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Individual Freedom

Tuesday 13 March 2012

Tribal Party Politics has Stolen our Democracy

We are faced with a political system that has stolen our democracy, supported by the political classes who   support the 'Party' before they do voters who elected them.

The Political parties have no intention of changing the status quo, after a brief flirtation with a successful open primary in Totnes, the Tories have quietly dropped the idea with no objection from their MP's. The other parties have made no movement or noise whatsoever, except to try and change the voting system to ensure they can stitch up the system in an even more comprehensive way.

The truth is they are all very comfortable thank you, a job for life in many instances, and none of the parties wants or has the courage to rock the boat.

The voters have responded very predictably, with their feet, totally resigned to the fact that all our parties are in essence in it for themselves, they have departed from the ballot box in droves. Indeed there cannot be a time since WW2 that politicians have been so discredited and despised by the electorate.

It is also very apparent we are totally over represented with our layers upon layers of 'elected' representatives,starting with parish &district councillors, county councillors & MP's. This is before you take into account the new assemblies in Scotland, Wales and N.Ireland, and throw in our infamous quango's for good measure.

It is time to grasp the nettle at Westminster by starting with a radical reduction in the number of MP's who represent us, it would appear that we could quite safely reduce them from the proposed 600 to 300 to 400 without impinging on our democracy.

The elephant in the room however will remain, that is the Political Parties whose power knows no bounds, this must be changed to ensure that we the voters are empowered to choose who should stand as our MP.
We must move forward to a system of open primaries, with the Totnes open primary of 2009 taken as a template. I am sure this could be strengthened further in favour of the voter so only the voters  have the power to choose who should stand for them.

We must diminish the power of the parties by banning the use of the Whips, this together with MP's chosen by open primary,plus the ability of the voters to recall the MP if they are dissatisfied with their performance,  will bring an independence to our MP's that has not been seen before in our lifetime.

Imagine if you can a House of Commons full of  genuinely independent MP's of all persuasions voting by conscience, common sense and their constituents wishes rather than voting according to the demands of the corrupt Tribal Party system. What a change this would bring about in our politics and our democracy!

But the question is how do we go about achieving this aim, to win back our democracy, and have the government and representation we want. It is clear the political parties in Westminster are not interested, UKIP have proven same old same by supporting the status quo and PR despite recent referenda.
Organisations like the Freedom Association do not have the wherewithal and the think tanks do not consider it to be part of their remit.

I have to confess I do not have the answer, which is the reason for this blog, to find the answer from others, for it is surely the only way we are going to clean up our politics. We need to find  an organisation willing to take on this task. Any ideas ?