Meeting in London on the 5th November.

 We are holding a meeting at the Victory Club in London on Saturday 5th November which is appropriately Bonfire Night!

Here are the details copied form Dr Richard North’s blog post on Turbulent Times yesterday.

 https://www.turbulenttimes.co.uk/news/front-page/politics-democracy-in-crisis/

If you are interested in attending please get in touch.

In the meantime preparing and administrating for this meeting will be my main focus for the rest of this year so for updates on the meeting please read Turbulent Times every day. 

Something I have always found is that the topic covered by Dr North each day is really all you need to keep abreast of the political horror show in Westminster and beyond!  

Democracy demands the people have a say.

At the moment the only times we get a chance to vote is at a General and Local Election or on the rare occasion the government allows us a referendum.

At GEs there are a growing number of people who have concluded their vote makes little difference as once elected governments simply ignore their wishes. Some would argue Party manifestos have little value and they can certainly be influenced by events but they do at least give an indication of the general policy direction of the government however I believe there is a real problem when a government proposes an action that has no democratic mandate at all.

Such a situation has arisen with our PM's decision to spend £1.3 billion, which I'd remind you is our money, on supporting Ukraine and as this offer has come completely out of the blue the government has absolutely no way of knowing if we approve of this policy. While I assume parliament will have to approve this spend does anyone seriously believe that the majority of our 650 MPs will not 'virtue signalling' their good intentions by approving this without any serious analysis of the real value of such a decision - after all it is only our money.

We are the paymasters for all governments and should be consult on such important matters and I would suggest that Blair would not have been allowed to take us into Iraq, for while he may have duped parliament, I'm not so certain he would have duped the public.

Our fourth demand 'The People's Consent' allows the people, if enough of us want it, to demand off the government that they hold a referendum on such issues and if agreed by us thus giving the government a democratic mandate to act.

For those concerned that this would open the way for government by referenda it is important to understand that the procedures we envisage being met before any referendum could take place would naturally restrict the number that took place.

However, the vital point about our fourth and also fifth demand is that the government has no money except that which they collect from us and in any democracy worthy of that name we should be allowed a say on how it is spent.

A phase I often use is that our politicians should be our servants and not our masters and I'd be very surprised if anyone seriously disagree with that sentiment. 

Finally I'll leave you with this thought - Why should a mere majority of 650 MPs be able to pass legislation that has no legitimate democratic mandate without asking for the opinion from the electorate of 47.6 million?