now surely must, the Conservative Party must embark immediately upon a process of comprehensive change taht not only supports the structure of a Party capable of winning terms of majority government. But actively engages, encourages and takes with it not only its local association network, but individual members and non paid-up supporters too.

If it doesn’t, the Conservative Party itself as a credible party in either power or opposition is almost certainly doomed.

 

Image thanks to clipartxtras.com

Culturally, perhaps one of our worst pastimes of the day is the habit of trying to make everyone else wrong.

Whilst the clearest manifestation of this behavioural menace is that of the blame culture, it is the adoption of this approach as the standard tactic by Remainers in their continuing efforts to overturn Brexit where its presence is most clearly and most dangerously felt.

I have met and spoken at length with many people and friends who are Remainers. Individuals and professionals who are intelligent, sensible and have the wherewithal to steer their way through the day-to-day minefield which is the voter end of the political spectrum – just as long as the politicians are being honest and the truth isn’t actually being denied.

What They all have in common is that none of them have been able to provide genuine reason for Remaining a Member of the EU other than some form of personal advantage, such as banking or what their employer does, or it simply being most often the case that they hate notified change and they want to maintain the status quo.

It is clear that the vitriol which drives the Remain faction is based upon a sense of loss of control, the sense of personal cost or just the sense from fear of change.

There is nothing tangible about benefits to the wider community, the interests of anyone beyond those they care about or the surfacing of any argument which indicates that Remaining a Member of the EU is a genuine solution to all the ills around us – it being the case that since June 2016, this is what we have been repeatedly told.

So it is the media support and manipulation through communication and the disingenuous behaviour of our Politicians which form the basis of this sell-out of our Sovereignty to an accumulation of different foreign shores. And when there is no real substance to anything that they are telling us or even saying, it comes as little wonder that so many of their messages and soundbites are so freely susceptible to change.

The big problem with all of this is that Leaving the EU properly offers UK People and Businesses a clearly discernible difference to everything that we have for over 40 years experienced and to that which we are still being drip-fed and directly told.

But a real Brexit as yet hasn’t been delivered. This despite the fact that the objective was set in stone as a democratic instruction. It was given by the People, by a majority and in direct response to the binary choice which was binding – as the same Politicians who are now trying to commit us to the EU, convinced us before that historic European Referendum and underlined their very clearly in bold.

So no matter how much effort is spent on trying to repackage the same old story, it is clear that the same old lack of substance Remains.

This whole plan is still about selling out the UK to a foreign power. One driven by an autocracy that wants to use the UK as a resource for nothing more than its own empire building, doesn’t care about democracy in the UK or the people or businesses within it. Yet it will do everything within its power to sell the idea that we cannot live without the influence and control of 27 other countries and that Remaining is the only way that we can ever be safe, secure and feel prosperous, when the truth is quite the opposite.

Put in the words of one of the World’s most influential statesman, ‘You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time*’.

So go ahead. Rename Remain ‘informed consent’ or anything else you’d like to try to overturn Brexit.

The democratic decision to Leave has not yet been delivered and that’s the truth your obfuscation can never deny.

image thanks to unknown

*Abraham Lincoln

How we govern the Net, it’s use, the transfer, storage and sharing of data is a Policy area that like many others our Government should be on top of and ahead of the game.

That it isn’t and that many of our politicians simply have no understanding of what is happening around us in the parallel world of data is not, however, a sign that we need the EU Bureaucracy to take over and install a set of draconian and out of touch rules that demonstrates Brussels has even less understanding of the changing world than Westminster does.

Scare stories some might think.

But the reality of what the EU is attempting to do is very real and the iceberg which is coming is very much deeper beneath the surface than the relatively tame tip we now know to be GDPR.

Right now, we could be well on the way to being legally unable to share material such as newslinks from the Internet, or even take pictures of or in public places because of what the EU is now attempting to deem as being assumed copyright for things like buildings.

Idealistic, dangerously impractical and without any real regard for how life works within the world of the Internet and in its relationship with everything else, unelected bureaucrats lurking in an office somewhere in Brussels are about to take nanny-stating and big brotherish concepts to a whole new level.

If we either Remain or worse still, embrace May’s deal, we will have no choice but to accept these undemocratic and choking restrictions however far reaching and personally restricting they might be.

In governmental terms, the arrival of Internet based technology and the online universe has caught legislators napping.

To many, a fallacious idea now exists where the Net has broken down geographical boundaries and barriers and heralds a new age where concepts such as cryptocurrencies and blockchain will make localised governance systems redundant and that markets will now reach across the world and take care of everything that crops up in between.

They won’t.

The reason they won’t, is that no matter what we do online, be it personally or for our business or employer, the dehumanisation of relationships which the rise of the internet has already inflicted upon us has shown that real life requires a level of tangibility and physical stimulation that technology will never offer us, even through virtual reality.

Centralising and ceding power to the EU over data and the rules which govern our Internet access and use would be a catastrophic abuse and denial of the real opportunity to take control and influence the response necessary to the powerful technological and informational changes taking place around us. And to do so for the better.

Our businesses, our people and the physical environment across the UK are very different to the 27 other Countries that make up the EU.

We must have regulation which is sensitive, tailored and responsive to UK needs. Regulation must not be set on a one-size-fits-all basis which at best will be modelled on a false commonality between 28 very different Countries and more likely will be much worse, offering no basis of practicality at all or any sense in which we could identify consideration of any specific UK need – either domestically, or for our interactions with the whole of the outside World.

This will not be possible if the UK’s choice to Leave the EU is ignored. Or through the dishonesty and lack of responsibility to the Electorate on the part of Politicians, the UK is coerced into a much closer and technically irreversible union with the EU as will be the outcome of May’s deal being adopted, or an alternative series of false choices are created which mislead us to Remain.

We will only have the flexibility, the adaptability and the necessary cultural intuitively to give the UK the right Data Policies that we need, if we Leave the EU, take complete control of our own Policy making once again, and then push our self-orientated Political classes to get on and deliver the key Policy areas like Data which will return the UK to the place where we can meet opportunity or crisis from wherever it may come, head on.

 

image thanks to entrepreneur.com