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Wednesday 13 November 2019

The fight is not over

This election is round one in an existential war to win back popular democracy. Ranged against the people of Britain are the globalist powers of the deep state and their dags who have infiltrated and taken control of our national institutions. 

The strength of the people has always been made manifest through the actions of what Robert Nisbet called our intermediate institutions - the little platoons that Burke found foundational in creating a national identity. Nisbet locates the chief cause of the feeling of lostness in modern man in the weakening of the intermediate associations that stand between the lone individual and the State; without our local bodies, our little platoons, our guilds, churches, watch committees and town councils, we are hugely vulnerable to the depredations of the central state. This is why I am so committed to Localism. The battles against the deep state globalists are not to be won in SW1 but in our parish halls and meeting places, in places real and virtual, by physical or remote contact. Popular democracy needs local moots.  

One of the most sustained assaults on popular democracy since the middle of the last century has been by the central state on our intermediate institutions. Many have been destroyed beyond any hope of resurrection - but our future lies not in replicating the past, but in creating new forms of local identity using the tools and relationships enabled by technology. Localism need not be limited by geography, defined by place but by purpose. This blog is also valid as a local moot. Your own family is an intermediate institution, and a powerful nexus of a belonging, an allegiance, a strength that the central State cannot defile.  

Robert Tombs in the Telegraph today also delineates the battles ahead;
All across the democratic world, more and more power has shifted away from elected national governments towards non-elected bodies – international organisations, law courts, treaties, quangos. Governments have voluntarily surrendered their own authority. But in doing so, they have limited democratic choice: voters are told that there are things they cannot do, choices they cannot make.

This has gone furthest in EU member states. A void has been created between rulers and ruled. Two networks of power, influence and patronage have grown up: one based on domestic politics, the other based on the EU institutions. These two networks – two establishments, one national, one trans-national, which include politicians, civil servants, academics, business lobbies, non-governmental organisations – overlap in every EU country.
It is those virtues that the technocratic elites claim as liberating - individualism, egality and the supremacy of central or supranational authority - that Nisbet found destructive of popular democracy;
What is often overlooked, as Nisbet points out, is that in making individuals independent of each other and of society, Rousseau would also make them dependent on the State. The State would ensure the individual's equality and liberty. But "liberty" in Rousseau’s terminology, of course, means submergence of the individual will in the General Will. The citizen will be "compelled to be free." He will be protected from the discriminations of society; the State, in Rousseau’s mind, is to be the great protector of the individual’s rights. But, in turn, the individual must be willing to relinquish any of his own wishes that conflict with the dictates of the General Will. There would be no room for rebellious intermediate associations. In Rousseau’s would-be State, even "religion must be identified, in the minds of the people, with the values of national life, else it will create disunity and violate the General Will." Thus does freedom become identified with obeying the guidelines of a central authority.
The struggles of the past three years to re-assert the supremacy of popular democracy are not the end of it. This election is but one battle, with a struggle ahead. All those who have fought so hard for UKIP or The Brexit Party have not fought in vain, nor are their efforts ended. That commitment to the powers of the people of this nation under democratic norms is still needed. Democracy doesn't always mean winning, as Tombs concludes
Democracy is not a system for discovering the "right answer" to political issues: we can rarely if ever 
be sure what the right answer is. Democracy, rather, is a system for creating consent and solidarity by allowing all to have an equal vote. For making people feel that the way they are governed, though not perfect, is at least one in which they are fairly consulted and their voices listened to. So that, even if they do not get their own way, they accept the outcome without trying to sabotage or evade it.

That is what we have come perilously close to losing. Next month we have the chance to regain it, with all the opportunities and risks that democracy entails.

19 comments:

Stephen J said...

If Johnson gets in, without a significant number of sensible opponents (not Labour or LibDim), we will be defeated.

Smoking Scot said...

Your post goes a long way to giving meaning to why "they" are so keen to see the demise of the pubs, the bingo halls, the social clubs and, in my case at least, the greasy spoon type eatery.

The smoking ban was the means, but taxation in all forms, including business rates and hygiene rules continue the process.

Now you have a full blown smoking ban in place in Austria, you'll be able to see it first hand. And it hits the working class areas hardest.

Leaving the field open to the franchise industry, mainly the Starbucks, Costa's and - in the UK - the charity sector, that do not pay business rates, in Scotland and only 20% in England.

JPM said...

The fight is not over?

It's not even the end of the beginning me ol' flower!

This might take decades.

Anonymous said...

Ah, JPM - speaking of flowers, the seeds of democracy have been sown amongst the next generation.

The issues described above are so well represented by the oversized quango that you so worship. The EU and its orcs have so overplayed their hand in this Brexit battle, and in the belief that they have created future pro-EU battalions to serve their pathetic little empire, that they have overlooked the whipping up of that most dangerous argument of all - that of 'Democracy'.

Democracy vs a snivelling bunch of self-serving pigs like you, JPM - I know where my money is going.

DeeDee99 said...

"All those who have fought so hard for UKIP or The Brexit Party have not fought in vain, nor are their efforts ended. That commitment to the powers of the people of this nation under democratic norms is still needed."

I'm sorry, but if - following the General Election and Johnson's Brexit - we find ourselves back in the position of:
1. a broken Two-Party System kept functioning through FPTP;
2. a Parliament that has 80% of MPs from the previous one who humiliated this country and who systematically set out to betray the vote to Leave the EU, and
3. no UKIP/Brexit "populist" insurgent party to harry and nudge and if necessary electorally threaten the Conservative Party

then we will have lost. And there will be no way of forcing the Constitutional and democratic changes this country needs. The Establishment and their puppets in Parliament created the broken system we have and they like things just as they are.

RAC said...

Attempting a reset democracy using a party that has reneged on the democratically arrived at leave vote is building on sand.

decnine said...

RAC said...
Attempting a reset democracy using a party that has reneged on the democratically arrived at leave vote is building on sand.

I agree; except the Conservatives are a symptom, not the disease.

The disease is the Westminster system. Any system which, by design, can fall into treacherous hands will, inevitably fall into treacherous hands sooner or later.

Westminster is the problem. We now need a new system which has the possibility of elite treachery designed out of it. Some proportion of direct democracy is now vital so that we can keep the necessary evil of politicians under control between elections.

Dave_G said...


That the EU rose from political machinations is what our own Parliament will devolve into over time. It's inevitable and unstoppable and the 'will' to stop it doesn't seem strong enough in enough of us to make a difference by the usual political routes - not discounting the loaded system that perpetuates the existing problem. This is the difficulty we face - numbers in opposition; real opposition.

What does seem to work as direct opposition are methods the likes of Extinction Rebellion use. The public opposed to 'unstoppable Government' needs to rally behind similar action although less disruptive to normal lives - such as a collective refusal to pay taxes. No taxation without representation.

It has always been said that it's not who rules, it's about who controls the money. If the public can get behind methods to disrupt the money flow - and not allowing digital currencies to rise would be an essential step in this process - we could make huge differences in ways that have no disruptive (direct) objectionable way to those that won't get on board the protest train but would have serious and deleterious effects on those that seek to use OUR money to control US.

I get the impression that TPTB know that this is the last means of protest we can offer, hence their determination to get us to accept the likes of Smart Meters and digital currencies as it both takes away our last line of action AND gives them yet more control.

If there isn't a majority support for EU membership why should the taxpaying majority pay to support it? Let the Government 'join' it if they want to manipulate the system to encompass it but allow those that don't want it to not pay for it. Anything else is theft - like all taxes.

Extinction Rebellion? There's no evidence to support the claim of extinction. Hence the opposition.

Taxation Rebellion? There's plenty of evidence to support THAT. Who would oppose it?

APL said...

Raedwald, since you are promoting the Tory party before country ( as usual ), who should constituents in Maidenhead vote for?

The Europhile, remain voting Theresa May?

What about Grieve's old constituency? We are well shot of him but, the Tory party are standing Joy Morrisey, a remain supporting candidate.

Who should voters in Beaconsfield vote for?

RAC said...

@ Dave_G 09:01
".... but allow those that don't want it to not pay for it. Anything else is theft - like all taxes."
The globalist mouthpiece BBC comes to mind. I would so like to see that propaganda machine both tv and radio encrypted and pay to use and bankrupt.

DiscoveredJoys said...

I'll make the argument that our political and social milieu is down to many small well intended decisions ratcheting in the same direction. None of them part of a conspiracy and none of them guided... until the EC/EU.

Political parties have been dragged into the ratchet by calls to 'fairness' or 'efficiency' without reflecting that each minor change will build and build into a Frankenstein's monster outcome that they would not have originally accepted as a goal.

The EU has always been about 'political union'. i.e. power drawn to the centre, run by technocrats. It has hardened the ratchet and made it almost impossible to reverse course, yet it is institutionally blind to the consequences on ordinary people - because they don't count in the utopia (or rather dystopia) of ever closer union. Plus being run by un-elected technocrats means that the final outcome will be ordered, tidy, uniformly grey and slavish following of arbitrary rules.

We are better off out. Whether by sudden break or shortish transition. And once we are out we can localise our layers of Government suitably (although that will take years too).

RAC said...

Yep I blame Hitler for all this. If he had not lost we would have been born into the eu, and on the principle of what you never had you never miss, we would have been none the wiser.
Oh wait a minute maybe that's why we have all the Millennial snowfake remainers. Keep it up Jonno delay things for another generation or two and you'll be successful./s

Anonymous said...

Had a chat with Tombs at the Chalke Valley History Festival the year after he published his 2014 book: The English and Their History: The First Thirteen Centuries. Sinclair Mckay reviewed his book in the Telegraph:

'Throughout [the book}, there are surprising threads of continuity. The 19th-century Poor Law reforms – widely hated – were doubly vicious, according to Tombs, because they usurped a system of relief that dated back to Elizabeth I. In other words, they were a rupture with a distinctly English approach – local, rural, charitable, intuitive – to the problem of poverty.'

And The Atlantic:

'..One of Tombs’s main themes is that from Saxon times onward, the English state was one of the most ambitious, efficient, and expensive in Europe. To be English, he quips, has always meant paying a lot in taxes. Yet it was not the state that directed the response to the trials of the 19th century, but English society, led by a self-generated cultural transformation of the English working class.'

We've been an incredible people over the centuries but when you read documents like FCO 30/1048 you begin to realise just how much the ruling class hates us. Despite the Herculean effort to keep England free and sovereign the elite sold us out, decided to replace us without any consent. I'm afraid I have no time for Boris 'die in a ditch' Johnson who wants an amnesty for illegal immigrants and who thinks "Anglo-Saxon babies" are of no more importance to England than South Asian ones.

Steve

APL said...

Looks like another pseudo Tory ( makes a change ), has defected to the Lib Dems.

One might ask, what the hell is Conservative Central office selection committee using as criteria when the select prospective candidates?

Maybe, it's too much to aske, as they check 'em off;

Nice fellow: CHECK
Lib Dem sympathies: CHECK

there might be a:-

Holds Conservative sentiments.

Most of 'em wouldn't ever get that box checked, but at least we could get an idea which 'Tory' is likely to stick the knife between your ribs once you turn your back.

JPM said...

How people choose to exercise their vote within a democracy should be informed by FACT and not by tribal myths, however.

Here's a killer:

In preparation for Brexit, the government asked its Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) to report on the economic and social impacts of EU migrants in the UK. The MAC commissioned Oxford Economics to analyse the fiscal implications of immigration using the most up-to-date data and sophisticated modelling techniques.

The resulting study, The Fiscal Impact of Immigration on the UK, represents the most comprehensive assessment to date of the net contribution that all migrants make to the UK’s public finances.

The study finds that

The average UK-based migrant from Europe contributed approximately £2,300 more to UK public finances in 2016/17 than the average UK adult. In comparison, each UK born adult contributed £70 less than the average, and each non-European migrant contributed over £800 less than the average.
The average European migrant arriving in the UK in 2016 will contribute £78,000 more than they take out in public services and benefits over their time spent in the UK (assuming a balanced national budget), and the average non-European migrant will make a positive net contribution of £28,000 while living here. By comparison, the average UK citizen’s net lifetime contribution in this scenario is zero.
Taken together, this means that the migrants who arrived in 2016 will make a total net positive contribution of £26.9 billion to the UK’s public finances over the entirety of their stay. The value of this to the UK’s public finances is equivalent to putting approximately 5p on income tax rates (across all marginal rate bands) in that year.

The Government are now suppressing their own, commissioned report.

Anonymous said...

JPM @ 15:28

'The resulting study, The Fiscal Impact of Immigration on the UK, represents the most comprehensive assessment to date of the net contribution that all migrants make to the UK’s public finances.'

Couldn't care less mate. England is not a giant business park. It is my home. To quote a friend of mine:

I am English. If I cannot speak of my own people's right on England's soil, or of our claim on life and land in an age of relentless, imposed foreignisation, then I must conclude that a terrible prejudice against us is in force across the land.

In any case:

Economic Impacts of Immigration to the UK

Immigration and the Economy: Migration Watch 235

Summary

The impact of immigration into the UK on GDP per head – a key measure of prosperity - is essentially negligible.

There is tentative evidence to show that immigration of non-EU workers into the UK has a negative effect on the employment of UK-born workers, and there is substantial anecdotal evidence that workers in some sectors of the economy have suffered from competition with migrant labour: the IT industry is one such sector.

Since 2010 over half of jobs created in the UK economy have been taken by immigrants.

On the impact of immigration on average wage levels, the evidence is varied, but there is broad agreement that immigration has harmed the earnings of the most poorly-paid UK-born members of the labour force as well as those in the semi-unskilled service sector.

Immigration has been a fiscal cost to the UK Exchequer. Between 1995 and 2011 migrants in the UK were a fiscal cost totalling £160 billion, or over £9 billion a year.

Steve

JPM said...

No worries at all, Steve.

A fifty-pence-a-litre tax on petrol will make up for the absence of our energetic, productive, fellow Europeans.

Won't it?

Span Ows said...

What absence JPM? Youa nd your pathetic strawmen are tiresome. Do you REALLY believe no European will work in the UK after Brexit?

Are you such a pea-brain to try to compare what a European - who comes to a job in the UK (and all the ones I know are professionals, not fruit pickers) and will obviously pay all the relevant taxes etc, is somehow a good example to compare the average UK adult?

That's like comparing what the average UK tourist spends in bar bills on average during their holiday compared to the average Spaniard in the same town during the period of the UK persons's holiday... i.e. no real comaprison at all.

John Brown said...

JPM @ 15:28 :

“The average UK-based migrant from Europe contributed approximately £2,300 more to UK public finances in 2016/17 than the average UK adult.”

I don’t believe these EU-supporting, globalist civil service figures as I don’t think they take into account the extra infrastructure that needs to be built- (housing (with the necessary flood defences in many areas), schools, hospitals, roads, railways, prisons, courts, power (now must be expensive and unreliable green energy) and water treatment plants etc.- as a result of increased population.

More importantly, however, it is not the economy of GDP/capita which matters but quality of life.

To use your argument I would be better off and happier reducing my mortgage and council tax bills by letting out every single room in my house to lodgers.

I don’t think so.