Tag Archives: democracy

Tom Arms

Observations of an Expat: How Did We Get Here?

By Tom Arms | Sat 6th July 2024 - 10:06 am

It has been a bad week for democracy. In fact it has been a bad year for democracy. The only exception is the UK. But don’t worry Britain’s time will come.

Now, however, the rise of the populist far-right just about everywhere else is dominating the world’s headlines. Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally is knocking on France’s gates to power. A conservative-dominated US Supreme Court has granted serial law breaker and liar Donald Trump immunity from prosecution. A cognitively-impaired Joe Biden is endangering democracy by clinging to power. A far-right anti-immigrant government has been formed in the Netherlands.

And those are only the most recent examples. In Israel, Hungary, India, Slovakia, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Austria, and Germany the far-right is either in government or growing in power and influence.

So how did we get here and where are we going?

Back in the naughty nineties everything looked so different. The collapse of the Soviet Empire appeared to be a great victory for liberal democracy, globalism, free markets and capitalism. We won, and countries around the world flocked to democracy’s banner.

First in the queue were the members of the old Soviet system, with Russia right at the front. That was the first problem. The transition from a Soviet-style command economy and from dictatorship to democracy was more difficult than envisaged.

A broken system was replaced not with capitalist prosperity but with hyper-inflation, economic breakdown and mass unemployment. Life expectancy in Russia fell with up to five million excess adult deaths between 1991 and 2001. Birth rates collapsed and organized crime grabbed the levers of power.

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Lord William Wallace

Which dangers to democracy threaten most?

By Lord William Wallace | Tue 12th March 2024 - 9:54 am

‘Democracy’, Boris Johnson wrote in his weekly Daily Mail; column on March 8th, ‘is always more fragile than you think.’   But what are the most direct threats to British democracy which we face at present?

For the Prime Minister, Michael Gove, many other Conservatives and the right-wing press, the most urgent threats come from Islamist terrorism and disorder on the streets.  Pro-Palestinian demonstrations in London may have been non-violent but are seen to be intimidating; climate-change activists have blocked streets, and put banners on the Prime Minister’s constituency home.  Gove will be issuing a new definition of extremism later this week, which is expected to focus on Muslim organizations and direct-action groups for ecological issues; how far it will also flag up right-wing extremists remains contested within the government and the right-wing media.

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Mo Waqas

Facing the facts: a reality check for the Prime Minister

By Mo Waqas | Sat 2nd March 2024 - 8:48 am

In his recent address the Prime Minister expressed concerns about internal forces threatening our nation’s unity.

This led me to ponder whether these forces include those that fuelled the divisive Brexit atmosphere, spearheaded by figures like Nigel Farage and the 21st-century version of Enoch Powell.

Our country has grappled with division since the Conservative Party’s risky move in Europe, fostering deep-seated animosity. It’s crucial to recognize that this hatred isn’t isolated to a particular group, Palestinian or Israeli; it has festered for over a decade.

Austerity measures, police force cuts, and reductions in vital social services initiated this discord. The poor grew poorer, while the affluent one percent thrived, with media playing a pivotal role in alienating the most marginalized in our society.

Does Mr. Sunak genuinely believe the British people have forgotten his former Home Secretary’s statement. Suella Braverman asserted:

The British people are compassionate. We will always support those genuinely homeless. But our streets cannot be overrun by rows of tents, housing people—many from abroad—living on the streets as a lifestyle choice.

So, I find myself questioning the Prime Minister: Who chooses to be homeless, and who chooses to be born poor? The reality is, no one does.

Under this Conservative government, marginalised society faces relentless attacks. As the party falters, we find ourselves in the grip of a cost-of-living crisis, bringing ordinary folks to their knees. Our most vulnerable can’t afford to heat their homes, facing exorbitant electricity and gas bills. For many, it became a choice between heating or eating.

In a nation like Great Britain, such desperate measures should not be necessary.

The real problem, Mr. Sunak, lies in your party’s jingoism and love for populism. In Great Britain, we celebrate our diversity. When the Prime Minister urges us to face down extremists, will he start with his own party?

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Lord William Wallace

How rotten is our democracy?

By Lord William Wallace | Wed 13th September 2023 - 11:49 am

This is the question Isabel Hardman poses at the beginning of her review of Chris Bryant’s new book, Code of Conduct: why we need to fix Parliament – and how to do it.  Hardman’s own book, Why we get the Wrong Politicians (first published in 2018 and updated for a paperback edition in 2022) had already covered much of the same ground – on the ‘toxic culture’ of Westminster politics, the power of the whips over individual MPs, the neglect of parliamentary scrutiny of government legislation and decisions in favour of efforts to become ministers, and above all the strains on personal relations and family life.

Bryant – chair of the Commons Committees on Standards and Privileges until this month – writes in an easy, personal style, but his underlying anger at the corruption and the toxic culture of Westminster politics is evident.  He starts with the Commons’ handling of Owen Paterson’s censure for ‘paid advocacy’ for companies which were paying him more than £100,000 a year. 250 MPs voted to reject the Standards Committee recommendations, with support from Johnson as prime minister and Rees-Mogg as leader of the House.  ‘I felt that Parliament itself was on trial’ in that vote.

In the context of historical comparisons with past parliamentary scandals, he concludes that ‘this is indeed the worst Parliament in our history.  More than twenty MPs have been suspended or have left under a cloud.  Rules have been flouted… Ministers have lied and refused to correct the record…’  There is ‘a widespread sense that politicians believe the rules don’t apply to them.’

He sees ‘something rotten’ in the structure of the Westminster system, with far more ministers than in comparable democracies, dependent on prime ministerial patronage.  Unchecked prime ministerial power allows corruption to spread through PPI contracts, through the allocation of levelling-up funds and through the appointment of friends to paid public offices.  He details the lies Boris Johnson as PM made to Parliament, the bullying habits of government whips, the conflicts of interest that arise through moves from ministerial office to private directorships and consultancies.  He reports the massive outside earnings that former ministers and PMs make – noting that in the first three months of 2023 Johnson registered £3,287,293 in outside earnings.

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Paul Reynolds

Improving the quality of democracy is not just about proportional representation

By Paul Reynolds | Tue 10th January 2023 - 10:24 am

Of all the major ‘-isms’ that pervade our politics in the UK, democracy (or ‘democratism’ if you prefer) is perhaps the least written about. That may at last be about to change.

It is perhaps mostly taken for granted in UK political discourse that democracy is ‘A Good Thing’. Today, only the very brave would argue publicly that democracy is ‘A Bad Thing’ per se.

Defenders of UK-style democracy however have to gloss over aspects of the political system. These include the constitutional monarchy and the broader role of the Royal Prerogative, the unelected House of Lords, and tight executive control of parliament. They do rather mute the UK’s moral high ground when promoting democracy abroad.

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Michal Siewniak

“Democracy in action” in Welwyn Garden City

By Michal Siewniak | Mon 21st November 2022 - 9:28 am

Frustrated. Bored. Tired. Disengaged. I wondered quite a bit whether being involved in the Parliament Week, for the 9th year running, made any sense. As a Cllr, I’ve had countless conversations with residents about the UK Parliament and it is and was clear that many people still feel disillusioned and angry with the way our democratic institution works, but more importantly with the conduct and behaviour of some of our MP’s and “Parliamentarian chaos” of the last 2-3 years.

However, after a bit of “intellectual effort”, I managed to convince myself that every step and every simple initiative can help to restore our faith in democracy. Every moment or conversation, even in passing, can bring back at least some political hope for us and people in our communities up and down the country.

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Caron Lindsay

Wendy Chamberlain slams PM’s “appalling attempt to rig the rules”

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 28th May 2022 - 11:15 am

You would think, wouldn’t you, that when the culture of your Government has been slammed in a report which outlined disgraceful behaviour, you would be absolutely mortified and would make sure that your actions showed that you were truly sorry. Especially when you had been saying so at length and you knew that nobody believed a word of your apology.

Well, you could think that of virtually any other PM than Boris Johnson. But the current incumbent’s capacity for brazen disregard for rules or accountability is second to none. We saw this when he tried to change the rules to save his mate Owen Paterson last Autumn.

Yesterday, Boris Johnson watered down both the Ministerial Code and the role of the so-called “Independent Adviser.” The Guardian reports:

The prime minister faced a barrage of criticism after he amended the rules on Friday to make clear that ministers will not always be expected to resign for breaching the code of conduct. Under new sanctions, they could apologise or temporarily lose their pay instead.

Johnson also blocked his independent ethics chief, Christopher Geidt, from gaining the power to launch his own investigations, and rewrote the foreword to the ministerial code, removing all references to honesty, integrity, transparency and accountability.

Our Chief Whip Wendy Chamberlain is reported as saying that this was an:

appalling attempt by Boris Johnson to rig the rules to get himself off the hook.

It seems the Conservatives have learned nothing from the Owen Paterson scandal.

It has been clear for some time that the Government doesn’t care that accountability and justice are seen to be done where its own behaviour is concerned. With these moves they are effectively giving themselves the right to mark their own homework. The legitimacy of any Government depends on having some sort of check on its power.

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Layla Moran MP

Moran: Backsliding democracies from the USA to Ukraine

By Layla Moran MP | Tue 19th April 2022 - 5:26 pm

At the end of last year, the United States of America was added to the International IDEA’s annual list of “backsliding” democracies for the first time, pointing to a “visible deterioration” it said began in 2019.

Remarkably, the number of backsliding democracies has doubled in the past decade with more than a quarter of people alive today now living in one of these democracies. What’s more, in addition to “established democracies” such as the US, this list of backsliding democracies includes EU member states Hungary, Poland and Slovenia.

And it gets worse.

According to the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance the number of people living in fragile democracies rises to more than two in three with the addition of authoritarian or “hybrid” regimes.

To put it more succinctly, democracy is in retreat.

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Marguerita Morton

Review: Revolution of our Times

By Marguerita Morton | Tue 12th April 2022 - 11:55 am

Revolution of our Times is a truly powerful film screened in London in March 2022.

The film shows real footage of more than one million people on the streets of Hong Kong protesting the introduction of the Extradition Bill about to be enacted against Hong Kong citizens whose only act was to upset the Chinese Communist State.

The spontaneous protest demonstrated how unpopular the proposed extradition law to mainland China was.  Witnessed by the arbitrary arrest of three booksellers in Hong Kong who dared to sell banned publications.  The people now called for the repeal of the extradition law as a breach of the Sino British Joint Declaration which guaranteed Hongkongers their freedoms for another 50 years from the handover of HK to China in 1997.

The crowds consisted of men, women, students as well as ordinary workers.  There were peaceful ranks of protesters with banners and umbrellas just using their voice.  As the numbers of protesters swelled, the main downtown districts of HK were filled with their chants for their five key demands: to withdraw the extradition bill; to stop labelling protesters as “rioters”; to drop charges against protesters; to conduct an independent inquiry into police behaviour; to implement genuine universal suffrage for both the Legislative Council and the Chief Executive.

What started as peaceful protest soon became a standoff between the people and the police.  More and more strong armed tactics were being used including the use of teargas, rubber bullets, water canon and eventually live fire.  People were incensed and they went directly to the LegCo building where they broke into the main chamber causing damage to property.

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Samuel Jackson

A Liberal Democrat Case for Universal Civic Duty Voting

By Samuel Jackson | Mon 14th February 2022 - 11:29 am

Liberal Democrats are staunchly opposed to the Conservative government’s Elections Bill currently moving through Parliament. Its provisions of mandating photo ID at polling stations and imposing the use of First Past the Post for mayoral and police and crime commissioner elections are actively harmful to democracy and solely for the benefit of the incumbent government.

It should go without saying that this bill is diametrically opposed to our own party’s constitutional and electoral reform policies including the adoption of single transferable vote and removing barriers to exercising the right to vote. However, in the face of undemocratic legislation, we as a party should contemplate advocating for stronger protective measures, namely universal civic duty voting, otherwise known as compulsory voting.

Turnout for British general elections during the twenty-first century has never surpassed 70%. This contrasts sharply with the 90%+ turnout rates in Australia and Belgium, with the former having adopted UCDV in response to low turnout of under 60% at its 1922 federal election. With FPTP skewing results and breeding voter dissatisfaction, no party in the UK having won more than 50% of votes cast since the Conservative did in 1935, governments are formed or decisions made via referenda that reflect the will of only a plurality of the electorate. For government to be more reflective of the will of the people, greater turnout should be encouraged, with UCDV probably being the most effective method of achieving it.

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Michal Siewniak

UK Parliament Week and the Polish Saturday School in Welwyn Garden City

By Michal Siewniak | Mon 8th November 2021 - 11:32 am
  • I did wonder whether I should bother
  • I did wonder, whether inspiring young people to learn and find out more about the role of the Parliament, makes sense
  • I did wonder whether I should simply “drop” my passion for the civic agenda and look for another “hobby”

The most recent events in the Houses of Parliament “wobbled” my desire to do my little part and absolute commitment to enhancing the democratic process. Another scandal, another U-turn, another opportunistic attempt from the government to change the rules. “One rule for us, one for them”, we heard a lot this week.

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Steve Trevethan

How sound is our democracy?

By Steve Trevethan | Thu 4th November 2021 - 5:04 pm

The ongoing Paterson affair offers us the opportunity and motivation to analyse our fragile and imperfect version of democracy.

That MPs can, and sometimes do, receive large sums of money to represent the interests of organisations and individuals shows that, if unchecked and effectively unregulated, we are in, or on the way to being, a plutocracy and not a robust, deep democracy.

It would be more efficient to double the pay of MPs and ensure that they did not take monies from the fat wallets, individual or corporate.

The decreasing popular support of political parties makes them ever more likely to be taken over by the fat wallets, which also takes us along the path to plutocracy.

Limiting contributions to a ratio based on the minimum wage would limit this trend. Similarly, paying MPs on a ratio fixed to the minimum wage would bring a democratic facet to the relationship between the rulers and the ruled.

This might help mitigate the continuing inter-generational unfairness of recent decades. The “Deficit Myth” has been used to make tertiary education a commodity instead of an inter-generational gift. This has harmed tertiary education, of which there is not enough range, and impoverished recent generations who have been further harmed by rising housing costs, encouraged by HMG.

Democracy is more than an electoral system which returns a government for which the majority have not voted. One of the two parliamentary houses is not voted for.

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David Brunnen

Democracy – now on the Risk Register

By David Brunnen | Fri 22nd October 2021 - 3:06 pm

An appreciation of Lord Puttnam’s recent address – The Shirley William’s Memorial Lecture: POWER AND FEAR – THE TWO TYRANNIES.

Was anybody listening?

If so, what did they hear?

If they heard, then what, exactly, did they understand?

Timing is everything.

In the heat of intense political clamour, unleashed as one of their own was murdered, the calm authoritative voice may have been lost in that moment.

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Caron Lindsay

Lib Dems will oppose Elections Bill in Parliament today

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 7th September 2021 - 11:00 am

How should decisions about how our elections are run be made?

You would hope that all the parties would get together and come up with something that we should all agree with. Or at least a truly independent body would annoy everyone equally by coming up with things that some like and some don’t.

Here’s how not to do it – let a Government which has more MPs than its vote share deserves change the rules to suit itself. That is far from democratic.

The Conservatives are looking to the example of the experts in voter suppression, the US Republicans, with their Elections Bill which comes before Parliament today. It is blatantly partisan in many aspects.

The first is that it compels voters to show ID to vote. They couch it in language around preventing fraud, which is pretty much non existent anyway. But you have to look at the impact that would have. Who would be most likely not to vote? People of colour, poorer people, younger people. In short, people who are less likely to vote Conservative.

The second is that it gives the Government more control over the Electoral Commission, which is supposed to be independent. Again, not a good sign.

The third is that it will constrain third party campaigners such as trade unions.

Don’t just take my word for it, take the word of someone who is both a former electoral commissioner and a Liberal Democrat. David Howarth was MP for Cambridge until 2010. He cautions us to make sure we don’t forget the other nasties the bill contains while we argue over Voter ID.

In an article for Open Democracy he sets out why the “poisonous” bill would cement Tory rule.

He describes how the Bill hands control of the Electoral Commission to Government ministers:

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Tom Arms

Observations of an Expat: Free and Fair Elections in America

By Tom Arms | Sat 10th July 2021 - 8:26 am

America believes in exporting its Democracy. And it has sought to do so right from the start. Congress regularly ties aid and trade packages to political change in developing countries, too often ignoring local conditions.

For many years America was seen by other countries as that “Shining City on the Hill” first mentioned in Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount and later repeated by Puritan leader John Winthrop and, more recently, by President Ronald Reagan.

Its War of Independence inspired the French Revolution, liberation movements in South America and elsewhere in the world. The stirring words of the Declaration of Independence are mirrored in similar documents across the globe.

But changes in American electoral politics means that the rest of the world is now questioning America’s claim to the moral high ground, and those questions undermine the success and stability of democracy elsewhere in the world.

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Lord William Wallace

Defending Liberalism from the culture warriors

By Lord William Wallace | Wed 3rd March 2021 - 9:15 am

‘Democracy doesn’t happen by accident. We have to defend it. Strengthen it. Renew it.’ President Biden said that in his virtual address to the Munich Security Conference last week. He was talking explicitly about threats to Democracy across the world, but implicitly also about the threats within the United States. We should worry that liberal Democracy, open society and constitutional government are not to be taken for granted in Britain, either.

None of us should under-estimate the extent to which the US Republican Right has effectively colonised the Conservative Party. Our right-wing media takes its cue from American campaigns – on culture, free markets, ‘family values’, suspicion of government as such. Tory MPs interact with US politicians and think-tankers far more than with conservatives across the Channel. Funds flow into the UK from right-wing US foundations, companies and lobbies, supporting similar groups and promoting like-minded causes over here. The denigration of liberalism that grips the American right is echoed in London seminars on ‘post liberalism and endless attacks on Britain’s allegedly ‘metropolitan liberal elite’ – by well-connected and well-paid Conservative intellectuals who live in London themselves.

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Max Wilkinson

The latest peerage announcements are yet more evidence that the system is broken

By Max Wilkinson | Mon 28th December 2020 - 11:31 am

Sometimes you just have to call a spade a spade. And, in the case of this government, that means we need to be much more direct in tackling a problem at the heart of our democracy: corruption.

I write not as a conspiracy theorist wearing a tin foil hat, frantically scrolling through obscure online message boards and Facebook groups. My observations are made as a liberal who is fed up of the broken system that governs our country.

The appointment of sixteen more unelected lawmakers to our bloated parliament might be enough to prompt anger, but there’s more. The Prime Minister has brazenly overruled independent advice and given a life peerage to a Conservative party donor.
He’s not just a donor, he’s a man who has given several million to the party and previously had to quit as its treasurer. Boris Johnson has, of course, rightly pointed out that an internal Conservative party investigation found no wrongdoing…

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Paul Tyler

Elective dictatorship

By Paul Tyler | Wed 9th December 2020 - 2:30 pm

You may hope – with Trump on his way out – that his UK protégé may have given up the tricks of the Trump playbook. However, take a look behind the Brexit and Covid headlines this week, and you will get a glimpse of some devious destruction of our constitutional conventions.

In his Dimbleby Lecture of October 1976 former Lord Chancellor Viscount Hailsham – a true Tory if ever there was one – warned against Britain’s slide towards “elective dictatorship”.

With the recent publication of a draft Bill to repeal the Fixed Term Parliaments Act, his illustration of the power which then …

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Ian Martin

Burmese Days

By Ian Martin | Mon 26th October 2020 - 9:15 am

The election is more important than COVID-19.

Not the words of Donald Trump but the words of the State Counsellor of Burma, Aung San Su Kyi. Yes, I know the name of the country was changed by the State Law and Order Restoration Council-SLORC but Burma is still Burma in the eyes of many.

The election will be held on November 8th with various challenges. There are of course security challenges. Conflict zones in the border areas where voting is suspended and COVID-19. This election will have suspensions in Rakhine state with no vote taking place in a number of townships due to the fighting between the Arakan Army (AA) and the Myanmar military. Of course, very few of the Rohinyas that remain in that area will be eligible to vote as they are without national identity cards. Many of the displaced people in other parts of Burma face a similar problem as they lack documentation.

COVID-19 is another major problem. Burma has seen increasing number of infections and fully implementing prevention measures at the polling stations is going to be difficult. The question of postponing the election was raised but the Union Election Commission (UEC) is proceeding as scheduled, a decision supported by the ruling National League for Democracy (NLD) party.

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Paul Tyler

Paul Tyler writes…..Listening is just the start…

By Paul Tyler | Tue 1st September 2020 - 4:58 pm

Once we have honed our listening skills we should surely seek to improve ways in which people are themselves empowered.  How can they make their voices and their votes more effective ?

Here are a few immediate and urgent opportunities:

Fair Votes 

Despite the Conservative manifesto promise to make sure “every vote counts the same – a cornerstone of democracy” the current inequality is outrageous.  It takes 33 times as many votes for Green Party supporters to elect an MP as for SNP supporters, with big differences for Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats in between. Voters are cheated by the First-Past-The-Post system.

Ed Davey has committed himself to the cross-party campaign.    But what should be the first priority?   Persuading the Labour leadership to wake up, and accept the strong support of their membership for reform of elections to the Commons?   Or concentrate on extending the STV success in local authority elections in Scotland – now to be repeated in Wales – to ensure voters in England do not miss out?  

If the electoral system is the bedrock of our democracy, then surely some consistency throughout the UK is essential ?

Who Votes?

Liberal Democrats have long campaigned for votes for all citizens when they reach 16.  We led national efforts to extend the franchise for the 2014 Scottish Independence Referendum and were only thwarted by combined Conservative and Labour Peers when we pressed then for 16-year-olds to be able to vote in the 2016 EU Referendum.   Again, Scotland and Wales are leading the way, and the case for UK consistency is now overwhelming.

UK citizens working or living abroad are often affected by political decisions taken here – most notoriously on Brexit – but their representation is inadequate.  We want them to vote in separate constituencies so that they have MPs who are committed to looking after their particular interests.

Similarly, EU residents working and resident in the UK make a substantial contribution, not least with various local taxes, and should continue to be allowed to vote in local elections.

Subsidiarity

The imminent Devolution White Paper, we are told, will force through the amalgamation of two-tier councils to create more unitary authorities, all with the compulsory addition of elected mayors.   This looks suspiciously like centralisation rather than decentralisation, and is certainly not devolution. Whitehall retains the financial stranglehold, treating elected local representatives as simply a delivery mechanism for national policy priorities.

We have long championed subsidiarity = bringing decisions as close as possible to those who will be affected by them.  The present Government is moving in the opposite direction. 

The example of the SNP Government is also salutary.  Concentrating power at that level, with little devolution to lower tiers of governance at community levels, is no way to spread empowerment.

Transparency

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Lord William Wallace

Ditchley Lecture – Saturday, June 27th

By Lord William Wallace | Wed 1st July 2020 - 5:00 pm

Democracies can die. We’re witnessing authoritarian governments elsewhere in Europe undermining judicial independence, manipulating media, limiting parliamentary scrutiny of government actions and hobbling opposition activities. It couldn’t happen in Britain, could it? Are you sure?

Commitment to open society, toleration of diverse opinions and opposition, and effective checks and balances on government, are core elements in political liberalism. Constitutional and limited government was also a core element in Edmund Burke’s concept of Conservatism. Constitutional Clubs in English towns institutionalised the association between Conservative values and our unwritten conventions. But the government we have now has thrown much of that side of Conservatism away.

Michael Gove’s long and carefully-prepared Ditchley lecture, on Saturday, June 27th, had a populist and authoritarian tone. ‘This government was elected on the basis that it would be different from its predecessors’ – from Theresa May’s government as well as the rest. As David Frost explained in a similar lecture four months ago, the majority that Boris Johnson won last December (of seats, but not of course of votes) has given them the mandate to reject the Brexit package May was negotiating, and insist on a hard defence of the UK’s sovereignty from European influence. Gove sees this government as representing ‘the people’ – explicitly, the ‘forgotten’ people who provided the majority in 2016 – against the metropolitan elite: the ‘somewheres’ against the ‘anywheres’ (he quotes David Goodhart) who ‘tend to have different social and political values from other citizens.’

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Mike German

Mike German writes: Democracy, digital technologies and trust

By Mike German | Mon 29th June 2020 - 8:51 am

A new report from the House of Lords has shone a searchlight on the effect of online activity on the health of our democracy. Over the past year Paul Scriven and myself have been members of a Select Committee taking evidence, investigating the level of harm, and developing proposals for tackling this critical issue. As Liberals we see technology can be a tool to help spread power, and improve democracy. But that can only happen with the correct framework around it.

Trust in our democracy is being eroded. Our key conclusions are that democracy should be supported rather than undermined by technology platforms, and that misinformation poses a real and present danger to our democratic processes.

There have clear examples of dangerous misinformation online during this Covid-19 pandemic. The online references to the 5G network and its connection with the virus, led some people to damage the telecommunications infrastructure. Other spurious medical advice has abounded. In the last General Election the Tories changed their website for the day. They claimed it to be an authoritative source of independent information in which -guess what – the Tory policy was the only right course!

The net effect of online misinformation is to threaten our collective democratic health. It is damaging trust in our democracy and takes us on a downward path where no-one listens, and no-one believes what they read and see. The government has promised an Online Harms Bill, but progress is moving at a snail’s pace. Ministers have been unable to even say whether we will get the new law before 2024. It is clear to us that the Tories are running scared of tackling the big online platforms. Our report calls for OFCOM to be given the power to hold these platforms legally responsible for content which goes out to their huge audiences in the UK.

Trust in what you find online has declined. People, particularly those coming up to voting age (16 in Scotland and Wales – catch up England!) need the skills and confidence to navigate online and find sources they can rely on. Too much of our education curriculum is about computing skills and not critical digital literacy.

There are lessons for all political parties as well, but the report singles out the Tories and Labour for their inability to see problems within themselves. Political parties must be held accountable for what we say, if we are to gain and expect the trust of the British people.

Electoral law has simply not caught up with the impact of online activity.

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Paul Tyler

Paul Tyler writes: The Peers are Revolting or Who is Taking Back Control ?

By Paul Tyler | Mon 11th May 2020 - 8:55 am

A pause for thought: during the weekend of VE Day memorabilia were we celebrating 75 years of European peace, the retreat of fascism and the advance of parliamentary democracy ? Hopefully yes: realistically – in the case of the Brexiteers and their newspapers – NO !

And yet we have no cause for complacency. The UK is already looking as if we have reverted to being “the sick man of Europe” in terms of both our public health and the health of our democracy.

While in those 75 years the dictatorships of Western Europe have all collapsed, and effective representative democracy has taken their place, voters in Britain are increasingly marginalised and cheated. The Conservative manifesto in December 2019 aspired to make all votes of equal value: the actual result produced a ratio of inequality at the extremes of 33:1.

However, it is not just at elections that our representative democracy is under attack. Boris Johnson may choose to give a presidential-style address to the nation on a Sunday evening – to avoid questions and challenge from MPs – but we do not have a presidential constitution. He and his Government should be accountable to our Parliament, not the other way round.

No 10 obviously finds this inconvenient. Dominic Cummings is notorious for his disdain for Members of both Houses. MPs are already chaffing at the constraints that the combination of “virtual” exchanges and the business managers’ politicking are imposing.

The position in the Lords is far worse. Here, of course, there is no substantial Tory majority with plenty of lobby fodder to bully, and the response of Ministers to the Covid-19 emergency is under constant, sustained examination. And yet, there is no provision for effective scrutiny of legislation, let alone for votes on amendments, and the majority of Peers have been frozen out of debates or ludicrously squeezed by derisory time limits.

The response from Big Brother Cummings (the much more powerful BBC) has been to threaten that all Peers over 65 should be forcibly excluded.

That was too much for even the most tribal of Tories, and – led by former Cabinet Minister Michael Forsyth – a cross-party revolt resulted. Mr Cummings may think he can casually rip up the constitution, but that requires legislation.

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Jon Alexander

Now is the time to stand up as champions of deliberative democracy

By Jon Alexander | Mon 27th April 2020 - 12:47 pm

Our party is back on the right track. Covid seems to have brought us to our senses: the reaction of local parties, of MPs, and of peers to Covid has been impressive, and it does seem that there is a renewal of our central commitment to the idea of the empowered citizen as the most important element in a healthy politics.

The next step is to make ourselves the party of deliberative democracy, and to do so right now, by calling for a Covid Citizens’ Reference Panel to deliberate on and input into government policy as we transition over the …

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Mark Valladares

Daily View 2×2: 23 April 2020

By Mark Valladares | Thu 23rd April 2020 - 7:30 am

On this day in 1516, the Reinheitsgebot was enforced across all of Bavaria, stating that beer must be brewed from three ingredients only – water, malt and hops. And yes, Wilhelm IV, Duke of Bavaria was a bit of a stickler for purity, but that wasn’t a bad hill to die upon, was it?

2 big stories

Whilst the Job Retention Scheme appears to be operating smoothly thus far – noting that payments aren’t due to reach employers until next week – for the self-employed, there’s no news as to when their scheme will start. And the decision to have a ceiling …

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NewsHound

LibLink: Chuka Umunna: Dark and dangerous threats against MPs like me are a sign that No 10 and Cummings are getting utterly brazen

By NewsHound | Mon 21st October 2019 - 7:58 pm

The Government is reportedly investigating MPs who have had dialogue with representatives of foreign governments. It also intends to introduce legislation to stop MPs talking to foreign governments. In an article for the Independent, Chuka Umunna said that this had a whiff of the 1930s about it.

However, the right-wing nationalists running the government are now taking things to an altogether different level – this is quite frightening, particularly if they were to get a majority at the general election whenever it comes. They are seeking to persecute and harass MPs by falsely accusing them of colluding with EU governments over Brexit. It is an absurd proposition given that the EU27 and the UK government are all working to ensure the withdrawal agreement Johnson has negotiated with the EU is delivered, and he himself wrote to them over the weekend urging them to ignore parliament’s desire for article 50 to be extended.

This, he said, was a brazen attempt to suppress dissent.

These accusations are made to call into question our loyalty and patriotism. Former Conservative backbenchers and ministers Oliver Letwin and Dominic Grieve, and Brexit Select Committee chair and former Labour minister Hilary Benn are reportedly under investigation.

This has a strong whiff of the 1930s about it – it is a brazen attempt to suppress dissent and persecute political opponents in parliament by this right wing, nationalist government.

One foreign office official put it well today when they said: “Threatening MPs with investigation is something you would expect the government to be stopping abroad, not encouraging at home.”

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Caron Lindsay

The irony of the Tory Voter ID plans

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 16th October 2019 - 2:55 pm

Our democracy in this country is pretty much broken.

On one hand we have a government that constantly bangs on about the will of the people, whilst simultaneously doing its damnedest to undermining it.

The irony of that is not lost on me.

A Government that actually did care about the will of the people would make sure that the people got the parliament they asked for, for a start, by introducing a proportional system of voting. This is not boring constitutional stuff – we should be doing more to frame it as a fundamental issue of trust.

In recent years, the introduction of individual electoral registration has led to a severe democratic deficit. Just last month, Electoral Commission research showed that 17% of voters were not correctly registered.

That’s not far off one in five people, who are more likely to be young or from marginalised groups – and least likely to vote Conservative.

That is, surely, a much bigger problem than some confected spectre of “voter fraud” which is being used as a justification to bring in this measure.

The Electoral Reform Society has this to say on that subject:

Thankfully electoral fraud is very rare in the UK. Where voter fraud has occurred, it has been isolated and therefore is best tackled locally.

Out of 44.6 million votes cast in 2017, there was one conviction resulting from the 28 allegations of in-person voter fraud – that’s 0.000063%. Adding a major barrier to democratic engagement off the back of this would be a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

And our Tom Brake said that this measure was a blatant attempt at voter suppression and rig future elections:

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NewsHound

LibLink: Luisa Porritt MEP: Britain’s Democracy Gap

By NewsHound | Thu 10th October 2019 - 8:55 am

In an article for Politico, Deputy Leader of Britain’s Lib Dem MEPs Luisa Porritt argues that the behaviour of the British Government is damaging democracy in this country.

A British government that is threatening to march the country out of the European Union because it claims its institutions are “undemocratic” shut down its own country’s parliament last month. Prime Minister Boris Johnson uses incendiary language and accuses those who disagree with his Brexit policy of “terrible collaboration” with the EU.

Britain today is increasingly out of step with the basic principles of democracy it once would have championed.

The Brexiteers, ironically, decry the EU as undemocratic. That’s simply not true:

Compare that with what’s happening in Brussels. While my British parliamentary colleagues were shut out of their chamber against their will, members of the European Parliament have been pressing on with urgent issues.

The European Parliament is scrutinizing the incoming Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s new team and has taken a strong stand against nominees with potential conflicts of interest. MEPs have also set an ambitious agenda to tackle the climate emergency and ensure that the EU’s member states uphold the rule of law — something our own government needs reminding of.

How far, she notes, we have fallen:

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Hilton Marlton

Narcissm – Democracy’s Nemesis?

By Hilton Marlton | Tue 1st October 2019 - 12:55 pm

Jacinda Ardern’s empathic response to the bombing of a mosque in New Zealand in March this year made international headlines. The press went into a frenzy over her sensitive and visibly moved reactions to those affected by the tragedy.

It’s really telling of our age, that Ardern herself became the subject of the news when she was doing what any decent leader should be doing. We elect politicians to represent us, so surely the ability to sympathise and to imagine who we, the electorate are, what our needs, aspirations and vulnerabilities are, is a basic requirement of the job?

Why are we putting up with Johnson and Trump when we could have Ardern? We are living through an epidemic of manipulation on a global scale and there is a pattern to how we got to this point. It didn’t happen over night.

While some of my Brexit-weary friends are turning to G&T, baking or prayer, my pick me up has been Ramani Durvasala. Durvasala has been studying Trump’s seemingly erratic behaviour and is finding that it follows a set pattern. Each time Trump gets away with something outrageous, he goes one step further and the next unthinkable thing happens. Liberals are in a permanent state of shock and disbelief.

Trump, like his friends Johnston and Farage are narcissists. We hear the word bandied about quite a lot at the moment and while each of us has some degree of narcissism, at their most extreme, sociopathic narcissist have key behaviours in common. They:-

• lack empathy and compassion.
• are manipulative and will distort the truth to suit themselves
• think the law and rules are for others, not them
• are highly critical of others but don’t take criticism well themselves • are entitled and often pompous
• are quick to anger, rage and outbursts
• are superficial and shallow

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Joe Zammit-Lucia

We nearly lost our temper. But it worked out.

By Joe Zammit-Lucia | Mon 23rd September 2019 - 12:49 pm

I was recently at an event speaking to a couple of Liberal Democrat friends – let’s call them Tim and Fiona. A friend of mine, Roland, who is a Conservative Party supporter walked up to us with a broad grin on his face. “Well, your party’s gone and done it. It’s abandoned any pretence of being democratic; promising to reverse the result of the greatest democratic exercise this country has ever undertaken. Good for us. You’ll lose.”

I introduced Tim and Fiona and Tim started to respond.

He started talking about only implementing the change if the party got an absolute majority. …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 23 Comments
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