Our dear friend General Musharraf of Pakistan overthrew the democratically elected government of a Commonwealth country with which hundreds of thousands of British subjects have close connections. But he's all right. Isn't he?
Yet President Chávez of Venezuela merely attempts to amend his country's Constitution, and all hell breaks loose, with talk of another CIA-backed military coup, presumably in the same slapstick spirit as the last one. Chávez's intolerable proposal? That he (or anyone else) might be permitted to stand for a third term as President. He would still have to win the election, which would still have to take place.
By contrast, thanks to the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act, we in Britain might already have lived through our last ever General Election; the "safeguards" allegedly built into that Act are worthless, since, in its own terms, it is now just prior legislation. If that isn't a coup, then I don't know what is.
And a coup, moreover, which entrenches even further the status of Britain as a one party state, albeit that party has no name (so far as I have been able to ascertain thus far). It certainly has a very definite membership, a very definite leadership, very definite discipline, very definite funding, very definite policy agenda, and so forth. It controls both of the main parties that officially exist, and it is about to take over the third party as well. Most especially, it now has as near as does not matter to a complete monopoly on the major parties' nominations of parliamentary candidates for safe or winnable seats. So not only might there never be another Election, but there might as well not be anyway.
In the midst of this, the Armed Forces find themselves ordered to participate in at least one illegal war (an order which they are under no legal obligation to obey and every moral obligation to disregard), plus another war which is at best pointless, by the members of the One Party, themselves in breach of their own Oaths of Office (whether as MPs or Peers, as Privy Councillors, or both) by virtue of their cession of power to the European Union, to American hegemony and to global capital, and by virtue of their failure to reverse such cessions as they occurred in the past.
By contrast, the Armed Forces are not in breach of their own Oaths. If these honourable men and women were simply to bring themselves back, at least from Iraq, and most preferably also from Afghanistan, then the rule of the One Party would be brought to an end, and with it that Party itself, which has no conceivable function in Opposition.
The space would thus be created for the rest of us to build real parties of our own, to contest proper Elections as soon as possible, as the Armed Forces would undoubtedly want, and would undoubtedly do everything to facilitate.
Call this a military coup if you like. But it would be a coup to restore liberty, democracy and constitutionality. And, our Armed Forces being as and who they are, it would do exactly that, effectively and efficiently.
Bring it on!
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David this is not Portugal 1974!
ReplyDeleteArmy,etc ultimate loyalty to the crown etc. That was the excuse used by MI5 allegedly to spy on and undermine your old comrade Harold Wilson.
"Generals make lousy politicians, their vision does not go beyond a gunsight" - Bismarck
Isn't it? Not yet, I suppose.
ReplyDeleteBut there really might never be another General Election (that is now the law), and there would be no point having one anyway (as true in Scotland as anywhere else, I might add), since the allegedly competing parties are not only exactly the same politically, but also organisationally at the higher levels.
Ultimate loyalty to the Crown is the whole point: the Crown, succession to which is determined by Parliament, within which primacy has shifted to the House of Commons, which has itself come to be elected by universal adult suffrage.
Loyalty to this 'res publica', capped and safeguarded by the Crown, now requires drastic action to remove those who really have staged a coup in this country.
Do you really believe that there will never be another general election?
ReplyDeleteI know that there need never be, that that is now the law. There might be one more, if Brown goes for this autumn or next spring after all. But that is highly unlikely, and would be undesirable under normal circumstances.
ReplyDeleteBetween now and spring of 2009, never mind 2010, there might be any number of "terrorist emergencies" or whatever such as to bring about invocation of the Leg & Reg.
"Our dear friend General Musharraf of Pakistan overthrew the democratically elected government of a Commonwealth country with which hundreds of thousands of British subjects have close connections. But he's all right. Isn't he?"
ReplyDeleteNo. Nor is Chavez. Nor would be the leaders of a coup in the UK.
Why not? And why isn't Chavez?
ReplyDeleteSod generals as politicians, The Aberdonian. They wouldn't want to be anyway. No, they should install David as PM. I'm serious. He's the last real conservative, liberal and socialist in British politics. He'd hold an election as soon as the parties were up and running, probably within six weeks at every level. And then any party led by him would win it.
ReplyDelete