by Philip Allott, Professor of International Law
Editor’s Note: Philip Allott is an elder statesman at Trinity College, Cambridge. This article appeared at prospectmagazine.co.uk on February 19, 2019. Bolding added by Gumshoe.
It is said that a majority of members of parliament want the UK to remain in the EU. They can make that happen quite simply. Chaos on 29th March can be avoided by extending the period of negotiation. The notification of the UK’s intention to withdraw from the EU can be withdrawn at any time. Why don’t they do it?
For those of us condemned to watch the strange goings-on in the House of Commons, it is a deep mystery. We all know that liberal democratic politics is its own mind-world, its own team-game, but we the people have the right to intervene occasionally and to ask for some sort of an explanation of what is going on.
When the whole future of the country is at stake, say under a threat of war or as now, our right is also a duty. We may make a valiant effort to stay calm, but we cannot allow things to carry on as they are.
We immediately discount the possibility that members of parliament are showing loyalty to the prime minister or the leader of the opposition. The votes in parliament have in effect been free votes. And the two political leaders are puzzling figures, strangely isolated, incapable of leading anyone anywhere.
The prime minister is set on her lonely and obsessive path of giving effect to what she calls the “will of the people,” even if the rest of us have not the slightest idea what the will of the people now is, given all that has happened, and all that we have learned, since June 2016.
The leader of the opposition is practising something that might be called unleading, that is to say, not sharing any particular policy in the matter with anyone, even with those who might normally be expected to follow in his wake.
The public debate has also been unusual. British politics in the past was haunted at different times by problems that involved ideas. The ambiguities of imperialism, the perennial problem of Ireland, pacifism in the First World War, the general strike of 1926, and, in the 1930’s, the temptation of Soviet communism and the clash of ideologies in the Spanish Civil War. They were times when an unusual intellectual seriousness found its way into the pragmatic and deeply untheoretical normality of British politics.
We are increasingly bad at discussing big ideas collectively.The debate about our future in the EU has been an extreme instance of that. The nature of liberal democratic politics has changed in recent years. The full cases for leaving or remaining in the EU have never been set out. Very local political argument has swamped what is really a problem of global politics.
There are those who believe that liberal democratic politics is in a state of terminal decline—not only institutionally, but also substantively. The old relative certainties of the rule of law, checks and balances, public opinion, and periodic elections are not working well, and have lost implicit respect. They have worked very badly in relation to Brexit, an immensely complicated problem of politics and law.
The referendum of June 2016 was unusual, perhaps unique, in the practice of constitutional referendums across the world, in that it asked an abstract question, not seeking approval of a legally formulated government proposal. This has meant that the ensuing public debate has been formless.
The government has not enlightened public opinion with analyses of the implications of the alternatives. The thinking of think tanks has been dismissed as parti pris. Public debate has been religious in a bad sense. The dogmatic assertion of articles of faith with crude intolerance of opposing arguments, reflecting the new tragic ethos of public debate on social media. Above all, the full weight of the case for remaining in the EU has never been deployed.
Since the end of the British Empire, Britain has not found how to place itself in a world that directly and unavoidably determines its survival and prosperity, a place that we cannot safely occupy in isolation, but which we can choose to share with our near and very close neighbours in Europe.
The highest responsibility of a British government is the survival and prosperity of the British people, a duty that goes far beyond everyday politics. It surely cannot be a wise course for our government to undertake obscure international obligations that will lead, in a first phase, to our more or less powerless dependence on the EU, and, in a second phase, to our becoming a minor economic colony of some economic great power or powers, and, in a third phase, to the possible disuniting of the United Kingdom itself.
It is the job of parliament to change the course set by government when it is a course that threatens our ultimate national interests.
Philip Allott was the Legal Counsellor in the British Permanent Representation to the European Communities at the time of UK accession. His most recent book is Eutopia: New Philosophy and New Law for a Troubled World, first published to mark the 500th anniversary of Thomas More’s Utopia
Does it not mean anything in a so called democratic society that the people have spoken in a referendum? Why do politicians espouse democracy at nearly every opportunity, but when that democratic vote goes against what they want, then all of a sudden democracy is wrong.
In all wars this century we have been told they were to bring democracy to these undemocratic countries such as Libya, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and soon to Iran. Why would these countries want to change to act as their Western neighbours do? To lie cheat and rip off their people.
I just look on with intrigue at this wonderful game of nth-degree checkers.
A couple of sentences that grabbed my attention and made me read on with somewhat guarded skepticism …
“The old relative certainties of the rule of law, checks and balances, public opinion, and **periodic elections are not working well, and have lost implicit respect**.” [see Aussiemal’s comment – so democracy is not working now?]“The ambiguities of … **pacifism in the First World War** …” [as in peaceful babies on bayonets??]
Reading this sent my mind racing back to this gem – Winston Churchill on “World Government”
Churchill says here: “This inevitable structure of regional groupings is coming into being.”
Nobody threw a shoe. We need more shoe-throwing.
Churchill was there to get “the Hugo Grotius award”. It should really go to Philip Allott, whose new book Eutopia does not mean “Eu-rope” and is quite the life’s work.
Another winning strategy from a puppet master(always in control of parliament) like Churchill.
Everybody just go about uselessly, have endless stalemates and make out the system just can not cope with a modern society like the EU.
Keeps them all busy so the wheels can get on with locking down more wanted by humans for human activities. The outcome is not important, its the long useless, distracting journey thats important.
“The outcome is not important, it’s the long useless, distracting journey that’s important.”
So back on the question of Brexit – and more particularly the hope for any Brexit resolution under their current prime minister …
Boris Johnson praising the White Helmets and providing £65 million!
But see here for background on White helmets…
https://21stcenturywire.com/2018/07/05/white-helmets-the-eton-mess/
From here
https://21stcenturywire.com/tag/White-Helmets/page/3/
… “the long useless, distracting journey” …
I am quoting from Allott, above (whom I greatly trust and admire):
“… we the people have the right to intervene occasionally and to ask for some sort of an explanation of what is going on.
“When the whole future of the country is at stake, say under a threat of war or as now, our right is also a duty. We may make a valiant effort to stay calm, but we cannot allow things to carry on as they are.”
Gumshoe has been asking for an explanation of what is going on in Australia in regard to the child-stealing courts. In the US I have just found out that it has been going on since the 1970s. The public is completely unaware of the phenomenon (although the Internet is helping somewhat).
I agree with Allott that “we cannot allow things to carry on as they are.” — Even to make such as statement is very useful. It is radical. (!!)
“It is also a duty….”
Thank you Mary – I defer to your vast and superior wisdom which I trust and admire. At least we raised some good talking points. 😊
BTW, speaking of generating talking points – did you hear that Hamza bin Laden has been “killed in a United States counterterrorism operation in the Afghanistan/Pakistan region.”
Apparently his father “masterminded 911” – I heard it on the ABC radio.
I knew nuttin’.
Someone, please give us an article about the bro of OBL who met with Poppy the day before 9-11, as regards their mutual cash in Carlyle group. I think his name is Salim. (Possibly it is Webster Tarpley who investigated it.)
The factor of Hamza is well hidden in the lit. And remember the video on “Fatty bin Laden”? I can’t research it as I am supposed to be concentrating on Boston. Maybe I can ask for back pay as an undercover agent….
Fish, what did Hamza mastermind? (Ask ABC.)
Off-topic
This is for Phil Hingston:
For me the two sentences deserving highlighting are: “The government has not enlightened public opinion with analyses of the implications of the alternatives.” And “Above all, the full weight of the case for remaining in the EU has never been deployed.”
The problem with Brexit is that Britain was incrementally and by stealth subsumed into the EU without the informed consent of the people. Once that fact and its consequences became at least somewhat clear, a majority of people wanted out. But they should never have been sucked into it in the first place.
The article does highlight what seems to me to be an increasingly common phenomenon in the west namely that every election is not only “an advanced auction of stolen goods” but “for all the marbles”, insofar as it has become clear that if the left win, they will enforce “whole hog” their radical globalist agendas, from which western societies may never recover – like the “Green New Deal”.
Conservatives, who hitherto in victory would generally allow people, including those who didn’t vote for them, to simply get on with their lives in whatever fashion suits them, are become acutely aware of the lunatic left’s intentions to go back to Year Zero, Pol Pot style if they win. For the left’s devotion to globalism means that if they win, they will do everything to do away with national sovereignty. As such, every election IS “for all the marbles”. In the case of Brexit, as the author points out, the vote was for the very future existence of Britain as a sovereign nation.
Mary and the other law-talking-guys on this site – I seek your comment on this quasi-legal analogy – but my feeling is that in cases where the very existence/sovereignty of a “democratic” nation is at stake, we are leaving the realm of the civil onus – of “balance or probabilities” – and entering the serious realm where the onus required is “beyond reasonable doubt.”
By that I mean if any nation – whether it be Britain, Australia, Japan or Indonesia – is considering foregoing its sovereignty and being subsumed into a greater identity, for instance into the UN, that there must be a plebiscite giving consent greater than 51%. Maybe must be 95% in favour?
Imagine it being proposed that Australia be subsumed into some greater Asian Federation including Indonesia and Malaysia and 51% vote in favour – abandoning us 49% who want to keep our country?
Now that would be like two wolves and a sheep voting on what’s for dinner!
Obviously brexit was the vote TPTB did not want. It is still a dog’s breakfast years after the intial vote, and in that time Australia had the ‘marriage equality’ vote decided, and legislation enacted (very quickly, despite a very divided parliament)
But we probably all know that the Australian government would not even have made this a referendum if it didn’t think people would vote yes.
What was the best argument for marriage equality? Let’s get it done.
I can’t wait for the next generation of damaged adults as a result of Gay Marriage Laws V1.0
Yes Justin, and as I and others predicted several years ago – following through the open gate from the social acceptance of SSM, the “normalisation” of paedophilia, which has been introduced stealthily and incrementally to date, is now uncloaking. If you dare even think about stopping convicted sex-offenders from dressing as drag queens and playing horsey with your children in our public libraries, you will be charged with a hate crime.