You’ve probably heard the saying that absolute power corrupts absolutely, and so with it the suggestion that as the power of an individual increases, their morality and therefore ethics diminish in a like amount.

We should all be grateful that this is not generally an absolute rule. But in terms of today’s Parliament and the majority of the Members within it, I regrettably find myself being far from sure anymore.

Like many others, I have tapped away at my keyboard over recent weeks and months, at best bemused and at worst very sad at the state of British Politics and in particular what the activities and motivations of most of our MP’s has actually become.

That Brexit is the event that should never have happened in the minds of those who were Elected to serve us is already a given. That they are so hell-bent on overturning the democratic will of the people – even if it boils down to acts which are designed to deceive us all, gives a very telling insight of how dangerous to our democracy, the behaviour, self interest and lack of ethics and morality on the part of our politicians has actually become.

Yet to take debate and argument to a level where action will be taken to actively prevent the Brexit that the People Voted for, way surpasses the political malaise that has been present for a long time before the Referendum Vote and tells us that very few of the politicians elected to represent us actually understand what representation means and what the Representation of the People Act was itself brought into being for.

Holding up government might well prove to be a brilliant idea if you are a US President who has no concept of the pain caused and genuine loss of such action to others. But it is not the action of any individual or group of MP’s who paint themselves as being servants of the people, as respecting democracy and having the best interests of their Country at the heart of what they do – if they actually mean it.

To even attempt to derail the delivery of a democratic mandate – not because their fears have in any way been proven, but because they are simply too gutless and irresponsible to put their own ideas and plans to one side – is a travesty of democracy and of justice. They are simply trying to enact a decision that was never theirs to decide.

MP’s en masse are now making their position very clear. A position that shows they are incapable of carrying out the responsibility that has been entrusted to them. They are failing all of us, our Country, our future and it’s time that all of those MP’s who cannot see the will of the British People for what it is, however unpalatable they might themselves find it, should resign AND step aside.

We do not need a Parliament constructed of little other than the self-serving.

The UK has far too many issues that need redeeming, a prosperous non-EU future to embrace and far too many opportunities for good to be identified and acted upon for all of this to be put at risk by the lack of vision, integrity and care for others that is the only direction that all of these self-representatives are inclined.

 

image thanks to uk.businessinsider.com

 

 

Had the European Referendum and it’s follow up been facilitated by better political leadership, the UK would today be feeling like a much different place.

Instead of scare stories about lack of medicines, lorry parks on world war 2 airfields in Kent and the myth that we will never survive alone being the mainstay of our daily media diet, we could instead of been experiencing the true reality of what awaits us as a truly independent and confident nation, embracing all of our worldwide partners and opportunities wherever and whatever they are.

The arrogance and self-aggrandisement of the Establishment denied us this path. One which would have been much easier and significantly less harmful to our own People, if our Politicians then, since and now had only been prepared to put the Country they are supposed to represent first.

Respect for democracy in the UK has been discarded.

Not by the People who Vote.

Democracy has been discarded by the Politicians Elected to act upon it.

This much is clear. Democracy being the most effective tool to create a consensus where there is none. But itself dependent upon those involved respecting the legitimacy of results when a decision has been made where otherwise there would have been none.

The position that we have now reached, little over 80 days until we are scheduled to Leave the EU is that amongst Parliamentarians, there is simply no consensus on what Leaving the EU actually means.

Yet the ambiguity being used to form the basis of their arguments is something that they themselves have created.

It is an ambiguity that is theirs alone.

This ambiguity is in fact a very clear question of the principle of democracy. It states that democracy is open to interpretation and that it can be rejected if the result is something they don’t like. Something that they cannot themselves own.

Within a countdown of the Politicians own making, they have realised that the time has run out to manipulate others to embrace their own interpretation of democracy. They now want to extend the time allowed for them to change others minds.

But delaying Brexit, its process or the date that it will be enacted will not do this. It will only delay the inevitable, creating even greater levels of public mistrust in government and politicians.

Delaying Brexit has the potential to destroy democracy completely, as the political class abuses its position of responsibility to attempt the overturn of an historic result which very clearly spoke and told them ‘NO MORE’.

Extra time will not change the outcome if democracy is to be respected, its results implemented legitimately and enacted with the integrity that the British People are entitled to expect from the Politicians that we have Elected.

Spun and framed as a ‘no deal Brexit’, Leaving the EU without any form of ‘membership’, ‘partnership’, obligation to do or accept whatever might be required by a Foreign Power is exactly what the majority of the British People Voted for democratically in 2016.

The rich irony is that events may now lead the path of the UK in the way that the Politicians were Elected and therefore supposed to lead us and force them into taking responsibility in a situation which could have been much easier and well managed for all, if on 24th June 2016 the Establishment had respected and lived by the Result of the European Referendum and then gone on to deliver upon it as it should then, since and now have intended.

No, Brexit is not the only ailment affecting this Government. In fact, what the slippage of time and the way we simply overlook so much allows is the strange and growing idea that there weren’t any problems before Brexit came along.

This is of course complete bullshit.

But it’s useful if you are a politician and you know that you have lost control of the very comfortable gravy train that you have been holidaying on, all too often for a very long time indeed.

For some reason, deeply embedded in our psyches is the strange idea that behaviour is either acceptable or unacceptable depending upon whether it fits within some written or identifiable set of rules.

Yes, the ambiguity of what we call social norms presents an increasingly difficult challenge when so many people are hell bent on changing the communal perception of what is considered to be acceptable – often for purposes which are only aligned to their own.

But without this interference, there had existed a code which worked well until the point when it allows something to go very, very wrong.

Set in this mould is the definition or understanding of what it is or means to be corrupt. And to what it means to therefore miss behaviour which should be included, which is not, and that which through its absence explains a great many things about the way that the world and our political system actually works and impacts upon us all right now.

In its purest form, corrupt action or behaviour is apportioned to financial payments or monetary payoffs to secure contracts, favours or influence in Government.

We hate it.

We hate just the idea.

We hate even the slightest whiff of it.

That is why the Parliamentary Expenses Scandal created such a furor.

But is that the nearest that the UK ever gets to experiencing anything corrupt within the Governmnet System?

I would say no.

And if we open ourselves up to the real definition of corruption and what it is to be corrupt, we soon realise that in fact, there is a whole lot more besides.

During 8 years as a Borough Councillor, I never actually saw money changing hands between Councillors, Officers and the 3^rd Parties beyond. But the smoke which was the tell-tale of brown envelopes was never far from conversation, particularly when planning matters were being discussed. It was very clear to other Councillors and members of the general public that decisions went very differently to what it would have been fair and reasonable to expect on a number of occasions and that it was as such only fair to assume that there had been some kind of preferential or pecuniary treatment involved, as there was simply no other logic to support it.

Smoke however, isn’t in itself a form of proof. And whilst I still find myself writing about questionable planning practices which carry the overriding suggestion that there is an unseen force or influence involved, we cannot prove anything against anyone until some form of proof has surfaced which proves that they – and their corrupt practices were actually involved.

But the problem runs much deeper.

Finding that brown envelope or the trail of a financial transaction is much easier than it will ever be than to prove that impartiality of thought does not exist and therefore preferences or prejudices are being employed at a very non-evidential level.

Corrupt behaviour is far more than just that which is focused upon money changing hands.

You are corrupt and engaged in corrupt practice the moment that any form of bias is entertained in the execution of a choice or decision taken from a position of public responsibility whether that position be elected, appointed or some form of agency is involved.

To give this some context, we all find the stories of MP’s appointing family members, old boys networks and friends of friends getting plumb jobs in industry a very distasteful practice – and this is when there is no discernable link or impact upon the public involved.

Look a little closer and you soon know that any form of discrimination which disadvantages what should be the natural choice for a role, decision or policy will inevitably have negative consequences that reach far beyond the obvious. We can only conclude that corrupt behaviour has been involved.

Play all this out on a National stage and when you see politicians gorging themselves over the trough of opportunities that face them, we can soon see that money changing hands is in no way near as damaging to the practice of trading off their votes and therefore responsibility in exchange for career benefits, job security, patronage or where any opportunity to make a name for oneself has become involved.

We also forget that self-interest neglects the responsibility to ideas, actions and practices which will benefit the many, rather than just the few.

And in the days of Brexit, this is perhaps the most damaging and reprehensible form of corruption which is plaguing all of our Parliament, because this sell out is over the future of an entire nation. The cost of which is incalculable to everyone beyond those who have the positions of influence and power today, where priorotising themselves is the only motivation they consider to have voice enough to listen to and to allow to become involved.