UK Regulation after Brexit by Bruce Goodwin

 

UK regulation after Brexit     by Bruce Goodwin                                                  26^th Feb 2021

 

Firstly, I should declare that I was a Leave voter, but I have always tried to listen to all sides of the debate.

The question always posed by Remainers is ‘can someone tell me exactly what we have gained from Brexit?’

The first thing to address is the notion that Brexit was ‘all about immigration’ as often suggested.   I would certainly recognise that in certain areas of the country this might be true, and I would even go so far as to say it might have been a factor in the ‘swing’ vote, but for me immigration was merely a subset of sovereignty and just one of many reasons why Brexit occurred.   Britain has sat uneasily within the EU for some time & this has been increasingly so since Maastricht & Lisbon.

I think this is important to recognise, particularly for those that believe this is all going to go so badly that the UK will be begging to sign up again soon.

There is something in our history & psyche that does seem to make it more difficult to fit in with the idea of an ever more integrated Europe.   We could point to the stability of our parliamentary system over many centuries as opposed to the turmoil endured by countries such as Spain.   We could look to the more recent crises such as that of 2008 and the ‘left behind’ protest vote.   But I think there is something more fundamental in all of this: the difference in the legal systems.

Common Law starts from the premise that you can do anything you like until a law is passed (often by mandate of elected govt but often by legal precedent) that says you cannot. The ‘acquis communitaire’ inherited from the Napoleonic system upon which the EU functions is a rules-based system with incredibly complex rules that are codified and passed down rigidly from on high.   I think this explains to a large extent the resentment felt toward being ruled from Brussels.

Common Law systems tend to be more flexible & require a certain amount of common sense in enforcement.   I do not think it is by mistake that the world’s most successful financial & commercial centres use it, but I think it goes deeper than that, into the minds of how we see government & how society interacts.   Common Law allows us to have the highest standards but with fewer rules; exemplified by the financial markets but also present in agriculture & green policies.   Society tends to move the law along with it and it is this that I feel makes us more compliant and at ease with our laws.

I have a sense that some of the post-Brexit issues, particularly in respect of the NI protocol, come down to a different mindset now that the UK is free to express itself.   If seed potatoes are exported from GB-NI with vestiges of soil on them, the UK tends not see this as a big deal and that no one else should either so waive it through.   The EU on the other hand is intent on ticking every single rule before agreeing to allow anything to move.   There are other instances such as sandwiches for consumption in transit, or shellfish that we are all familiar with.

The next question becomes whether, in tying us up in rules, the EU is simply doing what the EU does best or whether it is being vindictive?   Is it so worried about the Single Market & an economy on its doorstep that it imposes different standards to elsewhere?   It is true that the UK is not entirely ready for the brave new world, but did anyone think that would be the case after 45 years of working within the bloc, both in terms of customs and statecraft?   I am sure we can point to several government missteps, but it is equally true that having signed a trade deal we might expect that both sides would work together for the common good to ensure no disruption while things bed down.

Here, I am afraid the EU is guilty of cutting off its nose to spite its face.   It seems to care more about ensuring the UK will not prosper outside the EU than doing everything in its power to ensure that its trade surplus and good relations with the UK remain intact.   This I believe is extremely short sighted, given the turmoil within the Eurozone and the difficulties of the current crisis.

It is true that we are going to have some headaches in the near term, but the world is a large place, and we are not working in a sealed tank: things can and will change.

By deliberately making life difficult, the UK, now able to act very quickly in terms of its own trade, will look elsewhere.   We have seen how rapidly so many trade deals have been agreed.   Yes, many are rollovers out of necessity but there is room to improve & broaden them, especially regarding services.   And this is key, given that our economy is far different to the remaining 27.   We have a service-based economy, unlike the EU which is export oriented and one would say mercantilist.   No longer can the EU use the UK’s imports of finished goods as a bargaining chip in trade deals, whereas the UK can now use this in trying to gain access for services in the trade deals that it writes for itself.   It is not by mistake that none of the EU trade deals we were involved in and we did not negotiate excluded services.

As we look further afield, new markets will open for our financial sector and the effects of Common Law will again come to the fore, giving companies flexibility to be creative.

There are early signs that we are already exporting more to the rest of the world, despite the high-profile problems with the EU in some areas.   And this is being followed by a slowdown in imports, although we need to see post-Covid confirmation of the extent of this. But it seems to me that in being obstructive rather than constructive the EU has indeed more to lose.   Much of what the EU exports to us can be sourced cheaply elsewhere now that tariff barriers are falling, or by import substitution helped by a competitive sterling.   This goes for services too….. increasingly sunseekers will flock to the welcoming arms of the Caribbean rather than the beaches of the Med.   So, making like difficult for travel reps is going to hurt the EU far more than the UK; our business is very mobile.

The other issues revolve around regulations for different markets and building “gold- standards.”   There are a few things to think about here, and I admit I am not an expert, although finance is my background.   We can see already that the extremely short-sighted move to block equivalence can be got around by firms opening offices in each other’s jurisdictions.   This will mostly deal with the retail market, but the bulk of City of London business is wholesale: the huge depth of the UK markets where much of the trading takes place off exchange, dwarfs that of the EU centres.   And it is difficult for derivative markets to flourish without deep underlying cash markets.

This means that the moving of trading to European exchanges is just a small scratch and the moving of funds to Europe matters little if those funds are still managed in the UK where the bulk of the fees are made.   This system already exists globally where most fund managers will have funds domiciled in all sorts of jurisdictions to cater for a diverse base of international clients, but they will all be managed by a team in the UK, US, Singapore etc. Denying EU companies access to UK markets is going to hurt them a great deal and push up costs.

I started my career at a time when London had become a major market for offshore Dollars (the Eurodollar market) partly due to US legislation.   The Eurobond market was a huge offshoot of this, and it will continue to exist for Euro-denominated debt using UK Law.   An offshore Euro market is all but nailed on.

I am less sure about things like chemicals, but industry exports to many different markets and finds solutions.   Multinationals have production facilities in many countries to cover this, regulatory standards may be a different animal, but agreements will no doubt (as part of trade deals) be reached in many parts of the world to recognise the high standards that I am sure the UK will maintain.   Then there is the development of UNICE which along with enhancements in WTO rules (most recently TFA) will move to greater frictionless trade and standards. The EU might just get left behind if it tries to play hard ball and becomes increasingly entrenched in its protectionist cocoon.

In short, putting up trade barriers has never been a successful strategy, whereas free markets have tended to bring wealth and lift countries out of poverty.   Just at a time when the Eurozone needs a shot in the arm it seems intent on building more walls to hide behind and its impending debt crisis will be more difficult to handle.   Some might see fiscal union/federalisation as the way out; this will certainly keep the bloc together, but it will not stop the EU becoming increasingly less significant.

As I said at the beginning, I voted Leave and much of the reason you will find in my comments above.   It is not a decision I made lightly, and I was aware at the time it would be a tough transition.   I might have thought, as many did, that the EU would be less obstructive, but I see nothing yet to make me change my mind.   Indeed, the growth that we need to emerge from this crisis will not be found across the Channel but in the high growth areas elsewhere in the world.

I cannot speak for others, but I suspect the upbringing they have had within a Common Law society will make them view much of what the EU is doing as ‘petty bureaucracy’ and that they simply do not wish to work with us.   As such, I think the mood resulting from things being more difficult than envisaged post Brexit, will be far from everyone screaming to ‘let us back in’!   (Particularly with the penal terms they will undoubtedly try to extract, and to join the Euro), and more one of ‘fine if that’s how you want it’.

More likely there will be a desire to go on holiday elsewhere; buy things from elsewhere and export to places that make it much easier.

 

 

 

 

Tanners and Bobs

 

With thanks to Mike Clitherow

TANNERS AND BOBS

Back in the days of tanners and bobs,

When Mothers had patience and Fathers had jobs.

 

When football team families wore hand me down shoes,

And T.V gave only two channels to choose.

 

Back in the days of threepenny bits,

When schools employed nurses to search for your nits.

 

When snowballs were harmless; ice slides were permitted,

And all of your jumpers were warm and hand knitted.

 

Back in the days of hot ginger beers,

When children remained so, for more than six years.

 

When children respected what older folks said,

And pot was a thing you kept under your bed.

 

Back in the days of Listen with Mother,

When neighbours were friendly and talked to each other.

 

When cars were so rare you could play in the street.

When Doctors made house calls; Police walked the beat.

 

Back in the days of Milligan’s Goons,

When butter was butter and songs all had tunes.

 

It was dumplings for dinner and trifle for tea,

And your annual break was a day by the sea.

 

Back in the days of Dixon’s Dock Green,

Crackerjack pens and Lyons ice cream.

 

When children could freely wear National Health glasses,

And teachers all stood at the FRONT of their classes.

 

Back in the days of rocking and reeling,

When mobiles were things that you hung from the ceiling.

When woodwork and pottery got taught in schools,

And everyone dreamt of a win on the pools.

 

Back in the days when I was a lad,

I can’t help but smile for the fun that I had.

 

Hopscotch and roller skates; snowballs to lob.

Back in the days of tanners and bobs.

 

Media Silence?

 

        With all the talk of voter fraud in the USA Presidential election I have not  seen any main-stream media detailing the process of the election.

The individual States each have their own laws determining voter registration, postal ballots and counting the ballot.   These laws can and often do distort democracy.   In addition to which the loose laws on election finance and the way the Electoral College breaches the fundamental principle of one person, one vote, each vote being of equal value, further produces a distortion of democracy.

It cannot be right that a Federal Election should be conducted with different rules for that election in each State of the Union.

You do not need voter fraud to distort the Presidential election.   It can all be done legally!

Complacency and UK Democracy

 

Complacency and UK Democracy

Much has been said about democracy in the USA, but we should not be complacent about the state of democracy in the UK.   I publish below the lead letter in The Daily Telegraph of 6^th January 2021 written by Iwan Price-Evans.   He raises some major points.

Sir – How was it possible, in this crisis, for our much-lauded human rights and civil liberties to be suspended so easily, without even the right to protest publicly against this?

Why were ministers and scientists allowed to present statistics out of context in a way that was misleading, without immediate questions from the media?

What role did Ofcom play in the communication or suppression of anti-lockdown views?

What happened to the tens of billions of pounds spent on a test-and-trace system that did not work?

What is the Government’s estimate for the impact of lockdown on the health, education and social mobility on the generation currently in full-time education?

Perhaps most importantly, how can we plan for the future when, at any time, the Government can tear it apart without accountability, using flimsy legislation backed by a constitution that has proved inadequate to the task of protecting our rights?

When the Covid crisis has passed, we must ask these questions of our masters in government, Whitehall and the judiciary, and we must get satisfactory answers.

Do You Remember? For the Over 50s!

 Do You Remember?   For the over 50s!

With thanks to Mike Clitheroe

If you are under the age of 50 you will probably not understand all this - it is just a reality check on how people lived and survived growing up just after World War II.

 My mum used to cut chicken (when we could afford it), chop eggs and spread butter on bread on the same cutting board with the same knife and no bleach, but she was immaculately clean and careful so we did not get food poisoning ever.   Of course, modern hygiene is far more scientific,  but I never heard of anyone getting side effects from their mum’s food preparation or cooking in my generation so we must have been doing something right. 

School sandwiches were wrapped in paper or maybe, yesterday’s newspaper or a brown paper bag, not in ice pack coolers, but I cannot remember anyone getting e. coli or other side effects.

BTW our fish and chips were also wrapped in old newspapers, again no reports of poisoning.   Also, I could catch up with the news.

We all took PE, and risked permanent injury with a pair of cheap Black Plimsolls instead of having cross-training athletic shoes with air cushioned soles and built-in light reflectors that cost as much as a small car.   I cannot recall any injuries, but they must have happened because they tell us how much safer we are now!.

We got the cane for doing something wrong at school, it hurt a bit and prompted us to avoid breaking the same rules again or at least not to get caught in future.   They used to call it discipline, yet we all grew up to accept the rules and to honour & respect those older than us.   No mental damage that I am aware of, as we all preferred six whacks of the cane on the hand, legs or backside than spending an hour in detention missing a kick about with our mates in the street.

There were 38 in my class at junior school BUT we all learned to read and write, do maths well, and spell almost all the words needed to write a grammatically correct letter.

DID THESE CLASS NUMBERS REALLY CAUSE A PROBLEM – I THINK NOT.

We walked to and from school, helping us to keep fit and making us used to getting up early.   Did not need Mum to hold my hand at five years old. 

We all said prayers and had an RE lesson in school, but now thinking back I feel that the themes made all of us a bit kinder and more respectful.   We sang the National Anthem making us feel good about our country.

Staying in detention after school taught us there were penalties for not following the rules – so we were doing more schoolwork when we wanted to be out playing.   Good lesson about life that one.

We also learnt our times tables by heart by reciting them every day.  Now ++years later, although I cannot remember where I put my glasses 5 mins ago, I can still remember all of them up to 12 times level. Especially useful when checking the bill in a supermarket or Pub.   (Pub !!!!! are you old enough to remember what a Pub is?)

I just cannot recall how bored we were without computers, Play Station, Nintendo, X-box or 270 digital TV cable stations.   We were not!   We were out and about playing football climbing trees and so many other out of the house activities.   Plus, actually talking and laughing with people face to face.

Take too many liberties at home and get a quick smack on the legs from Mum and then early to bed soon reminded you not to push your luck - there were consequences.

Oh yeah ... And where was the antibiotics and sterilisation kit when you got that Bee sting? 

We played “King of the Hill” on piles of gravel left on vacant building sites and when we got hurt, mum pulled out the 1/6d bottle of TCP which seemed to do the trick then by the next day show off the scars.   Now it is a trip to the emergency room, followed by a 10-day dose of antibiotics and then mum calls the lawyer to sue the contractor for leaving a horribly vicious pile of gravel where it was such a threat.

To top it off, not a single person I knew was ever been told that they were from a dysfunctional family. How could we possibly have known that?   We never needed to get into group therapy and/or anger management classes.   Did we all miss out?

How did we ever survive?

The message is: remember that life's most simple pleasures are very often the best.   Are there some pointers here for modern day parents? – I would say there are always things from history that are worth considering.

Time for a Smile

 

Don't let them take your temperature on your forehead as you enter the supermarket because it erases your memory.   I went for macaroni and cheese and came home with two cases of lager

 

 It's a five minute walk from my house to the pub.   It's a 35 minute walk from the pub to my house.   The difference is staggering.

 

                            Turns out it was a marble in the ashtray…

 

 

 I swear we're fighting two pandemics.   Coronavirus and stupidity.

The Pritti Patel Nonsense in the Mainstream Media by Mike Clitherow

 They should all STOP & THINK before blasting out with this conjured up political attack on one of the countries strongest, most determined politicians who is trying very hard to make the “will of the majority” on crime and illegal immigration etc. actually happen.

So a few swear words (one hears these all the time on TV these days unfortunately - where it’s always considered modern and humorous) and a raised voice on occasion overrules the positive direction Pritti is trying to take the Home Office.

These biased people need to Get Real!!

 

So what is the big deal?

A small 5ft. 5in. WOMAN has upset some luvvies in the Civil Service for chasing them up

with strong language for not following her policy direction and about NOT DOING THEIR JOBS PROPERLY.

“Poor Dears” – So it appears they are so weak they could not stick up for themselves when these things actually happened or if it was really that bad made official complaints at that time to keep it in House.

NO !! they wait for the senior “jobs worth” Sir Humphrey to stamp his foot and resign - with a fat payoff and a nice pension – before some of them jump on the band wagon when this ex mandarin pushes for an enquiry and a bigger payoff from a court.  

 

Revenge springs to mind – SOD the much much bigger picture of improving the country’s laws

relating to knife crime and illegal immigration etc. etc. and also trying to sort out the not fit for purpose “Jobs for the Boys” Civil Service.  That demonstrates to me the weakness of the not very Civil Service structure and some of the people who work in it.   BTW as proved again and again this organisation  has more leaks than Thames Water and the Titanic combined.

 

NO of course it is not good for a boss the swear and shout at their staff, it is a bad way to manage people and gain long term respect. BUT the main point is has anyone checked what the issues were that caused Pritti to lose her temper with them and the antiquated Civil Service systems. Were there major / important projects that were delayed, thrown of course or were generating poor information relating to the Government’s policies??  Yes of course there was that’s why she got angry.

SURELY THAT’S THE MAIN ISSUE - BUT NO COMMENTS ABOUT THIS FROM ANY NON-CONS. MP’s OR THE GOTYA MSM. 

As the saying goes:

STICKS AND STONES PLUS FAILED CIVIL SERVICE ACTIONS MAY BREAK MY BONES BUT WORDS (however loud) WILL NEVER HURT ME.

 

Obviously these so called hurt & offended Civil servants have never worked in a commercial business where a strong Boss sometimes blows their top and uses loud industrial language.   I have!! and what happens as a grown-up one responds at that time – then the boss has more respect for you even though you still may disagree and he gets his/her way  – then everyone gets over it and you sort out the issue in the best way possible.

 

In this day and age If civil servants particularly males who can’t take strong criticism and can’t respond in a strong but constructive manner they should get another job.

 

BTW why isn’t the BAME support groups and BLM mob coming out to support Pritti?

Surely due to her ethnicity and being female she is being victimised and misunderstood.

O SORRY FORGOT THAT’S IMPOSSIBLE AS PRITTI IS A CONSERVATIVE.  

 

 

Please let me know your thoughts on this

USA Voter fraud? What is the truth?

 The following was published on the Free nations web site by Rodney Atkinson on 9 November 2020.

VOTE RIGGING WIDESPREAD

Here are just some of the credible accusations of fraud:

·         ballots being loaded into holdalls from a large container on a pavement in broad daylight by election officials

·         inexplicable halting of the counts in five states late on election night; In Wisconsin between 3.30 and 4.30am they “found” 140,000 mail in ballots for Biden. In Michigan they “found” 200,000 mail in ballots for Biden. In Pennsylvania they “found” 1m mail in ballots and they virtually all turned out to be for Biden

·         computer “glitches” that turned Republic votes into the Democrats’ column; this was corrected in Michigan but the same Dominion Ballot Counting system was used in 47 other counties in the State and over 30 States.

·         Dominion Ballot Counting Systems account for more than one third of the voting machine market. The husband of Democrat Senator for California, Dianne Feinstein, owns 60% of it and the Clinton Foundation promotes it around the world https://www.clintonfoundation.org/clinton-global-initiative/commitments/delian-project-democracy-through-technology

·         people showing up to vote in person were told that they had already voted absentee when they had never requested an absentee ballot; 

·         Democratic-controlled states limited access to Republican observers even in defiance of court orders; “@realDonaldTrump election night 800,000 lead was wiped out by hundreds of thousands of mail in ballots counted without any Republican observer,” Giuliani tweeted on Sunday.

No ID checks for many who voted in person and by post. Indeed, the majority of US States require no Photo ID at the ballot.

·         Deceased people have apparently voted, one born in 1823 and at least 21,000 dead people on Pennsylvania’s voting rolls: . https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/11/05/lawsuit-at-least-21k-dead-people-on-pennsylvania-voter-rolls/

·         Late votes backdated by US Postal Service to qualify them. A judge has now ordered that all late ballots be separated.    

·         Voting Ballot papers defaced by Polling Staff to render them void. Electoral staff pictured wearing pro Biden hats.

Lisa Deeley Chairwoman of the Philadelphia City Commission, a member of the bipartisan board of elected officials in charge of elections and voter registration “permanently surrendered her notary licence” in 2018 for approving signatures on legal documents without asking for identification – a violation of PA law.

PENNSYLVANIA – A CASE STUDY IN VOTING MANIPULATION

In a suspicious change just before the Presidential election The Pennsylvania Supreme Court, in 28th October 2020 by a vote of four to three allowed mailed ballots to be accepted if they were postmarked on or before election day and are received within three days thereafter. 

But in 2019, the Pennsylvania legislature had passed a law called Act 77 that permitted all voters to cast their ballots by mail but (in Justice Alito’s words) “unambiguously required that all mailed ballots be received by 8 p.m. on election day.” The exact text is 2019 Pa. Leg. Serv. Act 2019-77, which stated: “No absentee ballot under this subsection shall be counted which is received in the office of the county board of elections later than eight o’clock P.M. on the day of the primary or election.”

Act 77 also provided that if this portion of the law was invalidated, that much of the rest of Act 77, including its liberalization of mail-in voting, would also be void. The exact text is: “Sections 1, 2, 3, 3.2, 4, 5, 5.1, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 12 of this act are nonseverable. If any provision of this act or its application to any person or circumstance is held invalid, the remaining provisions or applications of this act are void.”

So the Pennsylvania legislature passed a law that said mail-in ballots had to arrive by 8PM on election day to be counted, and then said that if the Court over-ruled that law, the entire law that permitted mail-in ballots was invalid.

And that is what has happened.

 

 

 

 

Coronavirus and Democracy

 CS Lewis 1958.

Again, the new oligarchy must more and more base its claim to plan us on its claim to knowledge. If we are to be mothered, mother must know best. This means they must increasingly rely on the advice of scientists, till in the end the politicians proper become merely the scientists' puppets. Technocracy is the form to which a planned society must tend. Now I dread specialists in power because they are specialists speaking outside their special subjects. Let scientists tell us about sciences. But government involves questions about the good for man, and justice, and what things are worth having at what price; and on these a scientific training gives a man's opinion no added value. Let the doctor tell me I shall die unless I do so-and-so; but whether life is worth having on those terms is no more a question for him than for any other man.

CCHQ lessons to be learned!

 

Democracy turned upside down – Updated 18 September

            Last night the voting by Zoom took place for the election of officers for the Beaconsfield Constituency Conservative Association.  (see post below) How did it go?

·         The total membership of the Association was not given so no one knew the size of the electorate.   It is believed to be about 1,350.

·         The total number of members registered to vote was not given.   It is believed to have been about 300.

·         The total number participating was shown on the screen as 216.   This is considerably down on the number registered.   Why?   Were there technical problems.   Research should be done on the reasons for this.   In more than one case there was no sound so the instructions from the CCHQ manager were not heard.

·         No time limit was put on the voting.   It was left to the CCHQ Manager to decide when to stop.   There should have been a time limit.   In practice, he stopped when he said everyone had voted.   Astonishing that there were no abstentions!

·         The candidates were not asked to provide their own scrutineers.   This is essential to ensure that the vote is fair.   People appointed as scrutineers by CCHQ are not necessarily wholly independent.

·         There was no vote at all on the election of the Vice Presidents, even en bloc!

·         Transparency and accountability are essential elements of democracy.   It is clear CCHQ still have lessons to be learned!

 

 

 

Democracy Turned Upside Down!

 

Last year the members of the Beaconsfield Constituency Conservative Association fought hard and long to exercise their democratic rights relating to their MP Dominic Grieve.   See “Selection of Parliamentary Candidates below).   Fortunately, he went, and in December 2019 the Constituency elected a new MP, Joy Morrissey who has done a splendid job.

The Officers of the Association who frustrated and blocked the members exercising their democratic rights and gave scant support in getting Joy Morrissey elected, would in normal times been accountable to the members at an Annual General Meeting this year.   However due to the COVID-19 crisis the AGM has not yet been held.   It is now due to held by a Zoom meeting on 18^th September.   Voting for the Officers will take place before the AGM on 17^th September.   This is the procedure set down by CCHQ   Is not this the wrong way round?  

The two Deputy Chairman from last year have both resigned.   The Chairman is not standing for Chairman but is standing to be a Vice President.   The Treasurer is standing to be Chairman.   So, votes will be taken on the 17^th September without having had the opportunity to question the Chairman on his actions during the year or the Treasurer on the Accounts of the Association.   What is it about democracy that these people including CCHQ do not understand?   Democracy is about transparency and accountability.   How do you hold someone accountable if the votes are taken before any questions have been answered?

Fortunately, we have some excellent candidates standing for the officer positions, candidates who believe in party democracy, and I urge every member of the Beaconsfield Constituency Association to vote for them.   They are:

Chairman                                Dr. Rhiannon Rowsell

Deputy Chairman Political    Cllr. Guy Hollis

Treasurer                                 Rashpal Hullait BA (Hons) FCA

The Deputy Chairman Membership is Kirsty Griffiths who has been elected unopposed and is  excellent.

        I understand that the Vice Presidents (all eight of them) will be elected en bloc, including last year’s Chairman, none of whom publicly stood up for the rights of the party members.   In a democracy each individual should be voted upon and isn’t it time that there were time limits on the President and Vice Presidents terms of office of say five years

What happened to Private Ernest Strafford at the Battle of Monte Natale?

 See   https://battleofmontenatale.blogspot.com/p/4-february-1944-father-is-buried-to-be.html   

 

Local Government - Assemblies

Local Democracy Assemblies

The Battle of Monte Natale

On this the 75th Anniversary of Victory in Europe day we should remember the sacrifices made during World War II when democracy was under threat.   Go to this web site to see what happened in one small battle in Italy in 1944.   The Battle of Monte Natale

Local Government and Democracy

The Institutions and other aspects of Democracy - Greater London - Local Government

BBC Impartiality?

See my question on BBC impartiality, 41 minutes in

Selection of Parliamentary Candidates - is Democracy dying?

Selection of Parliamentary Candidates - is Democracy dying?

By

John E. Strafford

With the victory of the Conservative Party in the 2019 General Election we are witnessing the greatest advance for democracy in a generation.   The commitment to withdraw from the European Union on 31^st January 2020 means that at last we are taking back control of our democracy.   Once again Parliament will be in control of our legislation.   Once again, the people will be able to vote for their representative in a parliament which legislates for the people of the United Kingdom, and once again it will be judges of the United Kingdom that determine what the law means.

With the 2019 General Election we have also witnessed the greatest distortion of democracy since before the Second World War, when rich Tory parliamentary candidates purchased their seats in Parliament – a practise stopped by Lord Woolton’s reform of the Conservative Party in 1948.

Both Labour and Conservative parties deliberately delayed choosing their candidates for the General Election in order that a small group of people in their headquarters could decide who their own parliamentary candidates should be.   When the General Election was announced both Parties invoked “Emergency Procedures” to enable their HQs to take control of the process of selecting Parliamentary candidates.   The Brexit Party followed their example and did not announce their candidates until two days before nominations closed.   In addition the Brexit Party, which does not have any members, decided which constituencies should be contested.   Who took those decisions?   Party members of the two main Parties were effectively excluded from the process.   In the case of the Labour Party this was done for the Trade Unions to have a larger say in the selections in order to get more trade unionists into Parliament.   In the case of the Conservative Party it was done in order to get friends of Cabinet Ministers, special advisers, party officials and friends of the hierarchy into Parliament.   In the case of the Brexit Party it was done to enable their Leader to determine who should be a candidate.

Beaconsfield Constituency Conservative Association (BCCA) had been trying to get the process of selecting a candidate started for over six months before the General Election.   Our Member of Parliament, Dominic Grieve had lost two separate votes of confidence in General Meetings of the Association.   At last, on 31^st October BCCA was given the go-ahead by CCHQ, but told it had to follow the “Rules for the selection of Parliamentary Candidates for a General Election in 2019” (Rules shown in bold) issued by CCHQ as an emergency overriding the Rules in the Party’s Constitution.   A similar process had been implemented when the 2017 General Election was unexpectedly called.

As our Conservative MP, Dominic Grieve was not in receipt of the Conservative Whip he could not be re-selected so the following procedure had to be followed:

“The Party Chairman and Chairman of the National Conservative Convention (neither of which have been elected or are accountable to all Party Members) will nominate a shortlist of up to 3 applicants, (giving due regard to gender balance) after consultation with the Chief Agent, Director of Candidates, the Chairmen of the Candidates Committee (all of which are unelected and unaccountable) and the Chairman and two Deputies of the Association.

An Executive Council and a Special General Meeting were called to take place on Saturday 9^th November.  Names of the candidates and a standard CV were given to Party members one hour before the meetings started.   The meetings “will be run consecutively to save time.   The meeting will begin with the Executive Council, but members who are not members of the Executive are permitted to be present as observers.

At the meeting of the Executive Council, members will simply be asked to agree that the shortlist shall be put to members for selection.   The General meeting will then follow immediately, and the shortlist of candidates will be interviewed.

Voting is to be by exhaustive ballot until one candidate has more than 50% of the votes from those qualified members present and voting.

Occasionally, the Executive Council or the SGM are not satisfied with the choice of applicants put forward from the previous round.   In these rare cases the proper procedure is to move that the matter be referred back.   This must be done before the ballot is taken, but after the applicants have been heard.   After the motion for reference back has been formally proposed and seconded it should be put to the vote by secret ballot without debate.   If the reference back is defeated the proceedings must continue and proceed immediately to the ballot between the candidates.   If passed the selection process will be halted and for this General Election the Chairman of the Conservative Party will nominate the candidate.

The Chairman of the Beaconsfield Association was a candidate and was one of the three names.   Who decided that?   How were the other two names chosen?

The BCCA officers were notified of the three names on Tuesday 5^th November with strict instructions not to disclose them.   Nevertheless the following day supporters of the BCCA Chairman were campaigning for him.   On Thursday 7^th November the female candidate pulled out and to ensure gender balance was replaced by another female candidate, so effectively two candidates had four days notice of the meeting and one candidate had two days notice.

The vast majority of members attending the selection meeting did not know who the candidates were until they arrived at the meeting so were unable to find out any information about them apart from the brief biographical details submitted to the selection meeting.

The Agent for Beaconsfield had assured me that he could run a full and fair selection process within one week as he did in 1997 in similar circumstances, so why was the Association forced to adopt this wholly undemocratic process?   There was time for Beaconsfield to have a full, fair democratic process for the selection of their candidate.   Nominations for the General Election closed on 14^th November.

Beaconsfield is one of the largest Conservative Association in the country with approximately 1,500 members.   The last time it had to select a new parliamentary candidate in 1997 it had over 200 applications.

There is one further point which does not affect Beaconsfield but may have affected other Associations where there is a sitting Conservative MP.   If the sitting Member of Parliament has already been readopted by the Executive Council, no further action is required and so long as the MP still wishes to stand again the candidate is selected unless the whip has been removed.   Every Constituency Association should hold an Adoption meeting to which all members are invited.   This was the position prior to 2006 and should be re-instated to ensure democracy is openly seen to be working and all members of an Association take part in selecting their candidate.

After the debacle of the selection of candidates for the 2017 General Election it is unforgivable that we were put in the same position for the 2019 General Election.   The Party Board and the Committee on Candidates have failed in their duty.   It is time for the Party Chairman and the Chairman of the Candidates Committee to be elected by and accountable to the members of the Party at an Annual General Meeting to which all party members are invited.

Once again, the ordinary Party members have been treated with the utmost contempt by CCHQ, but the contempt goes further; effectively a small group of people are determining who the parliamentary candidates should be.   From these candidates we will get our Members of Parliament.   From our Members of Parliament, we will get our Government Ministers, so these decisions affect democracy.

The situation is now so serious that there should be a public inquiry seeking to clarify whether the undemocratic nature of our main political parties’ is distorting parliamentary democracy in the United Kingdom!

Postscript:   The candidate eventually chosen by the Beaconsfield Association was Joy Morrissey who is proving to be excellent, and I am sure if the full democratic process had been followed would have topped the list of candidates in any case.   Notwithstanding this exception the principle of having a democratic process for the selection of candidates still stands.