No. 190 - 'I Seem to Have Touched a Nerve!'
Dear James,
I seem to have touched a nerve. A rather raw one. But hey ho, aren’t you politicians supposed to have thick skins? Besides, I think I detected a small vulnerability in your rather irritable response to my last message? Nothing wrong with that! It shows there’s a beating heart behind the ‘political personality’!
Let me say, firstly, that you were right and I was wrong. You did, in fact, send a two sentence reply to one of my 188 e-mails in 2019. I apologize. With regards to Brexit Deal Part 2/ 6&7 again you’re right. I hadn't read them but now, having done so, they tell me very little new. The City has already lost passporting rights and this is being replaced by ‘groundwork’ towards ‘equivalence’. Big deal! Frankfurt, Paris and Luxembourg must be licking their lips! And, finally, I do read your letters but will not criticize for I know how hard it is to write short, punchy and well argued missives.
But let me go onto the central proposition of your response. You said that ‘The country voted for it (Brexit)’. This is, I’m afraid, not true. 52% of a 72% turnout – is about 36% of the electorate. That is a long way from saying that ‘The country voted for Brexit!’ But for the moment I have to accept our imperfect system and its imperfect conclusions. We’ve left the EU and now we must adapt.
About those imperfections. The decision of the 2016 Referendum was the product of a hastily contrived, possibly criminal, illegally funded propaganda campaign based upon lies concocted by a small group of Europhobes in and around the Tory Party using an alien form of democracy and the complacency of the post war settlement and the resentments of millions left behind by that same failing settlement. In other words our ‘democracy’ was ‘hi-jacked’ by this group by skilfully manipulating the imperfections of the system available to them. The voting margin was very small (3%). The outcome so far has been chaotic, massively expensive and the long-term outlook is, to say the least, ‘uncertain’. Nevertheless, you have now launched our nation on a massive economic, political and social gamble. Boris may bluster about turning the pages of our history but like nationalists everywhere, history will eventually find its way back to the basic tenets of well intentioned individuals everywhere. Legitimacy based upon honesty, transparency, the rule of law and kindness.
You say that we are a democracy. Up to a point, I agree. In a true democracy elections should be designed to discover and assess the views of as many people as possible in order to create an effective government for the whole. I have lived for the last thirty five years in constituencies where my vote has been ignored (other than as a ‘democratic token'). In the 2017 general election, 97 of the 650 constituencies were won by a margin of 5% of the vote or less. That is just under 15% of the population. I have never been part of a ‘swing constituency’ so have been essentially disenfranchised in our democracy. In the First-Past-The-Post system, only the bigger parties gain. We have a system of amplifying small differences to give better control. The Electoral College system in the USA does the same - allowing Republicans to win in 2000 and 2016, despite having lost the popular vote! In these systems, smaller voices are ignored, the population is herded towards the extremes - the Loony Right and the Loony Left. In 2019, the people did not vote for Boris. They voted against Corbyn. Neither offered a solution to our ills. The best Proportional systems give a more nuanced result and assure voters that they will be listened to. They demand consensus building rather than ideological imposition. PR would change our political culture for ever.
But there are other serious imperfections in our democracy. Referenda are alien to our democratic system. Nations who use them regularly, know the pitfalls. They protect against sudden passions by using ‘confirmatory referenda’, they subject impacts on major issues to larger majority voting e.g 60%. But there is another imperfection. in the UK the popular vote is ‘diluted’ by the power of money. Lobby groups, some transparent, others disguised, fund political parties and reduce our vote. We are subject to a hidden oligarchy pretending to work for the good of all while ensuring their own influence and power are set in stone in our system. This has to change!
I am not a revolutionary James. I’m a democrat who believes in translating the honest opinions of the greatest number into government policy. If there is anything that we have lost in our nation today, it is honesty. We have a dishonest voting system, a largely dishonest press, a dishonest government and a population that has been conned. I look forward to the day when a great Commission of Inquiry is set up into ‘The Time that Britain Went Mad’.
I did not mean to distress you James. Just wanted to have a chat! Happy New Year!
Kind regards,
BH – Your Concerned Constituent
To read all 188 Letters to James, please go to dearjames.uk