[EM] conquest state

[Richard Lung]

Conquest state

For many years, it has been common knowledge that the executive of the 
British state is too powerful. But it is perhaps worth mentioning that 
this subjection works its way down all thru the hierarchy. Thus the 
government, meaning the executive, has too many members of Parliament on 
its payroll, compromising the independence of the legislature. And 
hardly any simple legislators are allowed to legislate.

The classic statement of the case was in 1997, by incoming PM Tony 
Blair, who lectured his new intake of Labour MPs that: You are not here 
to have ideas of your own.

He could not have said that to MPs who owed their loyalty to the 
multitude rather than the ministers. And that can never be with 
party-subservient election systems. But that is the humiliating price 
for MPs putting incumbency before democracy.

This humiliation is conveniently passed on from MPs to their 
constituents. There are 650 MPs in parliament, but no constituent is 
allowed to approach more than one of them. All 650 MPs affect the lives 
of every person in the land. But only a few thousand constituents in 
marginal constituencies can hope to affect an otherwise job for life of 
the odd MP.

The revolt of the elites came over a century ago, about 1885, when the 
House of Commons became, in all but name, a House of Monopolies, under 
the single-member system. This wasn’t just “a very British coup”, it was 
a dual coup, whereby House of Commons monopolism forestalled democracy, 
and also the lower house asserted itself over the upper house, on the 
grounds of the democracy, it had just devastated. In other words, new 
people were in power. but they weren’t the people. It was just a case of 
the conquest state being under new management.

“Our democracy” as a policy advocate recently called it, is neither ours 
nor a democracy. It is doubtful UKelections have ever returned even the 
democratic minimum of a bare majority. The single member system has 
nearly always returned a minority to power:The UK is a minorocracy.

Partisan electoral systems, whether two-party or multi-party systems, 
mean that MPs have to follow the dictates of the national party line. 
Constituents can only appeal to their MPs over their local problems.

These should be the jobs of local government which is kept firmly in 
subservience to that national party line. To make up for it perhaps, 
local government has directly or indirectly Draconian powers of 
imprisonment and confiscation for the state to supersede family life, 
with Deprivation of Liberties; forced adoption, accompanied by the 
police, etc.

  Regards,

Richard Lung.

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