Democracy in Britain

Democracy in Britain

How it works and why it needs reform.

A rapid scroll though FB posts shows an apparent double standard being applied to any reported situation where the courts are applying the law in a different way from that intended by the government.

Under the (admittedly rather vague) constitution in Britain the courts are independent from the government. It also seems to get forgotten that parliament and the government are legally 2 separate institutions.

When the courts apply the letter of the law in a way that causes an individual hardship and the Guardianista press in particular, get told about it; the FB posts condemn the government.

When the government tries to challenge the courts, in particular over such things as immigration, the left wing again attacks to government.

Under the British version of democracy- (not pefect by a long way) The electorate elects Parliament. Parliament selects a Government. The crown- acting as a head of state with no executive power- approves the choice.

The Government proposes laws. Parliament amends and approves those laws. The house of lords then also suggests amendments and returns the proposed law to the house of commons. Who re-examine the law. The law is returned to the house of Lords ( it may or may not, be amended in line with H of L suggestion) it get approved and offered to the crown for official acceptance- The crown (again with no power to even suggest let alone alter the law) gives it official sanction and it becomes Law at the date contained in it.

Then the courts take over. Various legal “experts” suggest interpretations and the judges select one they like- with no reference to the Crown, the government or parliament. This interpretation is challenged through higher courts until, some times a very long time after the initial passing of the law; the supreme court gives the definitive and final interpretation that is acceptable to the courts- note this is a judgement on what the courts want) The Government can accept this ruling or propose new laws to change and clarify the existing ones. While under the dead hand of the EU this whole process gets ( until Britain is free of the EU) re-examined by the European court of human rights.

All of this is slow and often frustrating for everyone.

The idea was to stop any government having absolute power and that is a good ideal but the present system transfers too much power to unelected and often elitist judges and senior lawyers. The self interest of the legal profession can overtake the will of the people and this is not a good thing.

Through all of this process there is a bureaucracy working away, at every stage every word passes through bureaucratic processes. These senior bureaucrats are unelected, they are difficult for any political government to remove and they have a network of social and working connections across the government, parliament, the house of lords the EU (who have an even more powerful and bloated bureaucracy) and the legal system. They can use these connections to make or break any effort started by a government, to enact and force reforms and changes. They can be as adept as political spin doctors in the use of “leaks”, misinformation and character assassination of individuals they feel is challenging their power. There are a huge number of these bureaucrats but only a few have power, they not only have power to subvert or enhance any governments wishes but they also have the power of “advancement” a over all the other members of the bureaucracy and so it is a very brave and unusual civil servant who will break ranks and attempt to expose the amount of power they have. Unelected power.

So despite being a democracy Britain has a situation where unelected people have more power over how laws are applied, and in what way any governments wish is expressed; than the electorate has. The move to leave the EU exposed so much of this and the fact that a referendum said leave and later general election gave power to those committed to leave the EU, infuriated the senior lawyers and the bureaucrats; since removing the EU layer of interference in governance, must increase the power of the elected government in Britain. These senior unelected people have tried so hard to prevent the leaving of the EU and when this became inevitable they have worked hard to try and impose some sort of punishment on the electorate for daring to oppose them. In the years to come after Britain is legally separate from the EU it is to be expected that there will be many, very expensive to the British tax payers, legal efforts to get back control over what the elected government can or can not do. As things exist any such challenges to the government offer a win win scenario to the lawyers and bureaucrats. The British tax payers will pay all of these people very large salaries for all the time they spend challenging the government elected by the people. Even if they loose the argument or a government is strong enough to change a law that has been overturned by the courts, even then they still get paid vast amounts of money- by the British taxpayers they are trying to effectively disenfranchise.

How can all this get changed? Curbing excessive power by any group is desirable. History shows many examples of what happens when a one party state emerges and curbs on governmental actions are suppressed. There are also examples of what happens when a stalemate of power exists and no one group have control and so no governmental action takes place.

One possibility in Britain is to replace the House of Lords with an elected body. One with fixed time span that differs from the parliamentary elections. A 10 year gap between elections to this second chamber should be OK Candidates must show “real world” experience of say 20years ; They can not be party political activists, lawyers or professional politicians. The total number of members of this second house to be no more than 200 ( roughly one per 350,000 British people assuming a population of 70 million)

Another possibility, to be enacted in addition to reform of the second house; is the increased use of referendums. An other idea is to make the economics of the nation more stable by fixing what % of total tax income can be spent on the basics,:- defence, security, education, health care, infrastructure. These fixed % to require a 75% majority in both houses of parliament, to change them.

Curbing the power of the bureaucracy and the lawyers can be achieved by allowing any incoming parliament, the elected body that also appoints the government; to appoint the senior civil servants and supreme court judges on contracts that are time related to the life of the government of the day.