Brexit: A Very British Coup, and how UKIP subverted democracy

It's now clear in which direction British politics is heading.

Several months ago I wrote about the rightward direction that the government under Theresa May seemed to be heading in. Now that the Brexit negotiations are in full swing, and parliament has returned from summer break to discuss its implications, it's ever clearer that we don't really have a Conservative government in power: we have a UKIP government, under another name.

The Home Office leak of its immigration plans, timed to coincide with parliament's return to session, looked to all intents and purposes identical to UKIP's immigration plans for an Australian-style points system. In some ways, it looked even more draconian, in the way that bio-metric technology would be used to keep a track on EU immigrants and the restrictions placed on the duration of their stay.

Apart from immigration policy, it's also clear that the repatriation of powers in the "Repeal Bill" is meant to act as a way to radically increase autocratic power to the government, away from parliament, so it can unilaterally change the law. There's a reason these are called "Henry VIII powers": because no government since then has succeeded in circumventing parliament in such a way. Charles I tried; Oliver Cromwell succeeded, for a time. These are not good comparisons the government should be wanting to be compared to, and it should be sending chills down the spines of our sitting MPs.
But for many on the government benches, it doesn't. Why?


A Very British Coup

What we are witnessing is the emasculation of parliament.

Apart from the intent contained inside the "Repeal Bill", the government are also seeking to subvert the committee process that is used to amend (i.e. improve) parliamentary legislation. By doing this, it again seeking to silence opposition to its own interpretation of the law, making passage through parliament nothing more than a "rubber stamp".
To be fair, there are plenty of Conservative MPs who are as appalled at the government's "power grab" as on the opposition side. In the same manner, there are a number of Conservative MPs who are appalled at the government's Brexit plan, which, again, seems indistinguishable from UKIP's original plan. If those Conservative MPs actually voted with their conscience, they could easily prevent the government from carrying out its "power grab" into the realm of quasi-authoritarianism. Similarly, those MPs could easily deny the government a majority in parliament to carry out its plan for a "Hard Brexit" that would see Britain cut off from all free trade with Europe. But those MPs seem to be emasculated; more like sheep than parliamentarians.

The reason for this is simple, and appalling: fear.

A small clique of hard-line MPs - who represent less than 15% of the party's cohort - demand the most extreme form of exit from the EU. This would mean leaving the free market and customs union on Day One of Brexit, in March 2019, without any kind of meaningful transition period. The Brexit Secretary, David Davis, seems to agree (well, maybe - his idea seems to change from day to day). Apart from the maddening incoherence of this point of view, is the fact that this outcome was not what the referendum was about. The UK voted to leave the EU; the vote said nothing about EFTA, for example, which the UK has been in since 1961, long before Britain joined the then EEC. The Brexit Secretary seems to be acting of his own accord, deciding what Britain's relationship with Europe will be, without any regard to parliament's point of view, or indeed, those of the actual electorate. The only points of view whose his seem to coincide with are the hard-line clique mentioned earlier.
While there is a "debate" in parliament about the government's policy, the government's strategy of dealing with parliament is a) to avoid answering any questions at all, b) imply that they "the government knows best", c) to suggest that opposing the government is to betray "the will of the people". This is the language of authoritarianism. There is no meaningful "debate" on Brexit in parliament at all, for the government seems to have no intention of paying any attention to it. It is just "going through the motions", turning parliament into a toothless talking shop.
What makes this all even worse is that those hard-line MPs (who now have the ear of the government) have even less of legitimate platform for their agenda than before the general election. Before the election, Theresa May said she had called it in order to strengthen her hand in the negotiations. The implication was that the larger the mandate she received, the freer she would be to carry-out a "Hard Brexit". As we know, the opposite happened: she is still in government, but only thanks to the DUP. The rational conclusion to reach from the election was that those who wanted a "Hard Brexit" lost. And yet they are the ones still dictating policy. Counter-intuitively, it is thanks to the government's precarious position in parliament that allows these hard-liners to blackmail the moderates into silence. In the same way that the DUP were able to demand a ransom from the government as its price for power, the party's hard-liners are able to do the same over Brexit.

Those Conservative MPs concerned about this process have been emasculated by fear. While a hard-line cohort of MPs seem able to dictate government policy, those concerned by this subversive take-over have been silenced into submission by the even greater fear stoked from the thought of losing an election to Jeremy Corbyn. In other words, the party's moderate MPs really are being held hostage: by the fear of losing power, they are ready to hand the fate of the nation over to extremists.
In a "First-Past-The-Post" electoral system, an "extremist" government was meant to be virtually impossible. It looks like some of them have found a way. And now, using authoritarian tactics, we are on the cusp of a quasi-autocratic government.

History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes.
What happened in Germany in 1932 is held as a warning to all of us. It's also worth remembering that the reason Hitler gained power was thanks to a "deal" with the mainstream Conservatives. It was the threat of Communism that had helped to focus minds in the Conservatives to do a deal with the Nazis: rather Hitler than the hammer and sickle. He was technically meant to be the junior partner in a coalition: although he was Chancellor, he was meant to be held in check by his deputy, the mainstream Conservative, Von Pappen; mainstream Conservatives also held the vast majority of government posts. But very quickly, it was the tail that was wagging the dog.
The same cowardly mindset seems to in today's "moderates" in the Conservative Party.


How To Subvert Democracy

Let's remember how we got here.

Currently, UKIP are polling around five per cent in the polls; not much more than they were in 2010. And yet, as we have seen, the Conservative government is now carrying out wholesale UKIP policy. Why?

As it is the threat of losing power that is keeping "moderate" Tory MPs subservient to the "hard-line" agenda today, it was Cameron's worry of losing power that made him cave in to demands for an EU referendum.
This is how extremists are able to control the agenda in a "First Past The Post" electoral system: by blackmailing the governing party into backing extremism.  A handful of hard-liners thus make the fear of conceding power to the opposition greater than the fear of conceding the agenda to extremism. David Cameron began the precedent;  Theresa May has taken it one stage further.

As Cameron's 2010 government was a coalition, it left him in a precarious position. With UKIP rising in the polls, and a cohort of his own MPs sharing that party's Euroscepticism, Cameron thought he was being clever to try and deal with the issue by promising a referendum. But the reason for this decision was one borne from weakness and cowardice: thanks to not winning the 2010 election outright, it gave a disproportionate power to the "hard-liners" in his own party. This was one reason why the 2010-15 parliament was one of the most rebellious for decades.
He could have stood up to the "hard-liners" in his party, by "calling their bluff" (such as telling them if they didn't like the Conservatives' pro-EU policy, they were free to join UKIP). As it happens, two of them did just that, but that was eighteen months after after Cameron's "Bloomberg Speech" in which he promised an EU referendum if his party won the next election. They left the party after Cameron had already partly caved-in on their agenda.
So by not standing up to the "hard-liners" in the Conservative Party to begin with, he allowed them to set the agenda on Europe. And in the end, this cost him his job. The fear of losing the next election (by shedding support to UKIP) made him cave-in to their agenda, and thus once the sharks smelled blood, they went after him to finish off the job. The irony here is that the referendum was probably never really meant to have happened even after Cameron had made the promise, because he wasn't expecting his party to win the election in 2015 outright. As it was assumed another hung parliament would be the most likely result again, it was equally assumed the referendum idea would be dropped in the post-election talks with the pro-European Liberal Democrats. That "plan" went down the toilet when the Conservatives won a majority, forcing Cameron into carrying out the promised referendum - one which he never expected to lose. Such things can happen when you try to be too clever by half; like with Von Pappen's plan to "tame" Hitler by making him Chancellor.

Even before Theresa May decided to implement the UKIP agenda, that party had already cost one Prime Minister his job. Now we see that she saw a cynical opportunity to destroy UKIP by becoming UKIP. Except that you don't destroy an ideology by implementing it under a different name. There were signs of her nationalistic and authoritarian leanings when she was Home Secretary; now it is clear that her own personal inclinations are much closer to the "hard-liners" in the party than the "moderates".

For those in UKIP this must be a bitter-sweet moment: in their moment of triumph, a government is implementing entire swathes of their agenda, and the party isn't even in power. All they had to do was scare the Prime Minister a bit.

For more on the "Brexit Agenda", and what it means for Britain, look at the following article.

UKIP, Godfrey Bloom and racism: how UKIP speak the language of the man on the street

The British political establishment is often accused of being "out of touch", Cameron's Conservatives most of all. The recent comments by UKIP MEP Godfrey Bloom criticising foreign aid to "Bongo Bongo Land", put that issue into sharp focus.

What's most telling about the reaction to Bloom's comments is that of the political establishment, who quickly jumped on the racism bandwagon. This reaction defines the established view that racism is defined as any comment that is derogatory towards someone (or some place) that is non-white. I make no judgement either way on the "Bongo Bongo Land" issue; what interests me is how Bloom's comments were able to cut a sharp cleft on an "Us and Them" issue - that of "politically-correct language".

Whether it was intentional or not, Bloom's comments have put UKIP back again in the limelight, after a period of relative quiet following the aftermath of the May local elections. This showed in the dip in UKIP's vote in the polls, though this was always bound to happen when a "new" party like UKIP falls out of the electoral radar outside of campaigning seasons. As UKIP are a "party of protest" (according to the political establishment), they are always likely to have higher ratings when Nigel Farage and his collleagues have the chance to shine in the media circus, when elections are due. As of this weekend, after falling to just above ten per cent in the polls a few weeks ago, they are now reaching back up to their high-water mark of the high teens.Do Bloom's comments have anything to do with that?

Going back to the "racism" accusation, Bloom has shrugged off this saying that he is merely saying things that are normal for his age (he's in his mid-sixties). What is also unsaid is that Bloom's language more closely reflects that of the urban and rural working-class. Though it is an uncomfortable truth for the metropolitan, liberal-minded middle classes, many people in the UK are racist, at least in a casual way. But this is true in many countries.
The rise of "political correctness" in the UK came around twenty years ago, especially after the mistreatment and abuse people from ethnic minorities (by the police, for example). This led to a more careful consideration of how language can be abused as a psychological weapon against those who are "different". The result of this was what we call "political correctness".
From this, the political establishment began its cultural "modernisation": Tony Blair's "New Labour" was the best example of that put into practice, which Cameron forced the Conservatives to finally follow. But this still left the urban and rural working classes behind in the process, and complacently treated by their traditional parties (usually Labour and Conservatives respectively).

The rise of immigration could only be ignored by the political establishment for so long; the financial crisis was the tipping-point. Immigration can be tolerated by working class as long as it doesn't negatively affect them. But the financial crisis showed that immigration did have an effect on "native" working class unemployment when there was a surplus of unskilled workers; Eastern European immigration and the UK's membership of the EU therefore became a huge issue to the working class, because they could see the physical effects on the street - and in their own unemployment.

The issue of foreign aid to corrupt developing countries (largely in Africa) is therefore biting to the (working class) man on the street because he feels that money is being wasted abroad that could be spent on him at home. Godfrey Bloom's remarks, spoken in a way that he can understand and relate to, therefore hit home. Ignored by the "political correctness" of the establishment, who seem out of touch in their language and concerns compared to the working class, UKIP are the only party who seem to speak the language of the street.
I talked before about "cleft" issues: these are points that UKIP can clearly mark its identity as different from the political establishment: mainly immigration (anti), the EU (anti), and the role of the state (anti). UKIP have been able to identify and take advantage of the now-atrophied "social democratic" political dialectic that the "big three" have all accepted. Even on austerity, Labour have grown to accept much of the Coalition's tough stance, to the detriment of their own political clarity and credibility. This is where UKIP's role in the political landscape is clear: to play their part in forging a new political future, come what may.

Calculating Westminster influence from the polls

I've said before that UKIP's influence is underestimated by the "big three" parties at their peril. UKIP are here to stay: the four-party system is a reality now.
When translating UKIP's poll share (in the last few months, the average has been in the mid-teens), the polling companies use formulas that demonstrate that UKIP has very little chance of gaining a seat in Westminster. If anything, this shows how out-of-date their methods are, as much as the political establishment is out-of-date with its methods of dealing with fourth parties.

UKIP are following in the steps of the LibDems in using local government as a way to develop foundations that can be transformed into seats in Westminster, as I've alluded to before. This is why using any conventional formula to calculate seats is almost meaningless, because it fails to account for local idiosyncrasies that can be exploited by the FPTP system. Now that UKIP have real representation in the East and South-east of England, it's not too far-fetched to think that at least a few of the local (district) councils would become UKIP seats in Westminster in 2015.
Adding to that, is Nigel Farage's apt comment that UKIP are becoming the "seaside party": that many old English seaside towns (e.g. Margate, Hastings, Blackpool, Great Yarmouth) are becoming dumping-grounds for the unemployed and sinks of social deprivation; in other words, filled with precisely the kind of people who would feel most at home with UKIP's message.
Lastly, is Labour's "soft underbelly": the many run-down parts of the North of England that have never voted anything but Labour, but now are feeling taken for granted by the Labour machine. In one part of the North-east, UKIP have already become the official opposition.

So it's better not to trust these clever "election calculators" that appear, showing UKIP with 20% in the polls, but with no seats in Westminster. This is just part of the scare tactics, because deep down, the establishment is terrified.

Demarchy - Democracy without the "demos" problem?

Democracy these days is having quite a tough time trying to live up to its reputation in the developed world.
The other day I wrote about the recent fate of the democratic governments of Italy and Greece, ousted under foreign economic pressures, to be replaced by technocracies.
(A technocracy, by the way, is government by bureaucrats and "experts" - the kind of government the civil service in the developed world would love to have, if they didn't have the hassle of democratic elections to get in the way of the decision-making process)
Meanwhile, other autocratic regimes, such as Saudi Arabia, Russia and China, seem to be doing very well without a properly-functioning democratic system, if they have one at all. Outside of Europe and North America, the only major world economic powers that are (fairly) well functioning democracies and are economically stable with a likely good future to look to, are India and Brazil.

All this makes you wonder why people still put up with democratic government at all; it's messy, prone to instability, suffers from the threat of continual ugly compromises. The example of Greece and Italy may well add to the scepticism that the Eastern giants (such as China, Russia and Saudi) have towards any steps in the democratic direction.
After all, it could be argued that it was the constant pressure of the democratic process that put Italy and Greece's politicians on the slippery slide into granting their electors whatever irrational wish they had, regardless of the cost. If those country's politicians were weak, it might be argued, that was simply because they reflected the weak will of their populations to deal with reality.

Of course, that depends on the politicians and the people of any democratic country; if the people and politicians are both irrational, then by definition, democracy quickly becomes dysfunctional - infact, it may not even be called "democracy", but rather could be something technically called "Ochlocracy" - Mob Rule, to you and me, where government is at the whim of every protest group, interest group and one-issue party that has the largest voice at any given moment.

The main functional problem that many see with even "rational" democracy is that in order to become elected, a person has to become known to the public; this necessitates the formation of parties that broadly reflect that person's views, unless that individual is extremely rich.
Those parties then develop their own interests, sometimes they scheme together to gain power or influence decision-making, and after a short while, many ordinary voters see a "political class" that seems seperate from them. Hence in the USA you have "the Beltway", a term to describe all decisions and actions carried out by the elected politicians in a faraway and disconnected capital; in Europe, "Brussels" has much the same character.

There is another system, that was tried with positive results, most recently in medieval Venice (and in ancient Greece), that has been called "Demarchy": where governing officials are not voted into office at all; instead, they are appointed at random from the electors.

This might sound perfectly insane, but there are some immediate differences that can be seen with this system compared to democratic election.
For a start, the "party system" that is a necessary evil in democracy, becomes totally irrelevant if government officials are chosen at random. A persons opinions, income, background, or any other factor, are not counted for or against them, and besides, campaigning would be pointless, because there is no "election", only selection.
(At this point, it might be fair to add that there perhaps could be some minimal criteria to qualifying for governmental selection: age, minimal residential requirements, and so on; though this may be no more than would be expected for someone to qualify for jury duty)

It also makes the job of goverment cheaper: no party funding, no election campaign costs. Furthermore, as the people in government will have only just entered for the first (and probably only) time, they should instinctively have no special interest to be able to promote (as they would not have had the time to do so; and besides, any of the other potential government members would be able to oppose any special interest in government). Although it may be practically impossible to stop this from happening entirely, it certainly should reduce the risks to a minimum.

One possible criticism of this method is that if the people selected all chose to act (as a group or individually) in their own interests for their term in office, then things would quickly become dysfunctional; that said, the very fact that they would lose their position next time around should also make any potential wrongdoers think carefully about how the rest of the public would react to them once they became "civilians" once again - unless the culprits chose a self-imposed exile. In that sense, it would be in the selected goverment's own interests to attend to the public's concerns.
Another obvious point is the potential danger of allowing people without suitable education and experience to the reigns of government. Democracy, so its proponents say, is good for seperating the wheat from the chaff. Well, that may be so much of time, but even the system of democratic election serves its fair number of regrettable results - again, it all depends on the rationale of the electors, as we have seen over the years in Italy and Greece.
One way around that problem could be to have a stable civil service, or shadow "technocracy" that could be also selected in a similar random manner to the "regular" government, albeit using more stringent criteria to be eligible for selection (based on a higher level of qualifications and experience) - by definition it would therefore be from a smaller base of potential candidates (in the tens of thousands rather than the millions, for example). The function of this "technocracy" would be to act as a counterweight to the potential drawbacks in the "common" selected government; namely, the slight risk that the government taken from the general population could make an instinctive or poorly-reasoned decision.
Therefore, a little like in the USA, you would have two arms of government of equal stature: a general cabinet, and a technocratic cabinet, working together where necessary to reach a common agreement.

How often, and in what way, could these positions be selected?
The best compromise as I see it would be to have local governments, national "civilian" government, and the "technocrat" government selected at different periods and for different terms in office - for example, local government every four years, national "common" government every four years, and the "technocrat" government every five years.
A further amendment might be to have the selection list for national government come from the existing list of local government officials; that way, anyone who is selected to the national government already has several years experience in dealing with the basic affairs of local bureaucracy; they then will have a better hands-on knowledge of the best methods of dealing with public concerns.
Technocrats' terms in office ought to be longer as, to use the same rationale of the Founding Fathers of the USA, those who are more senior and experienced will have a greater chance to better inform those in the "civilian" government who may benefit from a older hand and wiser head.
So, for example, if country X decided to create this form of Demarchic government in the year 2020 with all three branches of government at the same time the following selections would go as follows:
Local: 2024, 2028, 2032, and so on
Civilian: 2024, 2028, 2032, and so on
Technocrat: 2025, 2030, 2035, and so on

Maybe this all sounds nuts. But every system of government has its benefits and drawbacks.