I find myself looking past Brexit to what it seems to be precipitating as its fallout, i.e. the demise of the parliamentary system – our apparently acceptable substitute for democracy.

On the news every day, I see short-sighted politicians showing unashamedly how unrepresentative they are of the people they represent, how they know better than their constituents. That’s just plain arrogant. I live in hope of a backlash from the thinking element of their constituencies. Sadly, I feel the voting public is in the main, accepting of this behaviour, not well-informed and disenchanted . A more likely consequence is falling voter turnout in future elections, till General Elections become meaningless. I stopped voting many years ago as I don’t see the current (widely-accepted) system as not reflecting any form of democracy to my understanding of the word.

Hopefully, once we get a second referendum, it will be the start of a slippery slope. People will see that we don’t need MPs. If we have a second referendum on Brexit, then the losers will argue for a third, a fourth and so on.

Gradually, people will realise the principle of Referendum could be extended to other areas of interest; the NHS, Education, Transport, Care of the Elderly etc. Eventually, the light will go on and they’ll see how easy it is to be consulted on ALL matters of government and we can cut out the politicians who, for the most part, are just focussing on self-interest.

My thoughts are a bit deeper than this and will need to be expressed in a way that can be followed easily. I do write seriously from time to time; stories, poems and now and then, a piece on a political situation. Constructing a short reply for you will be a nice exercise in summarising the conversations I have at the golf club.

As Christmas will be a bit all-consuming for me, I’ll let you have a proper reply by the first week of January.”

— December 2018

I voted to leave the EU for a number of reasons. Firstly, I voted against remaining in the EEC back in 1975 as we were just nine countries back then if I remember correctly. I didn’t think it was possible to get nine people to sit around a table and agree to anything. All deals negotiated would be a compromise for all parties. Consequently, Everyone gets a deal that no one wanted. Now it’s 27 countries.

Secondly, at the time of the 2016 referendum, the EU’s books had not been signed off for around 18 years. NO BUSINESS is run on this basis. It is a gravy train for unelected officials and failed politicians around Europe, e.g. the Kinnocks. To be effective and thereby credible, the EU needs a stronger, more frugal and transparent ethos. That’s never going to happen.

Lastly, the EU is an impractical, unworkable concept. It was set up by the Germans and their subservient collaborators, the French, to be the United States of Europe. Across the last 100 years, the Germans have tried to rule Europe three times. Twice by force and having been beaten both times, by economic domination, which has proved successful. They are now Europe’s rulers. Merkel is Empress of Europe.

It is unworkable because of traditional enmities that go back 1000 years. A simple trawl through history will show that. Because politicians are gullible and easily-fooled, they believe that the facade of friendly alliances overrides the hatreds born in our histories.

This manifested quite plainly a few years back when the Greek people who couldn’t repay their debts to the Central Bank as they came due, predictably with their unaffordable social programme, proclaimed that they ‘wouldn’t be under the German jackboot again’ while asking for further loans from the Central Bank.

A personal experience that springs to mind happened in Norway in 1982. I was talking to some Norwegian women in their thirties. Although not even born at the time of the last World War, they hated Germans with a vengeance. I was taken aback at the vitriol expressed by people born ten years after that war had ended.

Although undeclared for reason of politeness, some enmities are traditional and religious, and not that far beneath the surface; the genocide in Yugoslavia around the turn of the century being one of the best examples.

It is my view that in the next 20 years or so, the EU will collapse for two reasons – traditional enmity, AND the increasing funding burden on French and German taxpayers resulting from writing off the bad debts of the poorer, heavily-Socialist countries to fund their unsustainable social programmes. Greece cannot and will not repay their borrowings. Italy is about to follow.

In terms of taxation, on the news recently, we’ve already seen the French Gilet Jeune violent response to a relatively small fuel tax increase and their President’s haughty reaction provoking even greater violence before he backed down. A second French Revolution seems likely as further substantial and unavoidable tax increases are proposed.

Two years ago, a Belgian friend who works in Cologne told me of the grumblings and mumblings about funding the EU from German colleagues and friends. Once Britain leaves, French and German taxation has to increase by more than their taxpayers will accept. That is an elastic band that will be stretched too far. The EU has to fail.

In answer to your second question on how I feel about Brexit – I think it’s the best thing that has happened to UK politics since as far back as I can remember. Not per se; I don’t really care how it works out. It will be what it will be.

Those that talk about control of this and that, are theorists with little or no experience of life. Surprises arise every day. Yesterday’s train crash in Denmark, Drones shutting down Gatwick and ruining Christmas for hundreds of thousands, terrorist acts, school shootings in the US, house prices rising or falling, currencies rising of falling, films that are panned by critics yet earn millions at the box office, Donald Trump’s strange yet entertaining pronouncements… You can’t control life. Brexit will happen, or not – and Life will go on, but there will be unexpected consequences.

From another viewpoint, the current careless debate and political machinations are what’s interesting. The way they’re being conducted, heralds the end of the current Parliamentary System, which incidentally, is not democracy.

To my understanding, democracy is ‘Government by the people, directly or indirectly.’ In practice, it can’t be ‘directly’ as we have no mechanism to deliver that so it has to be ‘indirectly’, via our representatives, i.e. politicians.

Unfortunately, this is a sham as they are not in practice, ‘our representatives’. Once elected, they don’t ask what we want on any political issue, they vote as they’re told by the whips who are given their instruction by the cabinet; who, in the case of a strong leader such as Margaret Thatcher, were given their instructions by the Prime Minister; effectively delivering a soft dictatorship.

Luckily, the parliamentary membership of both parties are all pursuing private agendas. Party loyalty is a thing of the past. Chaos and a screeching rabble prevails. The current leaders are not natural leaders, therefore too weak to deal with this behaviour. Look at the discomfort in their body language when they speak. Also the tone of voice used, either hectoring or appeasing. We have no politicians of stature in terms of demeanour or intellect.

At the next General Election, I expect a record low turnout. We have no minds of any quality to choose from. All we see on the news is argumentative bitching with no one offering ideas free of guile or an obvious personal agenda. For examples, look at Boris, Gove, Soubry and Hunt on one side, then the vast chasm between the ‘Right On, Brother!’ Socialists and the New Labour elements of the other.

I only talk of Tory and Labour above. I don’t see the Liberals as a Third Party. Vince Cable and a handful of that party’s membership are the only ones to think along those lines. We can’t discount the fact that he’s a politician so could well just be saying what his followers want to hear.

The Liberals are a nonentity and have been for the last 100 years. A vote for Liberal today is a vote for “Don’t Know”. They were useful lapdogs temporarily when Cameron couldn’t raise a majority. Other than that, few people I’ve talked to can see the point of them.

A common view is that they are even less-realistic than the Labour Party or the Scottish Nationals; both with admirable social programmes – that are economically unsustainable. The Liberals take that idealism to a new level of fantasy.

In Summary for this first point, the parliamentary system is being destroyed by politicians. Their duplicity is revealing more and more of itself daily. Add to this their lack of experience of people and life in general, disappointing intellect or integrity and you’d have to ask yourself, why vote for such sub-standard representatives at the next election? I expect an all-time low turnout.

The second reason why Brexit is going to be the vehicle for the end of the Parliamentary System is the referendum. A referendum has to divide. There will be winners and losers. As we’re seeing now, contrary to popular myth the current clamour for another referendum shows that most losers are bad losers.

We’re continually exposed to barrage of weak and disingenuous arguments for a second vote. How has it not occurred to those proposing this that they’re completely dismissing the conclusion of the strongest voter turnout in the last 40 years, just because it didn’t suit their point of view?

If there is a second vote that goes the opposite way, their will surely be a clamour for a third vote, and subsequent votes. Ping Pong ad infinitum – all on the same topic.

Eventually, the light bulb will go on and the voting public will see that government by referendum is feasible. We won’t need politicians.

We have the communications technology to gather votes for Saturday night TV dance and talent contests; it would be a short step to extend this into a system that can gather votes on proposals about all areas of government: the NHS, education, social care, care of the elderly, potholes, taxation, etc., etc.

To work, a better-informed public will be necessary. Unfortunately, few like to think for themselves. Most have their opinions shaped by the paper that they read. This will give control of government to the newspaper owners. Plus, it’ll never do from a politician’s standpoint because of the loss of personal power. They’ve got used to knowing better than their constituents what is best for them. Eventually, the public will realise that they don’t need politicians that don’t represent them.

One last link between the results of any referendum to a law-making process, then civil servants and administrators to make it happen and then we have government by the people. Politicians will become unnecessary.

— January 2019