Sunday 13 February 2011

Why the ECHR is wrong for the UK - but Parliament needs fixing too.

In the UK we have an elected House of Commons, members of which form our government.

Elections (even if not frequent enough nor fair enough) broadly reflect the will of the people.

If individuals in the UK are to be governed then being able to select those who govern (and even apply to be one of those who govern on an equal basis to all others) does give the system some level of legitimacy.

However, external organisations like the EU run by the Commission of the European Union (27 individuals not elected by the people including their High Representative) and the President of the Council, and like the European Court of Human Rights run with no public input at all are structural throw backs to feudal times that should long since have been assigned to the dustbin of history.

If our government need to be kept in check, then it is the public that must do it - not random, unaccountable individuals who know and care little about what the UK is or what its people want.

In the recent ECHR rulings (such as prisoners votes, invalidity of witnesses who cannot be cross examined) my views coincide with the rulings of the ECHR. However, that is completely irrelevant to the point that the UK parliament at Westminster must have the last say on these issues, as that is where the will of the people is meant to be focused.

A problem that we do have with the UK parliament at Westminster is the woeful quality of those elected to represent us there. Many Men and Women who have won their seats with absolutely no regard to their real purpose (of representing their constituents), but instead having won their seats through party patronage, loyalty to those above them (instead of those below) and exploitation of public fears and worries about the other woeful candidates running against them.

We need to put the House Of Commons and the Parliament at Westminster back at the top of the UKs political tree - accountable only to the people of the UK. However, we also need to sweep away the party wasters who currently occupy the House of Commons - and we must be enabled to elect people who truly represent us with loyalty only to the people of the UK in general and their constituents in particular.

If we beleive parliament needs additional external control then it has already failed.

We can start to take back parliament by saying 'Yes' to  AV in the electoral reform referendum, and then we can model a parliament that does not leave us reliant on 'the good will of strangers' like the ECHR and EU.

No comments:

Post a Comment