THE ELECTORS CHARTER
Restoring Rule By The People
[0]
© Copyright: Alastair Lancaster, September 2009. All rights reserved.
Please note that this Charter is a work in progress! It is subject to improvement and suggestions by fellow Electors worldwide. The warning below was written in anger, 14th September 2009. See my post of the same date, “It Is Particularly Forbidden..” This draft text is creatively provocative and abbreviated. For, who decides voluntarily to read a political Charter? Much more can be said later, perhaps in a book. I have nothing personally against politicians. I believe most of them deserve an almighty shock and correction from Electors. I leave the warning in place, so the reader sees warts and all. (5th November 2009)
IT IS PARTICULARLY FORBIDDEN for any copy of this text,
in whole or in part, in any form, to be made by or for any European politician, official or anyone acting as an assistant. They have stolen enough!
Foreword
Democracy: “Government by the people; that form of government in which the sovereign power resides in the people.” (The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary)
Here is a fresh addition to democracy itself as we know it, to make it sharper, far more effective, powerful and smart. It shakes the foundations of all Parliaments and Assemblies, including the Congress of the United States and the United Nations. It torpedoes the Charter of Fundamental Human Rights with the EU Constitution and treaties. It outlaws the European Union.
By EU documents our powers were taken. By this counter-Charter they are, step by step, regained. This part is The Beginning, an outline sketch for the ordinary voter. After long public consultation, The Middle will be published. Then later, The End.
Some of the text was written 10 years ago and stayed unpublished from distaste for party politics. If these Articles surprise you, I relay the impact these thoughts had on me. Many came on waking after sleep, (which given its subject is appropriate!)
Alastair Lancaster, September 2009
Introduction: First Internet European Edition
Who rules?
Parliament represents the People. They say. But, Parliament has transferred resources and powers to the European Union for decades, plus adjudication rights to its courts, deliberately without the “whole-hearted consent of the British People”. (Prime Minister Edward Heath, 1970)
Disloyal monarchs are exiled. Then, how are the 3 main, persistently-disloyal Parties that abuse democracy punished? If MPs are found-out thieving expenses, of what class of crime is placing the People under the control of an outside power without any public vote? This cannot be claimed “inadvertent”! How could deep reform by them ever be safe? The EU, more cancerous, dominates our politics! How is democratic control restored and entrenched? How can the rot at the core of democracy be stopped?
Here are answers within a fresh statement of Democracy: “The Beginning” of a 21st century Charter for electoral power in a new form. It returns political supremacy to those who lend it: the People. It wrenches it back from those who steal it: Parliament and the EU.
In this first edition, the Proposals offered are concepts, subject to correction and improvement by Electors, from whatsoever country, background or experience. Several working editions are likely.
[1]
The Electors Charter: Part 1
Article 1
The root fault of our ‘Representative’ Democracy is that it was designed to dis-empower us, for years. In fact, for life! Our supremacy is suspended. When we vote, we ‘lose’ our power. We are made and kept redundant. Citizen-oversight is blocked.
Parliament claims political sovereignty. But, under democracy, it is our birthright. We hold it, in stewardship. Democracy means rule by, not just for, the People. It requires both citizen-oversight and overrule, in responsible form, continuously.
Paradoxically: we, the ruled, have to rule our rulers to correct misrule. Only this is effective democracy! Today, the intelligence and effectiveness of 650-or-so MPs is far outclassed by millions of able, well-educated, experienced and informed Electors. Our political ‘parents’ in Britain, monarchy and Parliament, are losing strength. As ‘children’, we were subject to them. Now, they need assistance. Being “subjects” is a parental and historical anomaly from pre-democratic times.
Politically of age, we have to adopt a new supporting role. This Charter describes it.
[2]
Article 2
Our rightful authority flows not from any EU or UN gift of ‘rights’. Nor even Magna Carta, as is told. It is planted in us. It is innate. We are to rule our lives. Valid government, anywhere on earth, is authorized only by free individuals.
In early history, governments began when families and individuals each decided to lend their power voluntarily, their resources and support, using their sovereignty, for agreed ends. Later, that sovereign, contractual assistance was taken by defrauding or demanded by force. It was stolen by the State, institutionalized and locked up in legal Codes and regulations that strengthened, then aggrandized, those taking power.
That is what the EU does across Europe by its laws, directives, treaties, Charter and would-be Constitution. It takes over the People, their liberty, resources and destiny, without their permission, plus the geographical title itself. The UK Parliament receives over-riding, endless regulation, undermining democratic legality. MPs take their pay for not checking 70% or more of the laws they pass!
The two key principles of democracy are not guaranteed. Thus, EU rule is theft.
[3]
Article 3
Democracy has two immutable principles:
Citizens control government: by oversight and approval, directly and indirectly. Goverments loyally ensure that control.
Without both, The State, Parliament, Government and European Union make themselves illegitimate and increase in democratic illegality. For, legality and sovereignty reside in the People, not in invented States or institutions.
[4]
Article 4
Across Europe, no electorate legitimized, or could legitimize, the EU! Because, it disregards their supremacy! Its laws, built by by-passing genuine democracy, are counterfeit! First directives must be issued by the People. Representatives exist to ease public decision-making, not to usurp or export the supremacy of their Electors! N.B. The British people were made EU citizens without their express agreement! Therefore, all EU directives to them are invalid!
No one becomes a foreign citizen unaware, without ever being asked, without undeniable personal consent or any clear commitment whatsoever: and never when strongly opposed! Not under democracy! Consequently, the main Parties by walking over the will of the majority not only have continued to ebb respect. They have ebbed away their legitimacy.
Official charters, constitutions and primary laws are designed first to benefit those in power. Thus, The European Charter of Fundamental Human Rights, purposely omits the most fundamental of matters: control of government by free citizens! It dilutes our inherited, rightful supremacy to a removable right of influence, permitted by the European Union. But, democracy is authority and power over the State! It is correction of the State, and if unavoidable, punishment and pruning of the State and Parties for defying rule by the People.
So, “Who supervises the Supervisors?” asked the ancient Greeks and Romans. This Charter provides a new answer: a way to “rule” our presumptuous governors, without depending on or trusting their sweetener gift of “Rights”.
[5]
Article 5
The People lend their powers, in part only, to any Parliament, Congress or ruling Assembly temporarily and to a State or Union provisionally. A monarch or an elected president, has conditional or accountable rule, as a figurehead or executive. Each is a servant, subject to our highest standards, responsible to us. We hire them. We dismiss them. We fund them. We withdraw support when they overstep the mark. We replace them because we lend, and not borrow, power.
Here is a lost truth: At General Elections, we do not transfer all authority to representatives! Nor is our remaining power a residue. It is resident! For, overall responsibility stays ours. No law or treaty can ever alter our democratic ownership of politics and legal power. Parliament seeks our supremacy: as close to the ‘right of attorney’ as it can get! It must re-learn that without our directives, owned resources, and constant validation, it is nothing but an assembly of Party rogues on-the-make.
No State, Parliament, Government or Union owns its measure of power! Its lease is revocable. None is permanent. Power-rights come only from the People. The legalizing sequence is Parliament-People-Parliament-People, for Parliament belongs to the People, not vice-versa, nor in any degree.
[6]
Article 6
EU elections launder our supremacy, consolidating it for imposters based in Brussels, who, as Commissioners, pretend our support! Whether few vote or agree, power is extracted. Our loss of power is continuous. It is rubber-stamped by a pocket Parliament there and a craven Parliament here.
Where did the EU get its boasted Rights, to be able to bestow them on us? By stealth, from us! Disloyal-Parliament gave it slices of our control. Then, the EU, in a show of generosity to gain our support, grants us “rights”, taken from our Self-rule: brass for gold.
Innumerable rights and benefits are latent within sovereignty. As sovereignty is supremacy without limit. The EU grants us all that we could give ourselves, but with our supremacy removed and its own implanted. Any referendum packaging the thousands of unauthorized EU decisions into one slick question is invalid. For, our directive to go-ahead was never given! Successive governments have used any method to avoid asking for it. The main Parties block our opposition! Integration goes on via a continent-wide robbery of power.
[7]
Article 7
Transferring control without permission amounts to treason against Electors! The Commons is the Lower House. The even-Lower House it has made itself! It has lost its honour.
Parliament has to recognize and confirm without qualification and irreversibly: the People in democracy are supreme, not itself! Its first loyalty is to them, not to the EU or the servant-State. Electors must be masters and mistresses of both their Houses, before they are endorsed and henceforth trusted. This can never apply to the imposed EU Parliament, that defrauds hundreds of millions of Electors of their moderating control.
Genuinely-democratic votes maintain overall control, and so, “rule”. The EU election vote is a power-surrendering device. Thus, few vote.
[8]
Article 8
State theft of democracy is the nub issue. To restrict an intelligent, educated and informed electorate to one illiterate ‘X’ on the ballot paper or an unverifiable electronic trace as in the USA, every 4 years or so, to vote on multiple, increasingly-vital and more costly issues, is fraud. To refuse a vote by Electors on the EU for decades was utter contempt by Parliament! The matter of the EU was so artfully woven into party manifestos that any clear support for or rejection of it was avoided. No mandate was sought or given. Thus, in no way, at no time, was any transfer of our control to it, or transfer of our wealth for it, authorized or validated by the General Election device of one vote: any-number-of-issues!
By our one electoral vote, cast or not cast, politicians, officials and lawyers assume a total transfer of authority to them has occurred and that they hold our title-rights and the ‘right of attorney’. But we are neither sick, unfit or so stupid! We retain our sovereign powers in full potency. We own the democratic system, our country, our land, its resources, its economy and our destiny: not them, in any way at all. We create the wealth. We fight and die. We inherit freedom from our fathers. They sit on their bottoms, creating laws that wheel-clamp our lives, benefiting themselves.
Governments ‘take’ powers. They own none! They return few. They hold too many. We require several back! Countless instruments of power ‘passed’ by Parliament with little or no evaluation, to keep power in the hands of a few, need the light of day and revaluation. We need to rein-in our paid employees, check the books, and re-mould our future. The Government’s electronic eyes follow us anywhere. The “guardian-State” has become a predator, abusing those it protects. The beast needs tethering.
We need a superior system: not devised and trimmed by the current, underhand power-brokers or self-serving Parties. This Charter spells out how this is done.
[9]
Article 9
One Vote By compressing all vital public issues into one choice, Parliament confiscates “rule by the People” and neuters them. The Parties want Electors to decide on nothing, except their appointment to power! This, they insist, is democracy in action. In fact, it is the way they withhold it!The Single Vote is made to validate, literally, any number of policies, stated and unstated. The greater the uncontrolled power of the State, Parties and MPs, the more possible are political mafias using unlimited funds and self-granted powers, peopled by charming, ruthless opportunists.
Electors elect MPs. But now, MPs obey the EU first! Out-manoeuvred, loyal MPs are made both its agents and cover. They are driven by its funding. They are compromised, entangled and dependent: compelling us, as devalued constituents, to be so, too. The Labour Government reneged on its promise of a referendum on the EU Constitution. It was renamed a ‘Treaty’. Because then, only States are needed to agree. Thus, we have a self-crowned Parliament with an illegitimate EU. Both calculate they are beyond the reach and correction of the Electorate.
Before asking the People any EU question by referendum, it is both Parliament and the EU that have to answer the People these questions: Who is supreme in democracy: politicians or the People? the State or citizens? A non-elected EU Commission or the Electorate? Parliament or those who lend it power and fund it with vast sums of their money? Is it the Parties, lobbyists, companies and media or Sovereign Democrats?
A referendum on the EU would seek to confirm MPs appropriation of our electoral Supremacy, imply the EU is actually democratic, and de-criminalize themselves as thieves. The EU makes our democracy a fraud. Parliament is the front for it. “Ministers for Europe” are just that, cookoos-in-the-nest. The main Parties have installed the EU over us, with its imposed European Court for last appeal!
Five things, therefore, need simultaneous correction now, by reinvention: Parliament, the EU, the electoral system, the main Parties and customer-rule within the economy. A thorough rethinking and re-tooling of politics is needed. The mistake we make continuously is to look to the same guilty Parties and uninspired politicians for fresh answers. We look in vain. Mostly, they are the problem!
We have 7 Proposals. Each invites improvement. Each can become self-funding.
THE MAIN THREADS SO FAR
Article 1. The root weakness of Representative Democracy
Article 2. Our inherent authority
Article 3. The twin requirements of democracy
Article 4. The illegitimacy of the European Union
Article 5. We only lend power to MPs
Article 6. EU elections launder our power
Article 7. Parliament commits treason against Electors
Article 8. Theft of democratic control by the State
Article 9. The Vote asserts Electors over-rule Parliament
[10]
The Electors Charter: Part 2
Preface
A New Form of Democracy to Optimize the Power of Electors
If Parliament disappeared in smoke, as may occur one day, what would happen to its ever-claimed sovereignty? Nothing! For, the People are the full and ultimate parliament! The democratic system is wholly theirs. Thus, who else should monitor it carefully and improve it creatively, as necessary? A low-cost, back-up and cross-checking System is now shown that meets today’s emergency, called Parallel Democracy. It is described also as Super-Democracy.
It is Parallel, for it runs simply and separately beside the present system, without damaging it. It innovates, not legislates. It focuses what already exists but gets overridden, Electors’ intelligence and citizenship. It is Super-, over and above or supreme in the sense that it regains rule by the People. It is higher in its standards, exceptional in purpose.
It trumps EU supra-rule, which is democratically-illegal, designed to prevent real electoral control. Because whatever diminishes or outflanks democratic control, by definition, is illegal and is the duty of each member of society to both oppose and overcome. Parliament gave exclusive rights to the EU without permission. Therefore, it must share its exclusive rule with the People. Gaining much.
The Parallel System is an new way to organize wisely and hold rightful, yet restrained, mastery. Long ago in Britain, Parliament was developed to authorize taxes and later to control the king. Parallel Democracy is to curb Parliament’s abuse of our powers, grip the tax system, replace the EU, achieve excellence in politics and commerce, re-establish lost liberties, help build wealth with responsibility and duty, innovate intensely in public matters, optimize democrats individually, and raise standards totally.
Parallel Democracy is a new democratic branch, necessary to separate ourselves from a system in disgrace. It provides ways for the whole Electorate to confer and to use their goodwill for public and private purposes.
[11]
Proposal 1: A Clear-Out Party
We need a Clear-Out Party, to let Labour, Conservative, and Liberal-Democrat voters combine the best policies under fresh leadership and to repair their System. Their preferred Parties have lost credibility. So, they ask exceptional (not average) people, in and out of Parliament, to build a policy platform, unite, stand, and prepare for government. COP invites all constituents to vet its candidates, to mould its policies and decide its leaders.
COP Primaries
Unique Primary contests check-out the candidates and explore options. The first Primary opens up subjects. The second looks at further ideas and plain faults. Policies are shaped in a chain of Primaries, following local timetables. Then, conferences stretch and test candidates working together. For, we need ways to establish their competence and quality before Election-Day. Simultaneous local and national discussions are put on the Web. No need to run each Primary identically. Alternatives can be explored without a single new law from Brussels or Westminster. Both itch to dominate. But, COP-Primaries are for the COP Party, guided and ruled by Electors. Can MPs or ex-MPs be candidates? Yes. If local Electors so rule.
Local control
When politics is local, direct, and carefully cross-checked by Electors, it is vibrant, relevant, popular, safe, costs little and satisfies.
Electors have to police public affairs
Electors need to constantly check the security and democratic-lawfulness of politics. COP enables Electors to flush the parliamentary system perhaps once in a generation. It is their tool for emergencies, to over-rule, to vote “None-of-the-above” and punish.
COP is a “Party” usually kept in reserve
If Parties behave as Electors require, COP may hibernate. Ever operating in the memory and background of the Parallel System, it is a warning to Parties to respect the property and sovereign authority of Electors always. It is an extra Party all Electors can join, serving politics and deserving-Parties, or just as willingly, opposing them if voters require. It is shock therapy to ensure higher standards and better policies.
Actually, more a Bonus Service than a Party
We call it a “Party”. Yet, it is so briefly. Unity Parties have, and should have, short lives. It is better thought of, long-term, as The Bonus Service for Electors. It doubles their leverage. It is a “sparty”, meaning special or servant-Party. It becomes a facility and institution, a forum and cooperative platform for Electors of various persuasions to contribute to public affairs. By it, Electors become more aware of their combined talents and responsibility with power. Parallel Democracy develops several such linked institutions, to harvest the wisest thought of voters, and to cross-check and correct each other.
The new institutions as one System
Under Electors’ control, they could so transform the actual ability of Electors to rule politics that we may add these cautions. Arrogance applies to Electors as much as to politicians. Worthy rulers behave as servants. Transparent honesty with simplicity alone gives them value. New faces guarantee nothing. Dumb-average MPs lost us our control. We have to improve whatever is good. Loyalty to the best wisdom of our forefathers is as vital as innovation. Great accumulations of power by government and organizations are such that the People are easily plundered. Parallel politics are to reverse dangerous trends, drawing on the united, creative strength of the whole population.
[12]
Proposal 2: Become a More Genuine Democracy
The present rotten, undemocratic system
In Britain, we have three main Parties, each mediocre, holding minority confidence. One could govern for up to five years. No other real choice. We cannot pick a leader, a Prime Minister or Cabinet member. We may not select a party candidate unless we join that Party. But each Party can push anyone upon us for our MP. We may never get an MP we truly want. We are unlikely to affect policy for the rest of our lives. We get one vote in four or five years. Prime Ministers select polling-day, aiming to put opposition parties to maximum disadvantage. This is State Democracy, in which the EU, the State and the main parties rule, fix the rules, and build power. Democracy is whatever they say it is. The People are captive, ruling in dictionary definitions of democracy only. The three main parties now enthuse about reform. Too late. We no longer want them.
A clear alternative
Consider this future system. Ideally, well before a General Election, in Primaries, we select candidates from all parties and from independents, too. Publicity-seekers and no-hopers get eliminated from the start. Later, at the General Election, we elect the top five to work for us as a team. Two (or three) are women. Each is our MP, in rotation. They share the seat in Parliament, and the pay, based on our vote. So, a candidate with 30% of the vote gets 30% of the time. Five MPs cost the same as one. Each is our representative. For, we chose them all! We decide MPs pay and allowances locally. We set Election Day. We issue a 3, 4 or 5-year licence of power. We re-set the rules. We could vote on, say, 20 national or local issues a year. Our five MPs must act as a team or be individually disqualified. They share a growing load. They appear human. They get a home life. Each has another job, maybe several, building real-life skills. Annual voting, to a County calendar, would make citizenship a happy duty and supremacy real.
Its many benefits
Local politics would revive and become of national value. A true polis could develop: a skilled community of mature, responsible, working people, lending their power, resources and support. Talent in the Commons would be five times greater. We get a participating rather than a substitutional democracy. We rule what is ours by inheritance and pay for. Time-share would shake up Parliament and slice the power of Party whips. We have robust ‘proportional representation’ on our terms, not for the advantage of any middle party. Citizenship regains its original democratic significance. Parliament could be in session 300 days not 165 (as in 2008). We could elect Party leaders. By-passing Electors would no longer be tolerated. We could select, or approve finally, the Speaker of the House of Commons, too. We could confirm Prime Ministers and also Cabinet members. In extremity, we could move, split or replace Parliament as it now is. And more. Parallel Democracy re-balances politics, for the benefit of the People. It builds leverage over State power, which over centuries has caused presumption to be built upon presumption, and mechanisms of veiled dictatorship to be accumulated.
[13]
Proposal 3: Build Replacements for the Main Parties
A thorough shake-up
The Parties are no longer trusted. By locking Electors in the EU, they lost legitimacy. Their vaunted “liberal democracy” amounts to being liberal with democracy, which was never theirs to sacrifice! They need total renovation by Electors. Under a 10-or-so-year umbrella of COP, the 3 perpetual tendencies of our politics can be reconstructed, like replacement dwellings on adjoining plots. New names signal new attitudes.
How we tackle the problem
For discussion, let us label a replacement Conservative Party Reinvention. ‘Labour’, (by adding Brains, to represent most working people), can be called Endeavour, or cheekily, Enterprise. Liberal-Democrats: The Watchdog Party: no longer trapped in the middle. Each may develop fast with the united help of the electorate. They win legitimacy. Then, COP hands them keys under new rules. It is re-established that the People rule: in reality. Supremacy of the People is set in reinforced concrete.
The crucial faults of the three Parties
Thus, each may grow beyond old limits and gain fresh support. These project names oblige each to tackle their worst deficiencies. (Conservatives): credible change, to go with traditional continuity. (New Labour): real enterprise with hard effort, rather than a first-association with class-struggle, sweat and childbirth. (Liberal-Democrat): reliability with generosity of spirit, rather than liberality with other people’s money or power and, like the others, transferring the essentials of home rule without authority.
Reform by the Parties themselves is unsafe
“Conservative-reinvention” is incredible. They are two principles in conflict. Two sides of a coin of which only one face is easily viewed at a time. “New Labour” acts as Liberal, Conservative, and sometimes Labour in policy, to wrong-foot all, both opponents and Electors. They wear each other’s clothes. Each existing main Party needs a renewal, a re-design, a re-build from the ground up. The Parallel Democratic System makes this possible. Each urgently needs the support, intellectual and financial, of Electors, but cannot get it, because of dishonesty, incompetence and second-rate character. Their future memberships could walk into superior ‘homes’ they designed. Old-party rumps would follow the paths that Electors take or face oblivion.
COP to help the replacement Parties
The Clear-Out Party could invite its members to join these Parties. Twin membership increases electoral power, and can be encouraged. Electors are willing to be governed by Parties they did not vote for. So, Parties should welcome creative participation by opponents. Parties are often blind to what will help them. Such help can be routed via the Parallel System institutions mentioned in the next pages, to gain idea-registration, support and development. It will be argued that re-creating the three Parties, in perhaps terminal decline, is a mistake. Indeed so, if done by themselves! Parallel Democracy empowers the electorate to reform the Party system from bottom to top, as they wish.
[14]
Proposal 4: Replace the EU by “Super-Democracy”
We widen the meaning of Super-Democracy
Super-Democracy is the companion meaning and explanation for the Parallel-Democratic System. It is also an ideal name for a new Commonwealth of free European nations. Super-Democracy provides a distinct identity and purpose away from the EU. But, it can only be developed safely by Electors. Robber-barons are not trustworthy, political architects! The name defines both its direction and terms of citizenship. The goal is to be the finest democracy in the world. Not narrowly-European, it is Europe-Plus, a flexible commonwealth extending as far as Electors agree. They are equal in the conversation from the start. Not late-comers exploited by a founding group. They know it is more than possible to transcend what now masquerades as European democracy.
The People of Europe are politically and economically sovereign. States are not! The EU lacks democratic origin: the fundamental permission to exist. No “it” can be sovereign! The notion of State sovereignty has long been asserted. But, repeating the untruth can never make it true. Thieves never own stolen property. From the outset, Super-Democracy is owned and controlled by Electors, as the EEC, EC, and EU should have been! It is not a set-to-decline, self-obsessed, ‘Europe’. It has two hemispheres for a political brain, Representative and Parallel-Democratic, to enhance each other: the one formal, the other inventive. Volunteers design it piece by piece. Proving its right to exist by its submission, it is lent power. It guarantees the supremacy of citizens. It, with each State, is citizen-dependent. From that flow real accountability by each State, privacy from all unnecessary intrusion, simpler home-made law, tiny bureaucracy and freedom to do whatever is superb.
As a Commonwealth,
the People “pool” their sovereignty and talents to help one another, not for the State to own and fish. They can become common-ly wealth-y, in the best of senses. Ancient Athens was at its zenith as democracy blossomed. Super-democracy needs no official authority to begin. The People in democracy are the authority. Like new operating-software, beta-tested till ready, it runs experimentally in parallel. Nine-tenths fresh thought and on–line, it will cost a fraction of the EU parliament and other institutions, for citizens to oversee. For the first time in history, free citizens are asked to design a commonwealth of States and to elevate their democratic politics.
As a System,
Super-Democracy is to help optimize citizens, men and women alike, and to correct government. It becomes an agent and bailiff service run by Electors for Electors. Governments and bullying organizations meet their match! It could take on services in place of government agencies, funded from taxation. It could deliver help or punishment by the ton. It is a creative, supporting partner, incorporating the intelligence of the People in their government and beyond it. It is loyal only to those who are loyal. In a sense, Parallel (or Super-) Democracy is the third major form of democracy in 2,600 years. Only now do we have the clear vision, information with mass-communication skills, education and critical technologies, to use it as a rejuvenating, political mechanism.
Can it be done? Of course! It can be made excellent! In Europe, 350 million Electors can build the Commonwealth. If they are insufficient, a billion worldwide may advise. (Helpfulness is not limited to those in a democracy!) Some will try to simplify legislation. Others will start again. Many will use historical examples to peer into the future. Each can be useful.
The quest is to tame the State and halt growing dictatorship, political, financial and commercial. The fine term rule of law now stinks because two law factories, in Brussels-Strasbourg and Westminster, have made a lake of effluent that we have to drain. Those responsible must lose power. How the Commonwealth is developed, with other Parallel-Democratic devices, is the subject of Proposal 6.
Democracy is defined as “rule by the People”. The rule covers the design, foundation, development, and later shape of politics. It cannot be by an unelected Commission, beyond electoral control. Just as one million zeros equal zero, so do a million invalid EU decisions, regulations, laws and documents in 23 main languages! They prove the Commission’s will to abolish true government by the People, by a continent-wide rip-off of electoral power and by negating what genuine democracy is, does and for whom. Strictly, we have no duty to obey any EU law or court. We deny having given, by Vote, legitimacy to the EU! Its ‘legal’ structure set above ours is a take-over without troops. We honour the principle of law. We revile all law-breaking. Lawbreakers are no friends of ours. But, we are compelled by conscience, common-sense and political Rights for which our fathers died, to repel the EU, shake the foundation of Parliament and regain stolen sovereignty.
We are witnesses how easily politicians defy Electors, distort democracy and make laws that extend their dominance without end! Internal EU reform would take lifetimes, during which it would usurp all our roles. Goalposts would be shifted. Laws would be made faster than they can be changed, as now. Its illegitimate rulers would fight for every inch of stolen power, backed by big organizations interested in pay-offs and advantage via regulations.
The nonsense language of fake-democracy
Nation-States and Unions are inventions, forced upon sovereign individuals! Akin to limited companies, a few operate soul-less entities. Ministers claim absurdly to “speak for Britain”, without consulting us first. Brussels Commissioners talk grotesquely “on behalf of the EU”. Whatever goes wrong, we pay in full. But, in Super-Democracy the People decide what and who they permit. They over-rule using cross-checking powers and institutions, belonging exclusively to them and of their design. Europeans are no longer penned as electoral prisoners in the provinces of The Living Fraud. Super-Democracy dooms the EU.
Overcoming the EU Commission, which was never democratically-commissioned
The steering-body may be called The Super-Commission. The Commonwealth will grow, adapt, enlarge or contract as its members desire. It needs to be democratically dismiss-able. By Parallel politics, it can centre or reshape itself, as required. Our home, purpose, and destiny are not in the EU but in a Commonwealth that outclasses it and levers it into redundancy. Parallel Democracy makes this possible.
[15]
Proposal 5: A 3-in-1 Citizen Union (for want of a better name)
Mobilizing Massive Citizen Authority
How do citizens regain control of what is theirs? First, via this Electors Charter. Only a democratic counter-Charter can begin to nullify the deceptive Charter of Fundamental Human Rights, the recent Constitutional Treaty and all associated EU treaties and documents, plus imposed institutions. They are devices to sidestep the supremacy of free Peoples, obstructing permanently their primary choices, corrections and fundamental control. Democracy demands all three. Next, by their own new institutions. As here: a triple-pronged Citizen Union. It initiates more-thorough public discussion and creative action. It avoids being fobbed-off by MPs, edited-out by the sound-bite, entertainment-based, dumbing-down media. Three forums, known perhaps as “the Prism”, focus carefully, steadily, patiently, thoughtfully, and as long and as deep as necessary, on politics from new angles. They oblige governments and organizations to reach higher standards. They run their own services of mutual help. They take back power for the People. They extend self-government.
Electors
They vote, then disperse for years. The Government gets away with almost anything. Wars, transfers of power to the EU, vast incompetence. Yet in democracy, Electors are to be on guard! They are the watchdog with millions of eyes and teeth. To get fair play, warn, bite, grip, regain stolen property and defend their own territory fearlessly. Today, Electors need to be continually in session, conferring, contributing, reviewing, inquiring, researching and registering key suggestions. Plus taking appropriate, helpful action. Electors Together is one aspect of this 3-sided “Prism”. Electors gain practical oversight of their employee MPs and Parties, separate from the system. They bind themselves to act better in their deliberations than any forum anywhere.
Taxpayers
They pay and stay dumb. Yet, their rightful role is to check and see where their money goes! Who better to follow the money, ring-fence funds, shape a simpler, respectful tax system, or to ensure wealth-earning and tax-gathering are made easier? MPs have failed on the job! Billions and trillions in tax or wealth are just too great to entrust to politicians, officials and financiers alone! Taxpayers Together, the second face of the Prism, focuses the best of public thought and innovation. It can oblige the Treasury, HM Revenue and Customs, or the IRS in the US, to operate an exquisite tax system or lose governance. It patrols all our resources. The US Federal Reserve, similarly, would be in the cross-hairs for full accountability and removal, if the American People wish.
Customers
Businesses and Trade Unions have organized for a long time. Customers have not. “Consumers” have one function: to swallow. But, Customers upgrade the economy, discipline all trade, and transfer custom. They rule. Or should. Customers buying together, criticizing creatively together, switching support together, helping and backing (or not) companies together, are most formidable. (Then, we notice that ‘customer-care’ is really two-way! Who better to help train staffs to perfection than caring customers?) Customers Together is the third side of the Prism to focus the best thought of the ignored. By it, “the Customer is king”! This Citizen Union can shake-up businesses, banks, utilities, government national and local, trade-unions and other organizations, yet assist them wholeheartedly, when deserved. People in these three mega-groups may be the same or not. Customers include children. Taxpayers are one giant purchasing group. Electors include those not working and retired. When the knowledge, abilities and power of each is focused, then combined, we get a dynamic formula: Electors Together + Taxpayers Together + Customers Together = supreme political and economic leverage. They can humble or counter-balance the present triumvirate: Government, Business, and Trade unions.
Combined, it is The Citizen Union or The Citizens’ Authority, or perhaps, Citizen-Power. It is a trident of residual authority to prod officials, secure democratic goals and rule errant organizations. Just as The Clear-Out Party provides a distinctly new public forum, so do these ‘Big Three’ open space for deep inquiry and practical, innovative citizenship. “The Three Togethers” amplify the People’s authority 3 times over. That is their purpose! One organization for citizens to raise standards. The three forums work together or separately, and indeed may travel. The first monitors all politics. The second watches costs, spending and effectiveness. The third pursues quality and value, as defined by customers. These Big Three, when they become international, may marshal enormous democratic power, political and economic. Conferences or services will be added, and can be made to self-finance from the outset. All parts of Parallel Democracy are made to self-fund. However, if this renewed public goodwill and contribution to rescue a bankrupt politics is harassed by officials and taxed, we shall need to see how the elected system can be treated likewise.
[16]
Proposal 6: United People (UP)
Both Parallel Democracy and The Commonwealth of Super-Democracy need global participation. We propose an electors council to do this, called United People. The EU held its exclusive Constitutional Convention of minor politicians in 2002-4, to fix “A Constitution for Europe”. 340,000,000 Electors had no initial or corrective role! This world council, starting formally in 2010, is to help re-frame democracy for the 21st century. Chiefly using the Internet and public forums, it would start in Britain in English, then move abroad also and be multi-lingual. Proposals for its agenda are invited.
United People could offset the UN, long-term. Thus the choice of title. The UN is for political dons. Many anti-democratic regimes are members of it. The People play no part, except as supplicants. What corrective is needed? Re-focused People-power, in wiser, more intelligent forms, independent of the UN and of governments (even if “democratic”). Shaping and launching a new form of democracy and helping design a Commonwealth of States to replace the EU, will give it both practical qualifications and discipline. A permanent location, or several or none, is a matter for consideration. United People provides “UP!” as a motto.
The requirements of Parallel politics are higher: value, clarity, brevity, quiet courtesy, rigorous self-criticism and pruning of language and the checking of a suggestion, for a contribution to be registered. New thought is invited on all aspects of government, politics, business, entrepreneurial action and the economy. Here are possible starting-points: What if half of government was run by Electors? Take a subject that concerns you now and work on it! Can experimental schools, using superb methods, accelerate learning and save three or more years? What if Electors ran prisons and helped prisoners to transform their lives? Should wise citizens run citizenship? Instead of unsafe government, should they control private banks of information? What if they evaluated applications for passports and visas, ran immigration, policed racism, asylum, repatriation matters and Identity Card issues? What else? Take government, Parliament, agencies, big business and the media apart. Re-model them. Decimate departments. Focus on real economy, efficiency, simplicity, yet create unprecedented quality. What can Electors, Taxpayers and Customers do to change their world both now and longer-term? Contribute!
Parallel Democracy raises the game of citizenship. Yet, democracy is a political tool, a technique, not a faith. Citizens need to be ever critical of it, to sharpen both it and themselves. Some may ask: What Right have the People to do these things? We ask: What finer Rights do we have than to use our best talents to heal wrongs, improve the behavior of elected politicians and fulfill our inherent stewardship on earth? Parallel Democracy helps us to achieve more. Like two scissor blades held in our hand, it, with a Representative System upgraded by it, can cut through issues with more success.
United People needs to be anti-world-government and anti one world currency. Both are pursued by financiers and global-power politicians, whether by the untrustworthy United Nations or via unaccountable “international law” or by exploiting major crises. Both are anathema to the democratic system. They would check-mate democracy. They turn us into slaves of a political-industrial-military complex, a semi-government beyond government, milking politics and economies, taking control permanently from the People. Totalitarian power in all shapes must ever be broken up and made accountable. Or, it is a dragon of corruption, media and market manipulation, corporate robbery, military and police force, based upon lies.
A ‘Court’ of Public Opinion sketched
United People will have offshoots. A Court of Public Opinion (or, again, a better name) may be one, to look at issues persistently avoided by governments, establishing facts. Funding would be by voluntary contributions. We need a special ratchet, to apply alarming pressure on top people who refuse transparency. International law gets nowhere if governments want it so. It has no democratic origin or control. Inquiries by governments can delay and cover unpleasant truths. A Court, run by the Parallel System, beyond all governmental meddling, would be useful. The People are their own Supreme Court in the matters of ultimate authority, jurisdiction and democracy. Yet, they lack so many corrective tools to manage government mismanagement. Parallel Democracy would graft these in.
If such a Court existed, it would consider cases such as the unique, highly-suspicious collapse of three immensely-strong skyscrapers into their own footprints on “9/11″. The extremely-odd connected events under Federal government control. The missing billions of US dollars flown to Iraq. The $3.2 trillion that were “unaccounted for” by the Pentagon in two recent fiscal years. The Iraq War dossier and associated events. The plan to unify Mexico, the USA and Canada and replace the dollar with the amero. None of which the Federal Government, always claiming the high-ground of democracy as its own, by speech and military action, feels honour-bound to open-up in the name of democracy, to face the deep concerns of its citizens. Thus, the U.S.Federal Government loses the right of respect by democrats worldwide. It has everything to gain by fearless exposure of the truth. It has its very status as leader of the free world to lose by hiding the same, being the global guardian of democratic honour. The supposition grows, until refuted by every credible means, that there have been, and perhaps still are, groups operating above the law within Administrations, maximizing the power and wealth of a shadowy few by exploiting national resources.
The same applies to the European Union, of which far more needs to be said and done, its establishment and funding, by design without democratic control by the Electorate. Denying their practical supremacy, now and in the future. No government or legal system would welcome such a Court. Most would oppose it. However, democracy is not theirs to dispense or undermine. For, which do we have? Democratic governments or political mafias that perpetuate their power and extend their interests? Representative Democracy can be and has been used to rob, invade or sabotage using black budgets. Who controls the industries of death? To whom are they accountable? Who profits? Congress and Parliaments are ineffective, compromised or complicit. It is for the People to judge. As for the EU, transparency is never its intention. Its deceit is constitutional, cultural and ineradicable, moving faster than any possible correction by Electors, today. Just as trade-unions began when workers’ despair and anger at the aloof attitude of Parliament and employers reached tipping-point, so now for Electors, Taxpayers and Customers: here called United People. We do not petition the EU or our disgraced Parliament for the democracy they have stolen. For, sovereignty is within us. We own what we need. Rather, as their employers, we give most of them notice. Quit or be ignored! Do not expect us to support your dishonest politics and Parties any more!
[17]
Proposal 7: Total Transformation
A renewal campaign run by the People, not the Government
How will our children and grandchildren pay off the colossal debts that governments and financiers pile upon them? By we, ourselves, creating much more wealth now. By transforming and reinventing ourselves and our products! Involving every volunteer brain. By offsetting later trouble now. By chainsawing incompetence and irrelevance. Confidence will return when both we and our government live within our means, not fearing short-term hardship. It starts when we take command of our destiny. What can we do to help ourselves? Criticize ourselves first. Discover solutions within ourselves and between ourselves. Use imagination and the least resources. Pool our intelligence for pleasure and for free, for a fair period. Decide to do the impossible. Develop a war-time spirit, when only victory is tolerable. Slice costs. Save and build wealth. Exchange ideas and help globally. Use our inner power. Take responsibility for every outcome. So we get fun and satisfaction beyond all expectation. We can challenge ourselves to create exciting extra products, services and businesses, as our new sport! We can get ready for the upturn. By priorities and attitude, we can cause confidence. We can beat any challenge by ‘total’ reinvention, individually and in volunteer teams, tapping the latent talent of people of every age and background.
Here is the Total Transformation Challenge:
What can you achieve (yourself, your friends, family or team, your town or district), beyond all expectation, in 365 days?
Tell us your goals. When you start. The full names and addresses of your referees, who guarantee the accuracy of your results. A year later, reveal what you achieved! Start from any situation or handicap. Get committed and passionate. Keep going! There are no rules beyond what is moral, truly worthwhile, legal, superb and your very best. On-line will be advice, inspiration, feedback, back-up courses and more. Participants share time, talents, know-how, a few resources perhaps. Let us astonish ourselves!
[18]
Again, What Parallel Democracy Does
Parallel Democracy re-entrenches the authority and power of all Electors. It is a fresh way to regain and use the goodwill and latent talents of citizens for worthwhile goals. It citizen-watches government and organizations worldwide. It brings answers rather than problems. It encourages, experiments, and put superb suggestions from the public into action, if necessary. It helps them devise extra income for themselves and widespread improvement. It is smart, mutual-help with unrestricted citizen-enterprise to add benefits personally, commercially, nationally and internationally. It is separate and independent, avoiding the contagion of existing Parties. Longer-term, it may begin businesses to tackle screaming problems, launch youth and educational services, rehabilitate ex-prisoners or addicts, investigate and publish via new media.
It needs no EU rights or State permission. It uses rights, opportunities and responsibilities inherited, that real democracy confers. It embodies good citizenship. It is not for lazy complaint or self-indulgent spasms. It is not to belittle or undermine Representative politics, but re-shape it from the bottom up. From it, Parliament gains support to tackle obstinate problems. Citizen-power is realized, but stays an undrawn sword. It attracts mature participants and repels all fools. The windbag, whiner and bitter critic fail its standards and exclude themselves. It is not to grasp but to give and to achieve consummately, building shared advantages. They can go to the core of matters, use specialist skills, consider new methods or higher standards, design new disciplines and get better results. They become a national grid of intelligent power to boost both public and private life. They extend self-government and by their beliefs and actions they can seed renaissance. It taps the total experience of the owners, funders, and testers of our society. For, that is what Electors, Taxpayers, and Customers really are! They can offer Parliament a triple-heart bypass.
[19]
A Note: How to Steal Democracy
1. Make laws unreadable. So lawyer-politicians are baffled about their meaning and purpose.
2. Give little time for consideration. Hours only? Guillotine debate. Tie-up MPs in other work.
3. Begin debate without EU documents translated. Have the translation late and unchecked.
4. Hold debates at an ungodly hour. Pick tame speakers. Force Party “loyalty”. Add extra, long-prepared, clauses suddenly. So Ministers gain powers without oversight. EU business is ideal. As matters cannot be discussed.
5. Build secret powers. Use Orders in Council, so it is illegal to reveal the existence of decisions.
6. Delay answering questions for years. Then, give half an answer or an irrelevant one.
7. Hold the notion that MPs consult and are accountable to their Electors. Avoid the reality.
8. Give Election voters one vote to respond to many things. Indeed, make it settle everything.
9. Export powers to the EU. Give the EU Commission greater authority than your own People.
10. Give £billions to the EU, notorious for dubious accounts and dismissing whistle-blowers.
11. Refuse an EU referendum. Run several for mayors and unwanted, dud, regional assemblies.
12. Prepare an Identity Card system that is ineffective. Later, let it go under EU control.
13. Make rule by the People nonsense. Then, lament lack of voter support for democracy.
14. Take control from Electors. Ignore majority opinion. Make the European Court supreme.
15. Then, do what you like. Legal? Act as if it is. You make and are the law. Who can resist you?
16. If found stealing, be an instant-convert to drastic parliamentary and electoral reform.
17. Ask the People! About anything. As long as it is irrelevant in the EU scheme of things.
18. Invite anyone to be a candidate for a main Party. To help keep present leaders in power.
19. Promise the People new rights or powers. The trick ignores power comes from the People.
20. Promise cash or tax benefits. Bribe them with their money. Borrow to swing an election.
21. Sympathize with anti-EU voters. Be loyal to the EU. Build Party links in the EU Parliament.
22. Aim to cut the number of MPs. More power for you. Call it streamlining and efficiency.
23. Be sure the 3 Parties are the only vehicles for political change. Block all competition.
24. That is the object of the exercise, Is it not?
[20]
Expect More Deceit From the EU
The Commission and other EU institutions will employ any counter-measure, if their power is hit fundamentally. They have a continent to lose or gain. They have unlimited funds, lawyers and laws to promote and confuse matters. Our funds support them, when they undermine our interests.
1. They will “explore how democracy can be increased”. As if we have it now, and from them.
2. They will “return” some powers to national parliaments notionally. But build supremacy.
3. They will offer more “consultation” and referendums. But not on the existence of the EU.
4. They will amend some powers of The Council of Ministers: which should not even exist.
5. They will adjust the role of an EU President (or Presidents), so we supposedly “elect” them.
6. They will propose a better Treaty, more conferences, more “policy areas to cooperate on”.
7. They will invent greater “roles” for national politicians and Parties that created the EU.
8. They will provide more funding (bribing), “investing”, rescues and intervention. We pay.
9. They will pursue more “harmonizing” powers across Europe. Removing more local control.
10. They will demand loyalty to their “Europe”. And expect soldiers to die for it. (For them.)
These things they will not change: the Parties that created and support this dilution of democracy, the bent Representative System that guarantees them permanence and funding, and their manipulation inside and outside Parliaments. Only the People can force the changes necessary. Not by electing another of the same three EU-devoted Parties. But by developing democracy further. Parallel Democracy names the process. Super-Democracy describes the direction. This First Edition keeps to concepts. Until these are weighed and amended by the public, detail is not useful. Your suggestions are welcome.
[21]
The Electors Charter: Part 3
Preface
The time has arrived for Electors to “rule” as intended in democracy: by choosing, cross-checking, and correcting, each selectively, as rulers do. Parliament has its job. Electors have theirs as employers of the State, of business and organizations: applying the united brainpower of an enterprise-democracy to upgrade society and its systems. In reality, 650 Westminster MPs cannot represent 60,000,000 unique persons in their needs, know-how, experience, and creative thought. In recent times, representation by them has become an illusion, a political dis-empowerment and economic abuse of the Electorate. They enabled the take-over by the EU. Thus, for a free people to put faith in such a Parliament is to collapse their intelligence like stars into a black hole.
The antidote is Parallel Democracy, which releases the educated capacity of society for public business. The Citizen-Union magnifies the authority of the People, linking Electors Together, Taxpayers Together and Customers Together. The nemesis of the EU is Super-Democracy. United People governs the system. Parallel Democracy grows into an agent and bailiff service. More. It can become the People’s Inspector-General, compelling excellent behaviour by government and other organizations. The branches of government are many. Power is taken by dividing and ruling us with a bewildering range of agencies with ever-altering roles. They are irresistible and incorrigible, until they are matched by greater power with superior authority.
Is this a take-over of government? No. We regain control. Democracy is, first, government of government by the People. We re-establish that fact. Second, the hidden purpose behind democracy is the flowering of our very best talents as individuals. It is not electing a government, (which Representatives, in self-interest, place and keep first)! The question arises, could or would the Citizen Union replace Parliament one day? No! Unless Parliament lost its mind or physical existence. Then, “No” could become Yes. Parliament’s present status cannot remain the same! Electors will no longer tolerate its untrustworthiness. Their contribution cannot be inert any longer, kept bottled by the Parties for four or more years, then added as a sauce at Election-time, for their exclusive benefit.
The EU will be corroded by the Parallel System. No electorate authorized it, for if one had done so, the EU would be acknowledging their supremacy and the falsity of its “supra” claim! Its leaders reckoned millions of Electors were too stupid to devise a superior solution to theirs. Massive cynicism was installed by arrogant elites and old Parties. They cause indifference to politics. In extreme crisis, the backbone of genuine belief and loyalty is missing. Cohesion is weak, not from ethnicity but fake-democracy. There is no more natural object for a group of democracies than to improve their democracy. The EU bites into our sovereignty. But, we alone have the Right to chew over and digest government and State, with other centres of power. The EU, the giver of “rights”, has no right to exist!
Electors, Taxpayers and Customers in global association may tackle gross power imbalances with true legitimacy. Politicians habitually separate Electors, Taxpayers and Customers. In Parallel Democracy, the three link arms to re-integrate democratic rule. We do not argue that “rule” by the People guarantees wisdom. It does not! Arrogance and stupidity are universal risks. We do argue that taking away electoral sovereignty by bogus democracy, as the EU does, shows why correction by Electors is essential!
Rule by the People exercises responsibility and teaches citizenship. The more power rulers possess, the more vital it is to scrutinize their actions, their accounts, and the value they provide. The Westminster and Brussels-Strasbourg Parliaments are now useless in the essentials, being hamstrung by EU design. They give only an air of democratic legality. We say: Around 60,000,000 British brains, with millions globally to consult, are more likely to find wiser answers and policies than 650 MPs and 730 lords and EU-empire officials. The complexities of government, business, markets, science and technology, compel us to ask: Can a very few individuals, a President or a Prime Minister, run any country effectively, let alone virtual continents, and get engaged in matters beyond it? Can they really do so democratically?
Parallel Democracy opens up new possibilities. It will be asked: “Why do not Electors, Taxpayers and Customers use the democratic tools now available? Why do they not write to or visit their MPs?” The truth is many have done so, to little effect! About the EU, those in power do not want to hear. They have been told, overwhelmingly in polls, year after year! So, too, about ID Cards, the introduction of European arrest warrants and more. They are complicit with a political power that was never democratically sanctioned. Government powers of intrusion grow dangerously. Where is the counter-balancing growth of control by the People over MPs, the Government and bureaucracies? How could wise correction come from the Parties that voted this situation into being, who maintain it, and would build on it? It cannot be expected from a declining Press.
So, we consult the People! The Charter of Fundamental Human Rights and the intended Constitution are foisted upon us, with no intention of correction, unless cosmetic. Whereas, this Charter stays under electoral control during its three stages. This being The Beginning, with The Middle and The End to follow at undetermined dates. Electors world-wide are invited now to improve this First Internet Edition and advise on its development and all connected matters. The goal is a 21st century Magna Carta of Democracy with superior politics.
[22]
Parallel Democracy v. Representative Democracy
Parallel Democracy nurtures the needs of successful groups: which are openness, honesty, honour, curiosity, encouragement, genuineness, trustworthiness, imagination, freedom to be wrong, respect, patience, clarity, knowledge-exchange, adventure, discovery, empathy, reverence for truth, prompt, effective action, surprise, fervency, understanding, fun, and all other rich “ultimates” latent in citizen-goodwill. Or, it is nothing. It reaches the parts no representative and no federal politics can reach. It is more profoundly of the People, by the People, for the People. It magnifies then obeys the inward laws of conscience, It delights to serve. These values mould its actions, and help design its products, services and institutions.
Representative Democracy flatters all voters: the lazy and industrious, the willfully-ignorant and the willing learner, the outright bigot and careful thinker, the exploiter with the nurturer, the cynic and the most considerate: one man, one vote. It is two-dimensional: politicians and people, government and governed. So, it frustrates, and cannot tap, of right, the generosity behind democracy, which is its main drive. It siphons goodwill, giving little in return. But there is a third dimension, our unique personal potential, like a secret gold-mine within all men and women. It may be completely undiscovered until inspiration, focus and passion are linked with purpose, courage and encouragement to fulfill our supreme role in life. Here is El Dorado [that land of abundant gold described by Spanish explorers] for a new millenium! Governments, predatory by nature, are wholly trespassers upon it.
Parallel Democracy is not for rivalry but excellence and “exquisition”, (making exquisite: those degrees beyond excellence). In our political family, is the ‘child’ or ‘wife’ more important than the ‘husband’? It depends on who you ask, and when. They serve one another! Family life is about joint growth. Parliament and Monarchy are our venerable, respected, political parents, who have brought us to maturity. Now, graciously, we need to fulfill the extra responsibilities of inheritance. Politically, we have come of age. (Critics have other views about our political parents. Blaming them for the actions or inactions of their ancestors is moralistic posing. Only by learning and giving respect, within our constitutional family, do we deserve respect and grow more united.) Sovereignty needs humility or it is made contemptible by an arrogant show of power.
[23]
UK-EU Undermining of Democracy
The Nature of the Fraud
The EU has operated without root, democratic legality, as have the main Parties in Parliament about it! By playing the “supremacy of Parliament” card, stealing the Supremacy of their own Electors in the face of continuous, majority protests, MPs deposed democracy and, by so doing, disbarred themselves and their Parties from Parliament!
(1) We voted for a Common Market, based on these words: “Do you think that the United Kingdom should stay in the European Community (the Common Market)?” This referendum question, in 1974, clearly implies no difference between those names. There was no mention of the third name: the EU! Any contract altered by one party alone is null and void. We were never consulted again! Of course, the words: “Do you think?” show the Government wanted our opinion, not permission. But, the jurisdiction of a free people cannot be switched without their democratic decision!
(2) Next, the title “The Common Market” was dropped, without our agreement. MPs like to repeat that “sovereignty is vested in Parliament.” Then, we have profound cause to reconsider our “in-vest-ment” of trust! For, our sovereignty swallows theirs! We remove and install governments by our vote. What legitimate power has Parliament beyond ours? The EU fabrication of a supra-sovereignty (that is, above ours) was to enable its politicians to remove our Supremacy irreversibly, buttressed by its “supra-legal system that is irremovable. (They reckon.)
(3) Years later, without our vote, we were made “citizens” of something different, the political European Union! Passports were altered. Multi-billions in taxes are now diverted to it annually. A new flag has been added. All contrary opinion is ignored. Such alterations snap our relationship of trust with Parliament and the three dominant Parties. Its life-support and theirs are being turned off by disgusted non-voters, responding to repeatedly-fraudulent democracy.
“What of sovereign agreements made in our name?” a number will ask. We reply: “Quite so! What of illegality?” Lawyers will say “You are bound by Parliament, EU law and international law!” We say: “Parliament is bound by us!” Furthermore, no earlier MPs would have dared undermine our electoral authority by stealth, lock-in and fait accompli! Some others may say: “You cannot change the rules of democracy!” We answer plainly: “The EU and Parliament have and do! We can and do here by this Charter, in firm defense of our democracy, and that of others!” To give 27 or more neighbours our front door and safe keys, by political and currency union, for EU water-based, fake democracy, smug commissioners, dubious annual accounts and porous borders, is perverse. The EU is next to three regular stress zones: the Middle East, Russia and North Africa. Rather than a haven of peace, it may be an association of fire-fighters, regularly-engaged, at growing risk.
Is our work on the EU wasted? In great part, yes! The EU removes the vital, first principle of real democracy, (by which the People are in power), from a continent! It tramples the second principle: by ensuring its control, not theirs. How exactly? The treaties try to manufacture legality for the EU. The boa-constrictor Constitution, however disguised, with the Charter of selectively-designed Rights are to complete a “legal” take-over by removing both our electoral control and supremacy. The EU manipulates a guided, in effect castrated, “democracy” in each of its member-States. EU officials will extend power regardless.
But there remains a rock obstacle! By the law of genuine democracy, the People hold true title and control, permanently. By definition, they “rule”! That is, they over-rule, for ever.
[24]
These W-I-S-E Islands
The British Government asked the People to re-define what it means to be British! Of course, the regional intentions of the EU and unstoppable immigration promoted by EU legislation dilute the term. If we advance suggestions, in the way they intend, we accept and strengthen our EU chains. We call these islands “the W-I-S-E Islands” from the first letter of each nation in courteous order. Geographically, we have in these islands four ancient nations: the Welsh, Irish, Scots and English. We are politically separate in varying degrees, dependent upon each other, respectful of each other but saying so too infrequently. The EU stimulates rivalry, obliging politicians to use funding and other levers to split us, and so, strengthen itself. If we re-vitalize democratic politics, and again benefit the world in this matter, we may deserve the term!
[25]
Notes from the unpublished original version
Sovereignty
Sovereignty is the primary word of politicians. It is ultimate legal authority. They claim it. They use the self-serving device, the ‘sovereignty of Parliament’ to grasp it. Politicians are powerless, penniless nobodies, until ennobled by Electors with lent and limited powers. Electors are sovereign till they die. Parliament exists by their say-so. Power flows from the People, who either use their ultimate authority, title, legal right and power, or get abused. Party politicians are just beggars acting as princes. Our task is to cross-check and correct them. Citizens have ultimate authority as a life-long internal asset: externalized, confirmed and anchored by the Vote. History records rulers conferring charters, rights and privileges, on temporarily-favoured, much-needed followers, with powers taken from them initially. In reality, our inner sovereignty is non-transferable! We can confer power in part only. We perpetually adjudicate. No one: monarch, State, Government, institution, or temporary leader, can fully appropriate our power legally. Parliament gifting our powers to others, without our unmistakable and lasting concurrence, sets about annulling its own rights. “Rule by the People” encapsulates democracy, so invalidating the EU Commission and all EU structures. It shakes the foundations of disloyal Parliaments. It totally condemns all three of our major Parties to the disfavour of Electors and to their possible dissolution.
Democracy
Democracy is a mechanism to control and moderate government. Not to dilute electoral authority, as now. Electing a government is secondary. Parallel Democracy regains control. A wider avenue is cut for conscientious citizenship. Representative Democracy has drawbacks in an age demanding ever-faster, personal judgment and self-government. Parallel Democracy harvests the minds of the willing electorate, without burdening our creaking system. It develops several extra load-bearing institutions. It is a growing-device. It stretches and exercises the latent talents of Electors, Taxpayers and Customers: practical, key synonyms for the aware and responsible community. It re-attracts lost goodwill. It helps Parliament to govern the Government. Greater power can return to the rightful owners, reversing a long disconnecting trend. The principle of Government inferiority is confirmed. Our present democratic form is not the ultimate one in our history. It is a stage along our pathway. If Parliament was reduced to rubble, the new system would be an installed back-up: active, dispersed and ineradicable throughout the population. Then, it could be less likely to attack. Earth was lent to mankind: to individuals, not governments!
[26]
Quotations On The Matter
Tony Blair (British Prime Minister 1997-2007)
We are not the masters. The People are the masters. We are the servants of the People… What the electorate gives, the electorate can take away. (1997)
This applies to all Parties, the Government, Parliament and the EU.
Woodrow Wilson (U.S. President 1913-21)
Liberty has never come from the government. The history of liberty is the history of resistance. The history of liberty is a history of the limitation of government power, not the increase of it. (1912)
Nothing comes from government, without having been taken from us first. The history of the last century is the history of the increase of government power. Government needs limitation, reduction and democratic control.
People and provinces must not be bartered about from sovereign to sovereign as if they were chattels, or pawns in a game. Self-determination is not a mere phrase. It is an imperative principle, which statesmen will henceforth ignore at their peril. (1918)
Such EU bartering has been done by Ministers for decades without any mandate from the People.
Franklin D. Roosevelt (U.S. President 1933-45)
The only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to protect the interests of the people, and a people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over its government. (1938)
Note the words sovereign control. Note also that we are to maintain it.
Edmund Burke (Member of Parliament, political philosopher)
The people never give up their liberties but under some illusion (1784)
The EU delusion is led by elected politicians. It teaches us that the House of Commons cannot be fully trusted.
Abraham Lincoln (U.S. President 1860-65)
Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. (1848)
Of course, this ‘right’ is not in the EU Charter of Fundamental Human Rights. For, the EU is a slow-motion coup d’état.
Ramsey Clark (ex-U.S. Attorney-General)
A right is not what someone gives you: it’s what no one can take from you.
Why? Because it is innate. All government is composed of lent powers, resources and rights, borrowed from the People.
Tony Benn (English parliamentarian, ex-Cabinet Minister, 1925- )
What power have you got? Where did you get it? In whose interests do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? How do we get rid of you?
Questions asked by him as an MP to people in power. Yet, they have no leverage on EU officials. A new ‘Magna Carta’ of democracy, from the People, will have.
Paul Valery (French philosopher 1871-1945)
Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.
Quite! It is the provocation behind this document, The Electors Charter. It is the reason for the Parallel System.
William Pitt (British Prime Minister 1783-1801 & 1804-6)
The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the forces of the Crown. It may be frail- its roof may shake- the wind may blow through it- the storm may enter- the rain may enter- but the King of England cannot enter. (1763)
Now EU police can remove him to any EU jurisdiction, without proven justification in a British court or habeus corpus. So much for Parliament as the guardian of our liberties!
John Selden (English jurist 1584-1654)
Ignorance of the law excuses no man, not that all men know the law, but because ’tis an excuse every man will plead, and no man can tell how to confute him. (1689)
This most convenient argument has led to unlimited law production, loss of effective leverage over Parliament, indirect disenfranchisement by the EU, and a political correctness culture. No man knows if he is ever wholly within the law or outside it! EU legislation is around 90,000 pages, so far. United citizens need to command a drastic simplification of law.
Charles Dickens (1812-70)
The one great principle of the English law is, to make business for itself. There is no other principle distinctly, certainly, and consistently maintained throughout all its narrow turnings. (1852)
Dickens could have been talking also of EU law and the EU, that extends power for itself, a black slick polluting our public life.
My faith in the people governing us is, on the whole, infinitesimal; my faith in the People governed is, on the whole, illimitable. (1869)
A.J.P. Taylor (English historian 1906-90)
[A]ll change in history, all advance, comes from the non-conformist. If there had been no trouble-makers, no Dissenters, we should still be living in caves. (1957)
To advance individually, too, we need to be non-conformist in the best of senses.
Bernard Malamud (American novelist 1914-86)
There comes a time in a man’s life when to get where he has to go- if there are no doors or windows- he walks through a wall. (1973)
So for a nation, an electorate, any responsible people anywhere, in time of crisis, who are free in their hearts.
Margaret Read (English anthropologist 1901-78)
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
So, let us begin!
Ernest Barker (English political philosopher 1874-1960)
Sovereignty is unlimited- unlimited and illimitable. (1951)
It resides in the People by birth and political inheritance. It is neither the property of Parliament by presumed transfer, nor of the EU in any part of it, by open or secret removal. Parallel Democracy opens this “unlimited and illimitable” character of sovereignty for practical use by the People. And it guards it from parliaments, governments and lobbyists.
Edward R. Murrow (American journalist, 1908-65)
A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.
These quotations have been checked with The Oxford Dictionary of Political Quotations, which is highly recommended.
TO ADD COMMENT: You are welcome to use the space below for general thoughts. However, there is a danger that your contribution may get less attention from readers if you wish to refer to a particular section, Article, paragraph, sentence or idea. So, find the section number above in green, from [0] to [26] and go to that number in my very first posts, at the beginning of this blog. All associated discussion is then together. (We hope!) Thank you for patiently reading The Electors Charter and for visiting The Daily Difference! If you have any suggestions for improving the blog, or other creative ideas, I shall be most glad to hear from you.