Power, Lies & Deception
Intriguing, is it not, how elections halfway across the world elicit greater coverage from our media than the fundamental changes that are about to be undertaken in our own country?
I refer of course to the Presidential Primaries in the United States and the EU Constitution Lisbon Treaty currently being rammed through the Houses of Parliament by our Labour administration.
The British media, increasingly obsessed as it is by celebrity, personality, scandal and sensationalism, has revelled in the spectacle of the US Primaries where it gleefully and simplistically portrays the contest as one between black and white, male and female, youth and experience, continuity and change, all to its heart’s content.
The same cannot be said of British media coverage on the EU Constitution Lisbon Treaty where there have (thankfully I suppose) only been minor attempts to portray the issue in terms of personalities and scandal – possibly because most of our European Leaders do not have any personalities of which to speak – and in fact, for the most part, journalistic scrutiny has disgracefully been kept to a bare minimum or is practically nonexistent.
As you might imagine, discussion and analysis of the EU Constitution Lisbon Treaty would require the examination of many lengthy, important and complex reams of text – something viewed as potentially dull, laborious and unattractive by many in the media class who far prefer the prospect of being able to endlessly fill their columns with prattle about the personal (rather than political) differences between various American Senators in reverent, feverous and excited tones. Yet, in comparison to the US Primaries, the EU Constitution Lisbon Treaty will have far greater and more influential affects on us and our everyday lives than the election of any US President.
Three years ago the French and Dutch electorates very publicly voted against the EU Constitution, much to the annoyance of the European political elites. Despite this, and with almost no fanfare or media coverage, the French Assembly recently voted through the Lisbon Treaty by an overwhelming majority; a treaty which is essentially identical to the failed Constitution. The result of the original democratic referendum vote was totally ignored, almost as if it had never happened.
In France, Britain and elsewhere in Europe the governing political elites have shown utter contempt for their electorates, broken their promises to hold referendums and cynically bypassed their voters in order to further their own goals and the wholly undemocratic European project. The likes of José Manuel Barossa (Head of the EU Commission) then have the audacity to frequently burble on about how the European Union works in the common interest of the people – just so long as the people are not consulted on what is in their interests it would seem. Is this in any way democratic?
So, as the relevance of our Westminster Parliament subsides into mediocrity and the process of ever closer union continues with a seemingly unrelenting certainty; our capacity to truly and democratically have our say or make a difference recedes by the day.
The sad reality of politics in modern Britain is that parties, administrations, and the briefcase wielding faceless suits who aimlessly wander the corridors of power may seem, with unwillingness and uncertainty, to alternate or vary on occasion and from time to time - but the policies and outcomes which govern us remain ever constant.
We now reside in a world in which opposition is silenced, traditional freedoms are curtailed and the slow, quiet and subtle processes of our real government continue to go widely unreported. In fact so far removed are these events from the history of our once proud nation which was built on the values of freedom, democracy and self-determination; a country that once ruled the waves and on whose Empire the sun never set, that it is probably almost unrecognisably alien to those of only a few generations previous to our own.
However, the most important point in all this is that the European Union did not take these supranational powers it has slowly obtained without permission - in fact quite the opposite. Successive British governments elected by us, the people, have unfortunately and underhandedly frittered away sovereignty to the EU’s corrupt and undemocratic external bodies.
In reality it has therefore been a small and unrepresentative set of British people who have slowly whittled away our right to self-government. Yet, the great problem is that those powers of self-rule were not our Parliament’s to give away. MPs are merely custodians of our rights and constitution; powers which they must protect and return to us intact after every successive general election. Yet, for decades our MPs have certainly not been protecting these powers and without ever fully consulting us either.
Time and the collective stupidity and inadequacy of many politicians have taken its toll on the British people. Of what little national sovereignty our Parliament still retains – and there is very little of any real significance – is stifled by our own British governing political elite from all parties who have more in common with each other than they do the voting electorate. Westminster has become a hollowed out institution existing only as a façade of accountability; as a playground for the metropolitan classes and its chambers are filled with empty dull husks who continue to linger in its stale air of unhealthy democratic decay long after they willingly and uncaringly voted away our rights.
In Europe, the EU Parliament remains as ever meaningless and verbose. It too has little power; real power and authority of course lies in the hands of the unelected bureaucrats and EU Commissioners over which the British people have no say, choice or control. It appears that slowly but surely we listlessly drift into an age of vagary and post-democracy, perhaps without most people even realising. Has our indifference condemned us? Do we only have ourselves to blame?
* This comment article was written for and published in the University of Bath’s Student Newspaper, Bath Impact, on the 25th of February 2008.
