The Party System

The “cancer” that is rotting the English Constitution and nation.

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INTRODUCTION.

With the widespread public disgust of ‘party politicians’ we make no apologies for our position, and merely seek to offer you, the reader, free and gratis, what we have discovered, in the hope that it will explain why never again should you vote for ANY political PARTY.  If you do vote for a party, you are lending respectability to the ghastly fraud, which we hope to expose in the columns below.

A LONG-STANDING PROBLEM.

There is no use denying it - but nor is it an excuse for failing to tackle it - that this has been going on for a long time, maintained by the human failings of fear, greed, lust for power, indifference, and ignorance.  But we believe in the individual human spirit and what it can do when set free by the truth - liberated from that prevalent sense of helplessness by the knowledge of the problem, so cunningly obscured from our gaze. 

Edmund Burke, 18^th Century Parliamentarian and MP for Malton, N.Yorks wrote:

“Whenever Parliament is persuaded to assume the role of executive government it will lose all the confidence, love and veneration which it has ever enjoyed whilst it was supposed to be the corrective and control on the acting powers of the state.....”

Lord Wedgewood, Labour Peer, in Testament to Democracy (1942): “The charge made against Members of Parliament which is probably best founded and most serious, is that they show so little independence and do always as they are told.....It is a surrender of conscience and duty which ought to be intolerable to any Member of parliament.... It sets party before country, force above reason, debate becomes useless, and electors are betrayed”.  Lest We Regret . p161  by Douglas Reed (now only available from somewhere like Alnwick Old Railway Station bookshop)

“The notion that the House of Commons is made up of 650 MPs who individually reach carefully considered opinions and who act as a brake on the Executive is so far from the truth as to be ludicrous.  The Whips are in total command.  The Executive is in total control.  What the government says goes”.  Dr. David Owen M.P.  Mail on Sunday 3/6/90

“The will-to-power operating under a pure democratic disguise has finished off its masterpiece so well that the object’s sense of freedom is actually flattered by the most thorough-going enslavement that has ever existed....” Oswald Spengler, “Decline of the West”. p.461 Complete One Volume Edition (Allen and Unwin).

THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE PARTY SYSTEM seems to be based upon  legitimising the idea that government is there to serve the interests of whoever can grab the reins of power in Parliament  and to use that power for their own ends, whether commercial or ideological. 

“Democracy” being a numbers game, these interests coalesce into competing groups, struggling against each other.  Each of these groups has its leaders and its followers, each hoping for benefits for themselves - at the expense of the opponents.  What is most deadly about this is the implication that because “the people” have “willingly”(sic) engaged in this rigged contest, operated solely by those with the money, that “the will of the people” is deemed to exist in the result and may not thereafter for 5 years be gainsaid by any other authority, however legal or regal, and that the LEADER of the party with a majority in the House of Commons, is ipso facto, declared to be the embodiment of the people’s will. (That many people are waking up to the fact of this sham contest is witnessed by the frequent comment “There’s not much difference between ‘em nowadays”) .This acquisition of POWER also implies that of making of any law that suits its purpose and belongs to the group which can bribe or con. a majority of voters or lie its way into power.  

Therefore, instead of the English idea of “Rule of Law”, namely that power may only operate under the law and under such law  which has come into being with the free consent of the free institutions of Parliament( by this is meant the Monarch, Lords and Commons) and with the consent of the people, we have Rule by Law, or “elective dictatorship” because these laws are made by a heavily whipped or controlled House of Commons, by a Monarch whose assent must ( by ‘convention’) be given, because the “advice” of the Prime Minister or other Minister must be obeyed because it is based on the notion that this “advice” is given by the “democratically” elected representatives of the people, (even though they have no idea what is being done in their name) and the Monarch must not thwart that, however treasonable or detrimental to the nation that “advice” may be.  This leaves only the House of Lords as any sort of useful filter or hindrance to bad or dangerous legislation, though patriots will concur that it has lamentably failed in important areas, being stuffed full of peers with business interests in Europe and itself being whipped along party lines, apart from the Independent cross-benchers.

THE MEANING OF “DEMOCRACY”?

Meaningless slogans, swallowed by the masses, underpin such a system, the most commonly parroted being  “Government of the people, by the people, for the people” (what does this mean?)  Or “Liberté. Égalité, Fraternité, the French slogan which denies the fact that if you have liberty, then you have the freedom not to be equal.  Or, “in this free and democratic country, such as ours....” blah,blah....but party democracy, the system with which we have to contend is based on the will of the majority and therefore minorities are NOT free to dissent.  Perhaps  this term is deemed synonymous with the idea of universal suffrage, where everyone automatically has a vote after a certain age, in which the vote of the most incompetent, illiterate or irresponsible individual or now even criminal (barely able to run their own life) can have a vote equal to that of others far more competent. These aforementioned riff-raff can be exploited by the mechanisms well-known to party politicians at election time.  

 It is perhaps worth mentioning here (for the benefit of would-be republicans who think that a new dawn would break if they had their way) that the Concise Oxford Dictionary definition of a republic is where government is carried on by the people or their elected representatives. In other words, the present system. In case there is confusion, it is Bagehot the 18^th Century constitutional commentator who stated that the trappings of monarchy and the constitution would be retained to maintain appearances for the masses, while the real business of government was carried out by others.

 “PACKAGE DEALS” or the combination of policies put forward by political parties at election time are the trap from which the voter cannot escape, even if he/she does not vote, because opting-out is not an option, which it would be, if protecting freedom were still Parliament’s role. Because the consolidated taxation system run by the parties means that some of your taxes for say motoring may be diverted to some other objectionable causes, party government forces you to finance policies to which you may seriously object.  “Cannot escape” therefore unless a huge raft of the voters abandon self-interest as expressed through the party government of their choice inside Parliament and vote for liberty and the freedom to pursue self-interests under an impartial Rule of Law unaided by the irresistible force of government.   Thereby the House of Commons returns to its proper role of protecting individual liberty.

For, as the reader will have noticed on the website’s Home Page, “It is the parliamentary majority which has the potential for tyranny.  The thing the Courts cannot protect you against is Parliament - the traditional protector of our liberties.  But Parliament is constantly making mistakes and could in theory become the most oppressive instrument in the world”.  Lord Hailsham, former leading lawyer and Conservative Lord Chancellor, Sunday Times 19^th July 1970.

“HUMAN RIGHTS” - what are they? We probably think they are an essential part of our freedom. First we should realise that they are what the authorities have decided we shall be allowed to have.  Social engineering.  This authoritarian approach, is more and more evident as our Common Law system “from the bottom, up” becomes subordinated to the European Union or Napoleonic model of government "from the top, down".

That this problem is not new, is evidenced by Edmund Burke again who was forced to retort upon Mirabeau that “ we demand our liberties, not as rights of man but as rights of Englishmen” (Decline of the West p403. Spengler).  Its resurgence it has been evident for a long time, see “ The New Despotism”(1929) by Lord Chief Justice Hewart, but it just simply is getting a lot worse since we joined the EU.

The American free-enterprise philosopher Ayn Rand put it thus, “ A right is a freedom of action in a social context”. Clear and concise. Applicable to all. It does not seek to equalise anyone and is not shot through with contradictions, as is the Human Rights legislation.  

Surely, since human beings in their complicated relationships make choices for all sorts of reasons that are private and particular to themselves as individuals, then surely real democracy can ONLY be expressed by individuals being free to discriminate (differentiate between various courses of action) and choose for themselves in every aspect of life. How heavily that is now circumscribed!!   “In this free and democratic country of ours....blah,blah..”

Real Liberty can be said to come in two forms: positive and negative. Positive is the freedom of action to do something legal and proper, i.e. go to work and sustain yourself and your family. Negative liberty, almost the more important of the two is the freedom to refuse to do something, or refuse to finance something to which you object.  Yet the consolidated taxation system neutralises that negative freedom.  You are forced to supply the funds to government even for programes to which you heartily object; with the House of Commons in the pocket of each successive government, you are helpless.  Liberty has also been described as the right to accept or reject ONE course of action at a time.  (Contrast this with the “package deal” offered by every political party).

 Therefore, it is a sham democracy which gives you a vote, forces you to choose one “package deal" or another, much of which you may detest, and then after you have voted tells you how it is going to be for the next 5 years, whether you like it or not.  A sham democracy that means you have to wait FIVE years before you have a chance of undoing the damage a government may have done, (it may have ruined your life’s work!!!!), with the alternative party little or no better. The chances are it will be more of the same!!

THE CONTROL MECHANISMS OF THE PARTY SYSTEM 
(which thwart our freedoms.)

The correct role of the House of Commons

Refer back to Edmund Burke and to Lord Hailsham, both of whom indicated that the House of Commons SHOULD be the corrective and control on the government and should protect our liberty. Both indicated that something is wrong: namely that Parliament has assumed the role of executive government - i.e. has become part of the government machine.  

This is brought about purely by the “democratic” PARTY SYSTEM which means that people are voting to install  a government inside and in control of (because of the majority) the very House traditionally supposed to protect their liberty from government and control government.  They do this because they think it is the proper thing to do - and because they want government to do something for them.  This is not just the poor, but the very rich as well.

CAN WE JUST BLAME THE PARTY POLITICIANS?

Yes - because in the first instance they don’t say to the voters “This is wrong, because....” but jump on the gravy-train in the hope of jobs in government etc. they like the power, the kudos etc.  So, any and every M.P. or party candidate is contributing to the “perpetual revolution against the English constitution”.

“That is the secret of our tragedy, and will be the cause, if our future is taken from us again.  These men (MPs) pledge themselves to do whatever their Party leaders tell them, after the election, after the electorate has yielded! ... 

Labour candidates at an election are only adopted as candidates by that party when they sign a pledge in no circumstances whatever to vote against a Party decision.  Conservative candidates at an election do not sign a pledge, but in practice accept exactly the same bondage; the methods of enforcing it are more subtle but equally stringent; and consist of exclusion from office, ostracism and expulsion”.

“The supremacy of the Party machine, dominated by economic interests, has been a conspicuous feature of British democracy ...... It has been exercised in the constituencies, where the party candidate for a promising seat is chosen, no longer - except on rare occasions - by representatives of the electors but by the Central Party machine.....he votes not as his conscience or as the supposed will of his constituents dictates, but as the Party decides.” 

“Lest We Regret”, p160, by former Times correspondent Douglas Reed.

We have mentioned some of the means by which MPs are coerced or forced to obey the Leader’s dictates.( You will read elsewhere on the site that blackmail is also used)  Another is dissolution of Parliament, (i.e. the Commons) whereby the leader can ask the Monarch to dissolve Parliament.  MPs would then loose their salaries and have to fight another election.  Dissident MPs would find their party machine against them and out of a job.  Such a tactic was used by Edward Heath to force the Conservative-dominated Commons to pass the legislation necessary for the Treaty of Accession to the Common Market (so-called) in the early 1970s. White-faced dissident MPs were reported by Enoch Powell to be seen leaving the Whips offices after being threatened.  The government got its majority, even if only by two or three.  The Tory MPs must have known that if they had fallen on their swords to stop this and Parliament was dissolved, not only would they lose their jobs but that there was an equally whipped Labour Opposition ready to assume office and do the job anyway.

If this feature is not shocking enough, we mentioned earlier the effect that “democracy” has on the separation of powers, namely that the Monarch is obliged to assent to all legislation that the leader of the majority party places before that person, on the grounds that the “advice” is given by the elected representative of the people. We saw how in 1973 the Queen felt obliged to sign the Treaty of Accession for this reason.  She must have known that this would put Her in contravention of her moving Coronation Oath in 1953 to “govern us according to the laws and customs of this realm” and that this was a move to control of Her kingdom by Europe, however slow and relentless. But could she have resisted against the tirade of politicians and press, and in the face of a constitutionally ignorant population, even though we gathered 750,000 signatures in a Petition asking Her not to sign?  Such petitions are short-circuited by being passed to the government department concerned.

This confirms how worthless our right to petition the Monarch under the Bill of Rights 1689 has become, because “democracy” has taken away the monarch’s power to protect us from government excess and treason.  In other words, we are tricked into being our own executioners!

How did this come about?  

“The Prime Minister replaced the sovereign as actual head of the Executive when the choice of Prime Minister no longer lay with the sovereign; the sovereign lost the choice when strongly organised, disciplined parties came into existence and party discipline depends primarily on the degree to which the member depends on the party for his seat”.  Sir Lewis Namier (historian)1952.

Our loss of sovereignty to Brussels - our loss of right to effectively petition the monarch,- our loss of liberty and the general dismantling of our industrial base have only been made possible by the “elective dictatorship” of the party system and confirms that what G.K. Chesterton said on the website Home Page is true.  That voting for any political party is about as useful as a ticket on a train where the line is blocked.  It is not that you should not agree with some of their policies, it is that when they operate as parties AND YOU VOTE FOR THEM power is immediately removed from the people to a place where it cannot be kept in check, for its destroys the separation of powers, and in so doing condones and lends an aura of respectability to this disgusting system of “divide and rule”.

DO YOU WONDER YOU FEEL SO POLITICALLY HELPLESS?

You have unwittingly done it to yourselves.  That is the confidence trick they call “democracy”.  What you should do is on another section of the website, as well as here.

Public awareness and disgust with party politicians stems from the realisation that hypocrisy is one of the main features of the party system in that each side accuses the other of doing something wrong, even though having done it themselves in the past.  At the time of writing we had just had an example of the Tories accusing Labour of spending millions of pounds of taxpayers money on their propaganda - called keeping the public informed - having done likewise when in office.  This is simply explained by the fact that all parties operate the same system, when in power, and the opportunity to do likewise is therefore evident.

The same public disgust is re-kindled when they see the yah-boo jeering across the gangway in the Commons between the two sides, but there may not be the awareness that this arises from the impotence which the Opposition face against a government party with a huge majority, and therefore there is no mechanism other than ridicule left to the Opposition.  Of course, if the voters were to demand that the Commons was cleansed of government, then serious power would return to MPs to control government (government members would no longer sit in the Commons as MPs as well as Ministers (sic) and we would again have serious debate and meaningful voting going on in the chamber, instead of this charade. M.P.s could then dismiss a government if necessary, without unseating themselves. What a difference that would make!

THE RIDICULOUS AND FUTILE STRUGGLE FOR POWER BY MINORITY PARTIES

The fatal flaw in the thinking of the minority parties is to try to copy and out-do the main parties, not only because they do not have the resources and because of the stress involved amongst would-be allies causes inevitable friction, but because the name of the game is to bring power back under control and de-centralise it, not participate in the struggle for it.  Joining the “party game” without the slightest chance of winning is merely perpetuating and lending respectability to this ghastly fraud.  There is an even more fatal scenario (as with Adolph Hitler).  A struggling party tapping into public discontent “suddenly” finds itself the recipient of all the money and support of which it was originally starved.  Why? Because the party system is a control system - whatever its label and money will back whoever seems likely to win. As the people of Germany saw - once they had voted Hitler into power that was the end of their freedom. So patriots, instead of fighting each other for power, should be taking the moral ammunition available here (and tap into the public disgust with party politicians - popularly regarded as “only in it for themselves”) and use it to liberate Parliament and the constitution from the grip of the party machines and all their compliant MPs and supporters: thereby liberating the nation.  

As Ayn Rand wrote: “the battle consists not only of opposing, but EXPOSING (emphasis added) and offering a full consistent and radical alternative” i.e. attack them where their Achilles heel is, the party system and all its rotten operations, as we have just described.  

A PLEA TO MINORITY PARTY CANDIDATES to stop fighting each other over “policy” and unite as Independents behind LIBERTY and the constitution - thereby freeing the people from this charade so that by their individual choices they can decide. Without the enormous taxes which government takes from us it cannot do what it wants and we are free again.