EU Referendum


Brexit: democracy in name only


16/06/2021




We are informed by the Telegraph (amongst others), that Britain is to accept a "flood of Australian beef" in landmark trade deal. Predictably, the prime minister is hailing this "new dawn" for relations with Canberra and, equally predictably, farmers are raising "concerns".

The greater concern, for the moment though, must reside with a more pressing concern: the final trade agreement is not yet ready to be published. Not only does no one have a clue exactly what is in the deal, says the Telegraph, "there will be no parliamentary vote on whether to accept the deal".

Technically speaking, this is correct. According to this source, Parliament's consent is not needed for the government to conclude treaties.

We are further informed that this is usually justified by the fact that international agreements that have not been transformed into domestic law have no direct legal effect. Parliament, therefore, has a role in scrutinising implementing legislation.

However, the mechanism of implementation is usually via one or more statutory instruments (Sis), under the enabling authority of the Trade Act 2021. These SIs are typically "negative" instruments. They become law on the day the ministers sign them, but they are the are "laid" before parliament for 40 sitting days.

The way, in theory, that they can be overturned is for MPs to table a motion, or "prayer", which comes in the form of an early day motion. This must be signed by a number of MPs and can then lead to a vote. But this is not always the case.

If there is a vote, the majority have to vote against, and it is theoretically possible to achieve that, if government MPs can be induced to rebel, and the opposition unites. But the vote doesn't have to be held on the floor of the House. It can be referred to a committee, which has an inbuilt government majority. There, the likelihood is that it would be passed "on the nod".

In practice, therefore, the scrutiny is largely toothless and, as the Telegraph remarks, those hoping for a new post-Brexit age of accountability, parliamentary democracy and sovereignty will be rightly disappointed. That is unlikely to prevent future deals, and sell-outs, from being hidden away from the public.

There are those who might remark, in passing, that the European Commission does not have such power. Negotiating objectives must be approved by the Council, the European Parliament has a right to receive updates on the negotiations and, once the text is finalised, the Parliament must approve it by majority vote, following which the Council must conclude the agreement by qualified majority.

In the event that the Commission doesn't have exclusive competence, in so-called "mixed agreements", the member states must also ratify the treaties, according to their own constitutional procedures, although an agreement can apply provisionally pending ratification.

In all cases, the texts of any treaties must be published before they can be ratified, but there is no such obligation for the UK government. Under Royal Prerogative, it is entitled to conclude a treaty without making the text publicly available.

Nothing of that is actually any help to UK parliament. Whether in or out of the EU, the parliament had no power to influence treaties made by the Commission. With Brexit, parliament is no worse off, but no better off.

As for the benighted citizens of this country, in theory – but only theory – we had some say over the approval of treaties via our MEPs. And some Member States have constitutions which allow for referendums. UK citizens, though, have no rights to plebiscites on trade treaties.

Thus, we are in a situation where, in effect, Brexit has given rise to a transfer of powers from the EU, but those powers largely been transferred to the executive. Parliament is barely any better off, and UK citizens have not gained any material benefits.

This is why, of course, that when I wrote Flexcit, I embodied the elements of The Harrogate Agenda in phase six of the text.

Specifically, I wrote, this stage confronted the idea that there was little point in recovering powers from the EU, only to hand them back to the same institutions that gave them away in the first place.

Further, I added, even without EU influence, the UK is an overly centralised state, so the repatriation of powers from Brussels only for them to reside in London or one of the other devolved capitals affords fewer benefits to individual citizens than might be imagined.

With a degree of prescience which is borne out by current events, I went to write that, to a certain extent, the effect of restoring a degree of "independence" would simply be to swap one ruling class for another, with very little by way of beneficial effects for ordinary people.

And here we are with the perfect demonstration of our status as a elective dictatorship – made worse by a dysfunctional opposition. There were those who were concerned that the arrangements for leaving the EU would bring is BRINO – BRexit In Name Only. But what we have, in fact, is DINO – Democracy In Name Only.

This is embodied in the THA document where I wrote that our movement was based on the premise that democracy means "people power".

The word democracy, I wrote, stems from the Greek word, demokratía, comprising two parts: demos "people" and kratos "power". Without a demos, there is no democracy. But people without power is not democracy either.

In terms of that definition, The UK has never really enjoyed a fully functioning democracy. Had we had one in the recent past, Prime Minister Tony Blair would not have been able to take us to war in Iraq in 2003 nor Afghanistan in 2006.

Nor could Edward Heath have led the United Kingdom into the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1973. Neither, for that matter, could any government have concluded the Withdrawal Agreement or the TCA without the direct, informed assent of the people.

Our current system of government includes the vestiges of what is known as "representative democracy", where in theory our interests are safeguarded by locally elected MPs. That system has never functional in any real sense and, in any event, embodies a misuse of the word democracy. People do not hold power so that system cannot – by definition – be a democracy. The word "representative" is to "democracy", as "wooden" is to leg.

But now, the failings of the system are shown up in high profile, naked in tooth and claw. There have been many reservations about the Australian deal, but the government has gone ahead and concluded it anyway. It doesn't need the assent of the UK peoples, and has not sought it. And it knows it can rely on its inbuilt majority to block any attempt to hold up any enabling legislation.

For marginal benefits, which may not even be noticeable in the average shopping basket, the government is prepared to put British farming at risk, and we only have its word, and the word of a congenital liar, that they will come to no harm.

All we get for our money is a glossy photoshoot that lays bare the singular fact that the UK is not a functioning democracy.

In fact, it never has been, but it has taken Brexit to demonstrate anew where the power really lies. And it ain't with the people.

Also published on Turbulent Times.