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It's an interesting question - elitism and democracy rather than Ganesh's big dossier, which as a matter of self-interest I am of course planning to talk up.
The simple answer to Bill's plaint is essentially thus: Britain is not a democracy per se. It has an elective system of government in which elections are resolved by popular vote. People cast those votes based on the past record and future promises of an MP and/or the party ze represents. However, once that choice has been made the vote of the individual citizen is not relevant until the next time around.
This system has pros and cons. Most obviosuly, it tends to protect the country from the worst instincts of its people, as extremists tend to be whittled out at the selection stage. On the dowside, it limits the choice of the individual citizen and the power of the individual citizen to affect policy.
Now, if by assembling, say, 100,000 people in the centre of London one could automatically alter government policy, that would be a very different matter. But you can't. What it means is that those 100,000 people are in fact doing is showing that they are concerned enough about a particular policy or situation that they are prepared to devote their weekend to travelling, organising and wrestling with an overloaded transport system to demonstrate their displeasure. They are also suggesting in very strong terms that, when the individual's choice is once again relevant, i.e. when the next popular vote occurs, the government's behaviour on this policy or situation will play a significant part in their decision., It is a forceful way of asking the government to think seriously about its policies, with the implicit threat of not being voted for next time around.
So, 90% of people may not want any further inward immigration to Britain (though personally I would distrust BNP statistics), but very few of them care enough to make it a key decision in their vote, and therefore their opinions on immigration are actually not so important to the incumbent government or the loyal opposition as their opinions on, say, the National Health Service. A party may well move to assume a more "popular" position, but they will not usually act directly against their own interests in order to win votes, for example by endangering votes elsewhere. The Conservative Party learned at the last election that, although a statistically significant number of people felt that Britain should resist closer ties with the European Union, and indeed that many in Britain wanted to keep the pound, but discovered that few people cared *enough* about it to elect a party they had no faith in in so many other areas.
So, the Countryside Alliance was a threat from many people that they would withdraw electoral support from New labour at the next opportunity if their wishes were not heard. Unfortunately, New Labour is aware that they would be unlikely to vote Labour *anyway*. Therefore , although heartfelt, the electoral weight of those people is comparatively low, which is one reason why they have to threaten pickets on traffic into the city, fuel activism, and so on.
Conversely, a lot of people who are turning up tomorrow will be people who instinctively or as a matter of policy vote Labour or Liberal Democrat, and will choose who to support electorally based on how they feel about the decisions made about the actions of these parties, and their future promises. What the march seeks to say is presumably something like "we care enough babout this issue to spend our Saturday makign you aware of how we feel. There are many more people who, although they do not feel strongly enough about it to do this, do have feelings about it that will affect their future voting. Although we have no power to change policy, we do very strongly suggest that you take this into account when calculating your chances of retaining a majority in the next election or (more probably) the election after that.
On a purely pragmatic level, the CA and this march are doing the same thing. I think New Labour is taking a bigger risk if it ignores this one, but that's entirely their decision, as they take a risk every day they fail to reintroduce capital punishment ro repatriation or free school meals or renationalise British Gas or whatever, that this will induce a number of people who would otherwise have voted for them not to vote for them at the next election. Beyond that, it's about numbers.
As such, the CA have every right to assemble, and every right to protest. As a free citizen of a democracy, I get to have more or less sympathy with different parts of their campaign, as I have more or less sympathy with different parts of the current anti-war campaign. some people will want no military action, some will want a clear UN mandate, some again will want an independent Palestine, others don;t give a damn about Palestine but are concerned that British soldiers are being sent to die to no good purpose. The march is a means of making the governemnt aware that these concerns are potentially electorally significant, and that they funnel into dissatisfaction with the current behaviour of the elected representatives of the country.
Basically, I think Bill is conflating protest and plebiscite.
Personally, I suspect that military action as things stand now would be a mistake on a number of levels. If it *does* go ahead, I hope very much to be proved wrong, and if I am, and if a democratic Iraq in a few years# time plays a key role in negotiations leading to an independent Palestine with its own government and army, and a general defusing of tensions in the Middle East, then I will be absolutely made up, and hopefully not hold it against the government that they proved me wrong. In the meantime, it seems like I should lend my shoulder to an attempt to make the government think "well, we are not compelled to listen to any of these concerns, but it could bite us in the arse if we don't come election time".
More here.
Also, the pro-war element expresses itself so *awfully*. |
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