I have always objected to the EU and to proportional representation on similar grounds. I object to being legislated for in secret and by Stalinists, Trotskyists, neo-Fascists, neo-Nazis, members of Eastern Europe's kleptomaniac nomenklatura, people who believe the Provisional Army Council of the IRA to be the sovereign body throughout Ireland, and a growing band of neoconservatives who have of course stolen other people's parties, the last soon to be joined by their ever-dependable Islamist allies (from the resurgent Caliphate of Turkey).
Likewise, I have always objected to the idea of being legislated for in the House of Commons by Stalinists, Trotskyists, neo-Fascists, neo-Nazis, people who believe the Provisional Army Council of the IRA to be the sovereign body throughout Ireland, spokesmen for Northern Ireland's "Loyalist" paramilitary organisations, and a growing band of neoconservatives who have of course stolen other people's parties, the last soon to be joined by their ever-dependable Islamist allies (from the emerging Caliphates within this country).
But First Past The Post has not stopped this from happening. It may be 60 years since Labour had to expel a small caucus of pro-Soviet MPs, but that incident really did occur. Labour MPs later served on the Editorial Board of the unyieldingly pro-Moscow Straight Left (now Harry's Place, a key Eustonite website). Three members of Militant sat as Labour MPs, one of them the world's leading Trotskyist theorist of his generation.
Meanwhile, the Tory benches were long replete with stooges and hangers on of a Boer Republic set up as an explicit act of anti-British revenge in a former Dominion of the Crown, of that Republic's satellite created by an act of high treason against the present Queen, and of similarly charming regimes such as (especially) Pinochet's Chile.
Today, the coming together of the Euston Manifesto Group of old Stalinists and Trotskyists, and the Henry Jackson Society of old Pretoria and Santiago hands, constitutes the leading edge of the neoconservative hijacking of Parliament even under FPTP. (The neocons, it is worth pointing out, also supported Argentina during the Falklands War. EMG/HJS types invariably lionise the late Jeanne Kirkpatrick, the neocon heroine who, as UN Ambassador at the time, gave such help and succour to General Galtieri.) The Islamists might well already be there, and certainly will be soon enough.
Undoubtedly there are Sinn Feiners (even if they don't take their seats), members of at least one other party whose activist base is opposed in principle to the existence of the United Kingdom, members of at least two (arguably three) others ambivalent on that question, and unrepentant old front men for the Ulster Resistance (and whose party is only Unionist in that it wants the British taxpayer to foot the bill for a statelet of its own devising).
So might the damage already be done? Might we as well move towards a system in which each of the 99 areas having a Lord Lieutenant elects six Senators and (grouped into nine elevens, depending on the relative size of the electorate) between two and ten MPs, always by means of voting for one candidate, with the requisite number declared elected at the end? What difference would it make, apart from making it possible for proper expressions of real public opinion to secure election, and probably driving out the neocons altogether?
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Labour MPs later served on the Editorial Board of the unyieldingly pro-Moscow Straight Left (now Harry's Place, a key Eustonite website).
ReplyDeleteWhat's the relationship between Straight Left and Harry's Place? You make it sound as if they're the same thing - not just that they are publications with a similar outlook, but that Harry's Place is literally one and the same as Straight Left. This is a new one on me - can you give a bit more detail on this, please?
Well, for a start, there's Wikipedia, which would certainly have been corrected if the following were incorrect:
ReplyDelete"Harry's Place was originally started by a writer using the nom de plume Harry Hatchet (aka "Harry" - none of Harry's Place writers use their full name), who was originally the sole writer. Harry was active in British anti-fascist and Marxist politics in the mid-to-late 1980s, and in this period was also a member of the Straight Left faction of the Communist Party of Great Britain. It is claimed that he took the pseudonym "Harry Steele" as a tribute to Harry Pollitt, former General Secretary of the CPGB, and the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin (though Harry claims it was a "p***-take" and "not a homage to anyone"). Under this name he contributed to a number of far-left message boards and mailing lists, including "UK Left Network" and "The Politburo", a discussion board for British Communists, the latter of which he set up. In this period he became well-known among fellow contributors for his support for "orthodox" Soviet Communism and his attacks on Trotskyists, in particular the Socialist Workers Party."
As I say, for a start.
The Eustonites are the leading edge of the usurpation of the position of the Labour Movement in British public life by those who know nothing about it except that they hate it, as Stalinists and Trotskyists have always done.
This idea is genius. But how about dividing the country into 100 constituencies each containing one per cent of the electorate, and the having each elect six MPs by the method that you suggest? Also, having six Senators, who would have to be Independents and thsu Cross Benchers, elected by the country as a whole?
ReplyDeleteThis would still give an equal number (600 rather than your original 594) per House. And who knows, Kamm or one of his minions might even get in as one of the six national Senators? Or not, though not for want of trying.