<title>Delegitimising Parliament: why “we the people” must stop voting</title>
		<link>http://www.frombehindenemylines.org.uk/2019/03/delegitimising-parliament-why-we-the-people-must-stop-voting/</link>
		<pubDate>Wed, 27 Mar 2019 18:42:01 +0000</pubDate>

Brexit: an example, par excellence, that UK Government, which organises Parliament to these ends, is not about representing, let alone producing what voters want; it is about driving through what it wants, and tricking the general public into thinking – even in the face of completely contrary evidence (granted, most are too dumb to comprehend any evidence, contrary or otherwise) – that their will is being done. Every cloud has a silver lining, and Brexit should be such a shocking learning experience that it surely can’t help but have caused a few new neural pathways to have grown in the brains of even the most hopeless cud-chewing-on-the-way-to-the-slaughter-house cases. Now, maybe, more people are prepared to contemplate that UK Government is corrupt from top to bottom, in all its aspects – and that the solution is far-reaching change.

For this article, which is about the vital importance in becoming a non-voter for the purpose of bringing about this change, the author has had to fetch his copy of Bagehot’s “The English Constitution” from the bookshelf. Admittedly, the act of being refreshed of its content is ongoing, so this piece might be updated when relevant lessons from Bagehot are newly discovered. If the reader doesn’t know, Bagehot is considered “the best account of the history and working of the British political system ever written” (back page notes, Oxford University Press edition, 2001). Although it was first published in serial form between 1865 and 1867, Bagehot is still a very useful tool for understanding modern British parliamentary politics.

As a focal point for this article, the question for which we need to look for an answer is how is it that, having received a clear instruction from voters regarding the EU – i.e. that we be a country independent of it – that Parliament can be so obstinate in its disobedience as evidenced by its concentrated effort to engineer (as the author has, in other articles hereabouts, shown the case to be) a Fake Brexit: a Brexit in name only, that in fact ensures continued parallel development with the EU.

The basis of the British system of governance is undoubtedly the English Civil War after which the Crown was abolished, and the Commonwealth, or the republic, was represented by the House of Commons in the Parliament. For all intents and purposes, the same situation continues today: the Commons has all the power through the sovereignty of the people. We should note that the reinstatement of the Monarch would have been a thing permitted by Parliament, and therefore, the rights that we think belong to the Crown are bestowed upon it by the Commonwealth. There is no birth right for a King of England. The restoration of Charles II was proclaimed by Parliament, not asserted by Charles. William and Mary were made king and queen on condition of the Bill of Rights. The Act of Settlement, 1701, and the “Sophia Naturalization Act” 1705, were the pieces of Parliament legislation by which George I could became king. In 2013, Parliament made a law dictating to the Monarch new terms regarding succession to the throne, so that a younger male heir no longer had priority over an older female. Can we see, dear reader, that the Crown has rights and privileges bestowed upon it by Parliament – meaning the Commons, meaning the Commonwealth.

Bagehot helps us notice that the while the executive part of Government – or the cabinet committee – is created by the legislative part of Government, it is the executive, through the royal prerogative, which can dissolve the legislature. In other words, the creature can uncreate the creator. Now, this is not a natural law, so this represents the installation of a contrivance so that a body of men who might ever finagle for themselves a control of the executive – and at FBEL [where this was first published] this is understood to have been achieved by the Masonic City of London – has always had a nuclear option to deal with radical defiance of, and opposition to its purpose. So that we fully understand the implications, let us reiterate the idea: it is by a right of the Crown endowed upon it by Parliament, by which the executive can dissolve Parliament.

The Crown is a creation of Parliament, and so, by natural law, it cannot actually have prerogative to force Parliament to enact any law – with the extreme case being dissolution of Parliament. We will find that this is indeed the case: for the Crown is a construct by Parliament to empower the executive part of Government. At an abstract level, only Parliament has the authority to dissolve itself; and it stands to reason. But on having constructed the Crown as a political device, Parliament produced an existential independence over the Commonwealth, because the Commonwealth created the legislature and seeded the executive. But the Commonwealth is always unable to decide when Parliament needs to be uncreated, and is certainly unable to dissolve it. Indeed, quite to the contrary, the executive power has the power of Parliamentary lifespan in its hands, and can cling on long after the Commonwealth has understood that its interests are not being preserved. This is what is happening in this current Brexit era. The first answer to our question, then, is this: the Commonwealth has no power to abolish an executive that it ultimately created.

Bagehot notes that Parliament was an electoral college whereby representatives elected by the people would then elect the ruling executive. That being said, Bagehot also notes that representatives would tend to be elected on “a ticket” – which means to say that the representative would be elected because he supported the policies of a unifying figure; a leader of a party. Now, this is something that has fully evolved into party politics, so the days of the Commons being an electoral college whereby a true representative looks to the interests of his electorate when electing an executive have gone.

At FBEL it has been noted in observance without reference to Bagehot that the Commons is like an electoral college in the respect whereby voters have voted for the ticket and not the man, and so this can be seen without wisdom to be the case. The problem with this situation is that politics becomes about collecting the most issuances of a certain ticket, and not about the man who has gained entry, or those that he is supposed to represent. Having declared itself able to demonstrate being in possession of most tickets, the party that forms the executive can go ahead and change the nature of the ticket, or even ignore it completely – because, after the Commonwealth has elected the executive, which is essentially what happens now (thus actually negating the first duty of a representative) there is no means by which the Commonwealth can dissolve the executive. Ultimately what has happened is that an MP only represents the ticket that he is elected on, and that is all he represents. So, another answer to our question is this: the Commonwealth has unburdened itself of its own duty to ensure good government. As was written hereabouts before (see the FBEL article, So, the British Government is entirely corrupt. What happens next?): “the change that is needed requires folk to take their responsibilities seriously, and to take back that sovereignty that is surrendered with a vote.”

Now, Bagehot noted that there were two parts of Government: the dignified part, and the efficient part. The dignified part was the Monarch, and the efficient part was the Parliament. Bagehot said that the dignified part drew the authority of Government from the people, while the efficient part executed that authority. Of course, this was written when not everyone had a vote, because now we would like to say that it is voting that imparts authority into a Government. Bagehot meant that because vast hordes of Victorian illiterates, that presumably could not read the newspapers or do it with any great skill of analysis (there is a case to make that the Victorian ruling class engineered this as a reaction to Georgian gentrification), suffered from a delusion that the Queen ruled Britain, it was out of veneration for her that Parliament would be obeyed. Even so, Bagehot does talk about the appeal of Parliament for those who could understand that it was the ruling power. Bagehot calls it being taught by wise men, or even by fools if theirs was a propensity to bloviate – the author would call it theatre. This is the feature that has replaced the show of royalty in modern days when all people think that they have an interest vested in Parliament via that vote that they cast. It is theatre. That it creates a drama to mesmerise people into granting authority is much more important today than it was in Bagehot’s time.

Basically, if you don’t understand that one hidden hand controls all elements of government and opposition in Parliament, then you are the modern day equivalent of the Bagehot’s Victorian illiterates. If you think that it’s very important to vote for a certain ticket because the other side’s ticket holds consequences for you that you could not tolerate, then you are falling for the theatre. History, over again, should show you plainly: there is an outcome that you don’t like even when the ticket that you vote for wins.

It’s not often that Government releases data that cuts through the horse manure to a truth in such a rare fashion as the item that is about to be introduced. It is a reply from the Ministry of Justice in response to a Freedom of Information request about withdrawing consent to be governed:

Parliament itself draws its legitimacy from a number of sources, not least of which is the participation of the majority of the citizens of the United Kingdom in its operation, through exercising their right to vote or by paying taxes.

It is clearly stated: voting instils Parliament with legitimacy. Conversely, not voting means not authorising Parliament. And from our brief examination of ideas stemming from readings of Bagehot, we can see that this is absolutely the case. Not voting is the solution to the problem raised in our original question. Firstly, it solves the issue of the Commonwealth not being able to foreshorten the life of Parliament by not creating it in the first instance. Secondly, it means that individuals have not abdicated sovereignty, not to a representative, but to a ticket.

Of course, people will argue that while some people might stop voting, others will continue, and a parliament will be created in any case. The answer is that not voting is only the first stage in creating an alternative government that can eventually rule the Westminster Parliament a non-entity. Opposition – real opposition, not Judas-goatery cooked up by military intelligence – is the key dynamic. As we discovered above, Government had arranged things so that it could exist without authority, but the crucial aspect of maintaining this arrangement is that the abuse has never properly been opposed. However, when the Commonwealth at last organises itself to deem that Parliament is redundant, it can authorise an alternative – this is the crucial principle. And the Commonwealth is that body of the English (and we can extend that to incorporate the Irish, Scots and Welsh in their own lands), that recognises itself as the Commonwealth.

In the first phase, the rogue UK Government must be weakened; it will do this itself by trying to run a country that hasn’t completely consented to it. What we are talking about here is refusal to recognise authority, and this has been covered in the FBEL article, The police as militia, and the “policing by consent” deception. We will also discuss the possibility of defunding the Government in future articles. 

In terms of organising physical opposition – and it must be understood that these are very preliminary ideas (but people must have a sense of the ends to which they are working) – the first thing to understand is that street politics (protesting) and violence stemming from it is strictly off limits: it is always self-defeating when UK Government can actually control its occurrence and its narrative and its outcome. Force, however, is an entirely different thing altogether. Force is about determination to not be deflected from a quite lawful pursuit. When and if UK Government moves against this, then it is the law breaker, and it has no moral authority.

The alternative to Parliament must first come from individuals separating from the system by which UK Government harvests power. The easiest thing to do is to stop voting. After organising themselves in their communities, people must look to ways whereby they can deny access for UK Government. Later there can be grassroots local assemblies (and indeed courts); everyone must look to the scope of influence over which he has some realistic control. At some stage, local Commonwealth assemblies would send delegates to a national assembly with ideas for an alternative national government. Much, much later, we rule that Westminster is outlawed.

As has been said before at FBEL, these ideas may seem like complete fantasy that are hardly ever likely to happen, but the realists amongst us must understand that things do need to change, and the only way we can depend on that change happening is if we, ourselves, force it to happen. This process must begin with “impossible” ideas.