by John Ward
Yet more evidence is emerging to confirm a growing belief among thinking Brits: that both major Parties will do anything – sign away sovereignty, restrict democracy, lie incessantly and connive with malign Superstate interests – to gain power for themselves. An overly broad grant of political power is the antithesis of free speech. Those who value it should now join together in defending it.
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In an astonishing drift towards Soviet democracy, 300 council seats in England have been guaranteed for one party or individual before a single ballot has been cast, weeks before the May 2nd polling day.
The closed shop of shoo-in candidates affects around 850,000 voters across Britain. 150 councillors will win their seats without a single vote being cast. In these wards the candidates are running uncontested meaning these candidates ‘win’ their seats automatically. And Parties or independent candidates have also been guaranteed an additional 152 seats, as multi-member wards go ‘under-contested’ – i.e. where a lack of competition means that at least 1 seat in the ward is guaranteed for a particular party or independent candidate.
The scandal of 21st century Rotten Boroughs has come to light thanks to painstaking research carried out by the Electoral Reform Society (ERS). And the most telling statistic is this one:
While the Conservative Party will get 137 of these undercontested seats, Labour will get just 2 (two)
This is because the Labour Party accepts that, in many Wards, FPTP leaves them with no chance of winning. Yet they appear not to be worried about giving their supporters zero choice at local level. In fact, from the Leader downwards, they oppose any move away from FPTP. How curious that a Party so often using “democracy” as its watchword should be so unconcerned about a lack of it.
In truth, the bigger constitutional issue remains the same as always: the appalling “waste” of democratically cast votes under England’s FPTP system. Since moving to a proportional voting system [STV} for local elections in 2007, uncontested seats have almost completely disappeared in Scotland.
Describing the situation as “a worrying number of ‘one party states’, safe seats and electoral wastelands…..a disaster for faith in politics”, ERS Chief Executive Darren Hughes added, “It’s time we brought the era of rotten boroughs to a close, by scrapping the broken first-past-the-post system in England and ensuring there is always real competition. A more proportional system would end the crisis of local ‘one party states’ and open up our politics at last.”
The Welsh government is currently consulting on allowing councils to switch to a more proportional voting system. But no such plans are afoot for England.
Let’s just try and imagine why that might be.
At the last General Election, 318 Tory seats were in England – as were 206 Labour seats. In short, the vast majority of their electable support under FPTP comes from the allegedly Green and Pleasant Land. If the duopoly loses that right to throw away enemy votes, it’s curtains for the Establishment. For the Conservatives in particular, the Rotten Borough situation in local elections means that any caning they get next month will be massively understated.
Nevertheless, speaking to The Slog this morning, ERS comms officer Jon Narcross said, “While ‘democracy deserts’ are a very bad thing, the process of breakdown of the Labour and Tory duopoly is already well under way, with now roughly 40% of voters not declaring themelves as supporters of either Party”.
This is an astute observation….and perhaps all the more reason why the Duopoly in general (and Corbyn in particular) will do anything to gain power while there is still a chance. The cynicism involved in this shoud not be underestimated. I am often asked, for instance, why – after seven long years of lobbying – the Labour leadership still refuses to make any kind of commitment to the Waspi/2020/Back to 60 victims of utterly amoral State Pension fund embezzlement.
The answer is made clear by this startling table:
Put simply, electors over 60 are almost three times more likely to vote Tory than Labour. Labour’s big core group is no longer based on class: it is overwhelmingly skewed under 30….hence the Labour push to reduce the voting age to 16: a completely ill-advised and ethically muddled idea which would bring huge voting benefits to them alone.
This only adds weight my previous analyses here: If the Brexit Party makes a firm commitment to reverse the State Pension Age “reforms” (and signs an electoral pact with UKIP) it could go a long way to defeating FPTP without reforming it beforehand. And the intelligent use of tactical voting software could well clinch that.
Referring back to the table above, on that basis around 2.5 million votes could be added to the Brexit Party haul and guided to the best tactical vote in every constituency.
Of course, all this begs the question that, if older people are more likely to vote for Brexit and be disillusioned with Tory cynicism, why is the Conservative Party so happy to sell Britain out?
For me, the logical explanation is that May and her Whitehall chums foresee the UK breaking up into separate EU regions. And if that happens, come what may England will be dominated by Tory neoliberalism for a decade to come….after which, all elections will be for MEPs, not MPs.
There is an enormous amount at stake here, and the British People must not allow petty squabbles and engorged egos to let the antidemocratic ideologues of all colours cement their power far into the future. The higher-order philosophical issue of Personal Destiny Control (PDC) remains the real fight we have on our hands.
The technocrats have stormed the gates, and are on their way to sack the Senate. The globalists have bought the politicians and hired the Civil Servants. The bankers are suppressing the price of gold prior to hoovering it up for themselves. And the new hemegonous colonialists are at work everywhere to ensure their control of resources and surveillance is total.
The hour of midnight is at hand.