Democracy is a fallacy

From TinWiki.org

1 Today in the world, democracy, is fought and died for. Yet the ideal is false.
2 EU Laws and Their Affect on UK Democracy
3 External Links
4 Other References

Today in the world, democracy, is fought and died for. Yet the ideal is false.

Merriam Webster defines democracy as such

Democracy; a: government by the people; especially : rule of the majority b: a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections

Only parts of this statement are true.

In a democracy, the power does not rest with the people, if it did, then everyone would have a vote on every issue at hand. They don't. Here in the U.K; every four years or so we are subjected to a general election. The various parties compile their and then they promote and market that manifesto which an outline of intentions and policy.

It is then down to eligible voters to decide on the individual of a party they want to vote into parliament.

A key word here is, intentions, because it does not matter if that party wins the general election and goes on to form a government because each of these intentions are then subject to deletion, addition and amendments and could conflict with any existing or future EU law. It is at this moment that the power of the people disappears. Each of the manifesto proposals have to go through a complex system before ever reaching the status of law.

The problem with a manifesto, is that it is historic. It based on circumstances at the time of publication. by the time government has gotten into power. The political situation could have changed. Promises made for certain projects can become obsolete if a new issue arises However, at this point the only people get a vote on an issue or a new bill are the Member's of Parliament (MP).

Whenever a new bill is introduce to parliament for discussion and vote, the vote of an individual MP can be subject to the party leadership and not actually free at all as they must vote as ordered. Once a bill has been voted upon it passed to the committee stage. This "standing committee" is comprised of 18-25 Mps. Each MP has the right to propose amendments to the bill. If there are 25 MPs then 25 changes can be requested. It is then passed back to the house of commons.

However this is not the end, as each bill is passed to the non elected house of lords for discussion, like the house of commons it goes through much the similar process. The difference is that at the committee stage, anyone can propose an amendment. The bill will then go back and forth until an agreement is made and it is passed to the queen to sign into law.

Queen Anne was the last monarch that refused to give Royal Assent was in 1707. It is unlikely that this will happen, today, as the last time a Monarch gave assent in person was in 1854. This is now done by the speaker from the house of Commons and the Lord Chancellor in the house of Lords.

With a large majority in the house of commons, any government can pass into law almost anything anything it wishes. That is if the unelected house of Lords makes no alterations.

In the 10 years of Tony Blair's (1997-2007) leadership, an average of 2685 laws were passed every year. Unfortunately these are in ADDITION to the 2,100 EU laws the government had to pass. This totals 4785 or the equivalent of 13 laws per day passed. None of which the people had a say or vote upon.

In addition to treaties the EU laws have can also be regulations and directives.

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EU Laws and Their Affect on UK Democracy

Any EU regulation takes PRECEDENCE over any UK law that it is not compatible with. This means that any governments manifesto can instantly be made obsolete should the EU choose to make it so.

Any directive is a set EU goal that must be complied to within a timescale.

The European Commission makes the proposals for a Law,

This commission is made up from MPs from the European Parliament which is the elected body of the EU. It has a similar role of the standing committee's and of both the houses of Commons and Lords. There are just 12 Euro MPs from the UK compared to 54 from Spain, 99 from Germany and a total of 785.

The UK European Parliament MPs represent just 1.52% of the total available vote.

Regulations are passed in to law by the EU council. The council is made up from ministers of the governments of each member state. Once the proposal has been approved then the UK must pass a law to comply with that proposal.

This means that with such a small minority of votes in the European Parliament. Any reason for voting for any particular party in a UK general election is a fallacy.

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