Dissolve Parliament!!??

[tar1984]

Yeah fabulous, let's dissolve parliament and bring in some new MPs with "clean hands", that went so well in Italy.

Who says we replace them? Dissolve the parlimentary system completely.

 

[tar1984]

Because communism is an even more shit alternative?

I'd prefer communism and equal wealth distribution over rampant global capitalism with all that entails.

 

[In Bloom]

Who says we replace them? Dissolve the parlimentary system completely.

Sure, but it's not going to happen today.

 

[tar1984]

Sure, but it's not going to happen today.

Well what do you suggest then?

 

[Meltingpot]

Our system of Parliamentary so-called 'Democracy' is now more under question than at any time that I can remember. In the years when there was a perceived difference between the two main parties it was easier to defend our occasional right to vote because it could be argued that you could remove a ruling party at election time.

We only have an intermittent democracy. Once every 5 years for about 12 hours of one day you can vote for a Parliamentary candidate. Once elected that candidate cannot be removed and is not answerable to the voter.

We need to replace our existing democratic system with one that gives the voter regular opportunities to influence the people who make our laws and which enables the people who elect candidates to re-call them when they go against what the electors want.

Democratic reform is essential, and the whole Party system needs to be replaced. The parties have no political values, they are just 'tribes'. There is nothing political that can be changed by voting for one or another party.


In my view it is the 'top down' nature of our governance that is a major problem. However I think it would be possible for changes to be made in a 'bottom up' way. At the next General Election the voter should try to take control over the system by voting in a new way. Currently people cast their votes based upon what the parties say are their policies. The parties and their MPs will all be saying very similar things. They are in the advertising business and telling us what they think we want to hear.

What the voter could do is ignore what the parties and candidates say, but instead judge them by what they do. In order to do this they just need to look at the voting record of their candidate during the previous parliament. If voters could classify MPs by their voting record instead of their arbitrary party membership and the MPs knew this was happening, it might make them think before following the party whip.

The voting records of MPs are all available on the internet. All we need to do is collate that information into a central place and create new categories into which MPs can be placed while ignoring their party membership. This will be a replacement for the old Left Right categories. It would mean that all MPs who voted for the Iraq invasion for example could be put in the same category regardless of their party. In another category MPs who voted against ID cards could be put in the same category as each other, again regardless of party.

This could all be developed further to the point where voters could be the ones who decide what their priorities are and they interview the candidates asking them what they have done about various issues including their voting record.

This could be a new start towards a real democracy replacing the old one.

Good idea, except that it's only about sitting MP's. It doesn't allow for challenges from fresh faces who haven't yet had a chance to show what they can do.

 

[In Bloom]

Well what do you suggest then?

What do I suggest for what?

 

[SpookyFrank]

Personally I'd say MP's expenses are about 2,475th on my list of bloody good reasons to abolish parliament. I mean really, skimming some extra cash isn't exactly the worst thing that lot have done is it?

That said, It would be nice if all of this had come out a couple of weeks before the deadline for a general election. The resulting bloodbath would make it all too obvious just how stupid our parliamentary democracy is, being as how large numbers of MPs would receive their marching orders and be replaced by new members whose sole virtue is that they haven't yet had the chance to be exposed as the wretched cunts they are. It would be all too clear that the electorate had ceased to give a crap about which party anyone was in and that whoever ended up with the majority in parliament (if anyone did) would have done so more or less by chance. Then we'd have a government with a mandate as weak as a consumptive kitten and we'd be one happy step closer to finally getting rid of the bastards once and for all

 

[tar1984]

What do I suggest for what?

Dealing with the corrupt parlimentary system.

I dont just mean the expenses scandal, but the whole system. Do you have any suggestions at all? What would you like to see happen?

 

[In Bloom]

Dealing with the corrupt parlimentary system.

I dont just mean the expenses scandal, but the whole system. Do you have any suggestions at all? What would you like to see happen?

What I'd like to see is a strong working class movement for the abolition of capital and the state. And I don't think that a few activists getting their heads kicked up and down Parliament square by the cops is much of a substitute for that.

 

[tar1984]

How do you propose bringing that about?

 

[In Bloom]

How do you propose bringing that about?

I don't think such a movement can simply be "brought about", really, since it tends to emerge as a result of material conditions that we can't direct control or influence. There are things we can do to aid the development of such a movement, such as:

• Taking direct action against oppression and exploitation as we experience it (organising at your workplace or against a law that oppresses a particular group, for instance);
• Seeking to extend, create links between and/or provide material support to struggles against oppression and exploitation where they do emerge or;
• Producing well presented prop that keeps alive the ideas and history of working class struggle.

The above is not an exhaustive list or an attempt to define the limits of what anarchists should be doing, it's just an attempt to briefly describe (given the tangental relationship of this post to the topic of the thread) the kinds of things I think are worthwhile.

 

[tar1984]

Cool, thanks.

You in the AF? They give good prop tbf.

 

[In Bloom]

Cool, thanks.

You in the AF? They give good prop tbf.

Yeah, I'm a member, if not an ideal advert

 

[tar1984]

They sent me some very interesting literature.