A Lack Of Opposition

On Friday I posted an article entitled The Continuation of Failure in which I argued that the Conservative party was no longer a true opposition to our current Labour administration due to a complete lack of differentiating policies.

Now, if both Labour and the Conservative party support our membership of the European Union (which they both very much do) then they also by extension support the 70% to 80% of new laws, regulations and bureaucratic dictates that are issued by our real government presiding in Brussels.

Labour and the Conservatives can claim that they disagree with individual directives and EU legislation, but at the end of the day they have to accept it (and willingly do so) because that is how the EU works. You cannot pick and chose which policies and laws you adhere to; it’s all in or stay out. There is no in between.

Thus, given that neither Labour nor the Conservatives are prepared to advocated a policy of EU withdrawal, this already indicates a clear majority of agreement between the two parties – and that is without even taking into account their similarity on the national domestic issues over which our Westminster administration still has some miniscule level of control.

On domestic issues David Cameron has said he might give Parliament a ‘free vote’ on the repeal of the Hunting Act 2005 or ‘let sunshine win the day’ (whatever that might mean), but has pledged nothing meaningfully or substantially different to what our Labour administration are currently undertaking.

Then again Mr Cameron promised to take Conservative MEPs out of the European People’s Party grouping in the European Parliament and that failed to materialised – so based on this previous form I am not overly optimistic of even getting that ‘free vote’ (ie. ‘free’ meaning Mr Cameron does not need to take a personal stance) on the repeal of the Hunting Act.

The reason I mention all this is because James Barlow took the time (thank you, James) to leave a short comment under my original article. For those who do not know him (and actually I do not know him either, but instead know of him) then it is worth knowing that he is a local council candidate and Conservative party Constituency Chairman in the constituency of Bristol West.

What follows is a copy of James Barlow’s original comment minus the first line which was largely irrelevant:

With a bit of thought, there are still opportunities to confound the intent of the collectivists at a local level. Preventing the councils from taking money out of city economies is a good starting point.

It sounds like you need to make a decision as to whether you can achieve your philosophical objectives under the banner of one of the major parties, or whether you need to put up your own flag.

Now, it should be noted that James did not in fact attempt to tackle any of what I had said previously in my article, ie. that the Conservatives are no longer providing opposition to our Labour administration or any objections to our largely corrupt and unaccountable government in Brussels.

However, by James’ admission that ‘there are still opportunities to confound the intent of the collectivists’ then this may be acceptance of the facts of my original piece. Then again, perhaps not since this is just my extrapolation on what his views may be based on his short comment. If James should like to clarify his beliefs then he is welcome to do so.

Anyway, I have reproduced my original reply to James’ comment in full below:

If by ‘confound the intent of the collectivists at a local level’ you mean through local councils, then you are sadly wasting your time in my humble opinion.

There is no real power or for that matter sufficient degree of democracy left in local government in this country to allow any realistic countering of either the ‘collectivists’ you allude to or the EU government that as we know has jurisdiction over an increasing proportion of our daily lives.

In fact, it must be said that local government is no longer ‘government’ anymore, but ‘administration’ in which democratically elected representatives are confined to the margins and act as quite willing scapegoats for unaccountable town hall bureaucrats. This happened when local government was reorganised and ‘reformed’ in 1973 and vast powers were taken away from councillors and given to chief executives and other managerial bureaucrats.

What we now have is local administration, where the vast majority of decisions and work of local councils is carried out by the bureaucracy with little input from councillors. Furthermore, our Westminster administration (and latterly our EU Government) have extended the centralisation of decision making to such an extent that local councillors are left fiddling with numbers in budgets – and that is about it.

What’s more, how exactly in your opinion, James, are we meant to confound the ‘collectivists’ when firstly there is no power at local level to do so and secondly no point since what small things could be achieved are automatically undone higher up the chain of command?

For example, yesterday our Chancellor Alistair Darling spent £50bn of our money on bailing out the banking system in a part-nationalisation plan. Curiously this happened the day after an emergency meeting of the finance ministers from the 27 EU member states? Coincidence? I think not. The EU shows its hand once again by allowing member states to break its own rules on the allocation of state aid. Had the EU not sanctioned the breaking of its own rules, such measures could not have been implemented by Darling and our Westminster administration.

It should also be pointed out that David Cameron, and thus the Conservative party have agreed with this state of affairs and have pledged to actively help the government in achieving its aims of nationalisation by not putting up any opposition. Do you think that is right?

Also, I would hardly say that asking for an effective opposition in Britain and leaving the European Union are merely ‘philosophical objectives’. They are in fact pretty practical, essential objectives really – you know, living in a democracy, being able to vote those in power out of office, having an alternative point of view put across etc.

As for putting up my own ‘flag’ – what would be the point, unless of course it was a white one? With the Conservative party still in existence and the tribal voting nature of people towards the established political parties set to continue for the foreseeable future – in our society no upstart conservative or right-wing party could gain political traction in Britain, however admirable their aims.

As such, I made a decision about achieving my ‘objectives’ under a party banner, as you so put it, some time ago which I explained at great length in a comments section on my website back in May. I will continue to campaign for those candidates that I believe represent my political views within the Conservative party - but that is the extent of my support until the party changes to reflect actual conservative views.

James, if you have any further comments on what I have said then I would very much like to hear them as I feel it would be useful for both of us to foster a discussion on the above topics.

Post Comment: