Unrepresentative Democracy

As I write these words, Britain has already passed Theresa may’s ‘legally binding’ Brexit date of 29th March. The current deadline of 12th April may or may not be shifted to 22nd May. Perhaps our lords and masters will go for another extension? Perhaps the EU will lose patience and refuse another extension? Whatever the outcome, you can rest assured that it will be in the interests of the ruling class rather than ordinary working people.

Brexit is not the key problem facing the UK today; it is merely a symptom of the real problem. The growth of plutocracy – rule by the rich – and plutonomy – economic policy based solely on the interest of the rich – are the real problems. Despite the lip service paid to ‘democracy,’ it is abundantly clear that many of the members of both Houses of Parliament  hold much of the electorate in contempt.

Since the June 2016 referendum, much has been made of the fact that in the UK’s parliamentary system, MPs are representatives of their constituents rather than mere delegates. This has helped Remain MPs with seats that voted strongly Leave to argue that they are acting in the national interest rather than slavishly following the dictates of the people who voted for them. Whilst this is an old argument, going back to eighteenth century conservative philosopher Edmund Burke, it is difficult to maintain in the face of the institutionally Remain bias throughout parliament, the BBC, the judiciary and the civil service. We have reached a stage where the UK has become an unrepresentative democracy.

Take the latest nonentity to get his fifteen minutes of fame from the Brexit shambles, Nick Boles. Boles is, or rather was, the Conservative MP for Grantham and Stamford – he now calls himself an ‘independent, progressive Conservative’ whatever that is. Boles attended Winchester College, current fees £39,912, before studying PPE (what else?) at Oxford and public policy at Harvard. A real man of the people! Boles also fiddled £930 in expenses to pay for Hebrew lessons to talk to his Israeli boyfriend, a sum of money he has never repaid.

Boles is just one example of the deeply unrepresentative House of Commons. 25% of MPs went to private school, compared to just 7% of the general population – no wonder they don’t care about state schools. Fully 81% of MPs are graduates compared to 20% of the population and 24% attended those bastions of privilege, Oxford and Cambridge. The ludicrous first-past-the-post system means that well over half of MPs represent so-called ‘safe seats,’ effectively disenfranchising the people who live there. Such ‘safe seats’ are often used to parachute in favoured clones, sorry, candidates of the central party; how else can you explain the pathetic Miliband brothers from north London representing South Shields and Doncaster? And if one wants to be politically correct, only 30% of MPs are female and only 6% come from ethnic minorities.

Perhaps the most shocking statistic about the unrepresentative nature of the Commons is the number of lawyers; incredibly 119 (18%) of the 650 MPs elected in 2015 were lawyers. This compares to only 4% from a manual labour background. Whoever these people represent, it is not the public.

Even worse than the Commons is the ridiculous anachronism that is the House of Lords. As we approach the third decade of the twenty-first century there are still 92 hereditary peers in the Lords, people who get to vote on laws because some remote ancestor slept with Charles II. The sad and decrepit Church of England has 26 seats despite attracting well under a million worshipers to its chilly museums each Sunday. More than half the members of the Lords are over 70, with 20% being over 80. 27% of Lords are ex-MPs and at 7% are lawyers (but of course). These people are simply party hacks, given a sinecure for toeing the line – 70% of Lords take a party whip.

Again, Brexit is not the key problem facing the UK. It is a symptom of a corrupt, plutocratic and plutonomic system that prioritises the interests of the rich over everyone else. The key requirement is to smash the power of the two rotting corpses that dominate British politics – the Conservative and Labour parties. The first-past-the-post system must end and some form of sortition (selection by lot like with juries) must be introduced to break the power of the party whips. Only then might MPs give attention to real problems – climate change, overpopulation, knife crime, crumbling public infrastructure – rather than obsess over membership of a neoliberal club that only benefits the interests of the rich, the banks and big business.