How can we get rid of Parliament and replace it with real democracy?

[agricola]

I'm not being difficult for the sake of it mate, but you're coming out with vague statements about 'we'll ask everyone what we should do', some people who have been decided to sit on assembly's will look at these statements and presumably whittle them down a bit, as well as trying to identify which are the most important and then decide on what we should all do in response to them....which sounds not unlike the present system tbf.

"I vote we get paid more than the rest, get extra jobs which take us away from our time running the country, we get a super index-linked pension, and lots of holiday. Can I see a show of hands?"

 

[TAE]

I agree, but as with trade unions they are prone to representing their own, rather than their members/constituents, interests - as we are seeing now (both with New Labour and, more amusingly, Cameron's Conservatives), and as the existence of the Whip system displays for all to see.

Isnt it a scandal that a person elected by their constituents to represent them is put under varying degrees of pressure to vote against their common sense, beliefs and/or the beliefs of their constituents solely because it is "The Party Line"?

Yes, which is why I want to see an end to the defacto 2 1/2 party system. I think the solution is have more smaller parties in parliament, where members can vote a lot closer to their actual beliefs - not the abolition of parties, which would make individual MPs are even more vulnerable to secret outside pressures.

 

[agricola]

Yes, which is why I want to see an end to the defacto 2 1/2 party system. I think the solution is have more smaller parties in parliament, where members can vote a lot closer to their actual beliefs - not the abolition of parties, which would make individual MPs are even more vulnerable to secret outside pressures.

I must say I disagree, it doesnt get rid of the problem - there would still be pressure (and patronage) exerted from the party, or coalition of parties, on the individual MPs.

Best to have everyone free to do whatever they want, then held to account for it by an informed electorate IMHO.

 

[TAE]

There will always be pressure from all sorts of corners. People need to stand together to resist that pressure.

 

[agricola]

There will always be pressure from all sorts of corners. People need to stand together to resist that pressure.

TBH some pressure - like the pressure an elected representative should feel from those who elected him - is a good thing, indeed it should overwhelm all the other political demands on that representative.

Why have parties at all? Why not just have people who come together and vote based on their beliefs?

 

[TAE]

The same reason why individual football supporters form supporters clubs. You can do more as a group than you can do as individuals.

 

[Hocus Eye.]

Yes I am in favour of the collective idea but under the old system the collective principal gets co-opted into the centralised Party mechanism and becomes top-down. My idea is that the collective view of people controls those who purport to represent them and the voters can dismiss them if they fail to to as required by their representative duties. This means that a central party cannot round them up to vote for something not in their original brief - like a war for example. There will be no offering of high office to conformists to the centrally dictated scheme and no way of making a career out of pretending to play at politics.

We need to be thinking in a completely different way to how it worked under the defunct Parliamentary system. PR for example is a distraction. There are lots of different PR systems and there may be some good ones that allow for area representation which some people want. However we are not yet ready to create a new voting system. The replacement for the old Parliament has hardly begun to get known about. We can think about how votes are made at a later stage when more ideas have been contributed.

 

[Azrael]

However after the Restoration the King became all powerful again. Things drifted on over the next few hundred years and the aristocracy and the Royal family still retained power while the rising wealth of the merchants gave them more influence.

Things did not "drift on" after the king became "all powerful". (And Charles II was far from "all powerful", his power-base was relatively weak throughout the 1660s and 70s, and he relied on French cash for the few years he ruled without Parliament.) The Glorious Revolution of 1688 destroyed royal absolutism forever. It's a proud moment in Britain's history and any summary that ignores it misses a vital part of the picture.

That revolution failed to forsee that Parliament would, in the wrong hands, become as tyranical as any king. It restricted the crown instead of the legislature. I'd dearly love to see a follow-up that imposed a proper bill of rights and some legal requirements for government. It would be a thoroughly conservative exercise, conserving the essence of our constitution before Labour's halfwit-reforms destroy it forever.

Some good points from agricola, particularly his opposition to the trendy PR. I don't fancy a world of perpetual-coalitions where the political equivilent of Sheffield United decides who can govern.

 

[Azrael]

As for abolishing parties, while I'm mighty tempted to support it, such a move is traditionally a tool of dictators, and we should be wary of the law of unintended consequences. It's what brought us to the current mess.

Parties are coalitions of convienience, and we've had them ever since the Commons gained real power. (Initially "country" v "court", then "whigs" v "tories".) Centralised parties controlled by whips are however a recent invention. It came about in the late 19th century as a response to franchise expansion, and although it began as a practical means to co-ordiante policy at a national level, it swiftly became a tool of oppression and control for MPs.

The whip system should be made illegal, and any party (or Party) caught trying to coerce an MP's vote should be subject to severe criminal penalties. If a Party can't persuade its members to vote for their own manifesto, then that speaks volumes about said manifesto's value.

 

[TAE]

Yes I am in favour of the collective idea but under the old system the collective principal gets co-opted into the centralised Party mechanism and becomes top-down.

Ok, I agree with you there.

We need to be thinking in a completely different way to how it worked under the defunct Parliamentary system. PR for example is a distraction.

I don't think change will come in one go, I suspect it'll be small changes, and some form of PR would be a sensible first step in my opinion. But it certainly isn't the ultimate in democracy.

 

[Hocus Eye.]

Azrael

Yes I omitted the 'Glorious Revolution', I think we need another one right now that finishes off the job as you suggested, controlling Parliament not just the Monarch. Had a certain newspaper been around at the time it would have been called the Magnificent Revolution'. Well it certainly freed Britain from the oldest multinational corporation in the world - the Papacy and began a period of history that might have only just come to an end in Northern Ireland recently.

If we allowed Parties to exist only outside the new assembly/ies as identifiable lobby groups that would solve the problem of the whip system within them. I would not want a dictatorship of any kind to be the result of the new political system.

 

[agricola]

As for abolishing parties, while I'm mighty tempted to support it, such a move is traditionally a tool of dictators, and we should be wary of the law of unintended consequences. It's what brought us to the current mess.

Parties are coalitions of convienience, and we've had them ever since the Commons gained real power. (Initially "country" v "court", then "whigs" v "tories".) Centralised parties controlled by whips are however a recent invention. It came about in the late 19th century as a response to franchise expansion, and although it began as a practical means to co-ordiante policy at a national level, it swiftly became a tool of oppression and control for MPs.

The whip system should be made illegal, and any party (or Party) caught trying to coerce an MP's vote should be subject to severe criminal penalties. If a Party can't persuade its members to vote for their own manifesto, then that speaks volumes about said manifesto's value.

Exactly, though I would point out that the Party system as it exists today is not a lot of "coalitions of convienience", and there are more ways to exert pressure on MPs than just the whips - selection lists being the most obvious.

 

[Azrael]

Excuse me, should have said that parties began as coalitions of convienience.

Using selection to exculde an MP whose views a Party disliked would come under coersion. Even if you ban parties officially within the Commons, MPs will just form unofficial coalitions as they did in the 17th and 18th centuries. Before the mid 19th century MPs regularly voted against their "own" government. That's the sort of rowdy independence that needs restoring.

A major step towards that end would be to abolish saleries for MPs. Making politics into a career has created an odious "political class" and removed MPs' independence. An independent income begets independent actions. If MPs held down regular jobs they'd have far more contact with the real world and far less with the comedy world of Westminster.

Good luck getting the Right Honourable Members to vote for that one!

 

[Hocus Eye.]

I would be in favour of unpaid representatives but they would not be called MPs because they would not be in anything called a parliament. The existing MPs would not need or be able to vote for the proposed changes because they would be back at home signing on for work. My scheme would be a metaphorical tearing out of the throat of Parliament.

People are still thinking in terms of reforming the existing system. That should be a different thread if someone wants to start one.

 

[Azrael]

My scheme would be a metaphorical tearing out of the throat of Parliament.

Or "high treason" to give it its short title.

 

[snorbury]

open meetings with no agenda and no speeches, free kitchens and ...................

 

[Hocus Eye.]

Or "high treason" to give it its short title.

Nothing as trivial as high treason; that is merely overthrowing the government or sovereign. I want to overthrow the whole of the Parliamentary process which is the law making body and with it the laws as made by Parliament and to start again.