The Disproportionate Political Power Defining The State of Britain

From a party that had only one MP to a sect within a party, whose leadership candidate could barely muster single digit support within the party, disproportionate political power has been shaping British politics for some time and is now crippling it. UKIP have lost their only MP today, with Douglas Carswell quitting the party to continue as an independent MP.

The plaything of a wealthy backer, UKIP so unnerved the Conservative Party that they wrong-footed the Tories into acceding to their single political goal of taking Britain out of the European Union. Well, not entirely true. The Tories arrogance borne out of their compromising relationship with corrupting media barons led the Tories to believe that they could do as they pleased in government and the outcome was that they wrong-footed themselves. Undoubtedly, the political minnow of UKIP has been raised to well above its station or political importance by a fawning media that has inexplicably given a platform to UKIP and their single political goal that they have never deserved. The BBC’s Question Time has become a running joke and lost any credibility because of the frequency with which it has hosted the party. Along with the hapless Tory party, no other organisation is more responsible for the disastrous ‘brexit’ than the BBC, in their failure to hold either the Tories or UKIP accountable during the EU referendum campaigns, playing lickspittles to wealthy backers who pull the strings in the Tories and UKIP.

What Of Britain’s Opposition?

Within Labour, Labour’s Right, the remnants or descendants of the failed social neoliberal experiment of New Labour, are backed by wealthy patrons, which is the constant theme in the compromising effect on British politics of disproportionate political power. It is Labour’s Right that has fueled the current dissent within Labour, which has been undermining leaderships since 2007, and has been snatching defeat from the jaws of victory since David Cameron and his Tory shambles lost their EU referendum in 2016. Figures from Labour’s Right are, uncoincidentally, the most featured Labour figures on the BBC.

While the Labour leadership have twice been presented with a democratic mandate to lead the party, Labour’s minority sect have persisted in undermining the party’s democracy in their attempt to seize control of it.

It is remarkable that the Right in Labour see democracy as the enemy, even inspiring raving suggestions of conspiracies, but their fear of democracy is understandable when they are incapable of winning democratic elections. Last years Labour leadership election was marred by the Right’s gerrymandering and exclusions of voters in their attempt to overcome democracy; a shameful episode in Labour’s history.

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It is also worth mentioning that the minority LibDem party has not escaped the compromising of wealthy patrons, subjected, as they have been, to the attentions of the oft time Labour donor, Lord Sainsbury. Sainsbury’s political interest in the LibDems seemingly timed to his diminished influence in the Labour party since the current leadership have begun to move political influence away from wealthy donors and towards the democracy of its membership.

What Of Britain?

What cripples Britain is the disproportionate political power that a wealthy minority can buy. Within Britain’s opposition, wealthy patrons own and resource a sect who undermine the democratically elected leadership. Within Britain’s media, media barons control, influence and compromise the integrity of ‘news’ reporting, including that of the state broadcaster, so that its news output serves their interests, not the public’s. In government, we have the Tories, an engine of political corruption by wealthy minority interests.

It is of interest that the current Labour leadership are attempting to move Labour towards the democratic representation of its membership, a membership that anyone is entitled to join, and away from the minority interests of wealthy patrons. The vehemence of the opposition towards the current leadership and their stand for party democracy should be of little surprise but the public are guided to scoff at the leadership, even as doing so acts against their own best interests.

This week Theresa May plans to trigger Article 50 and begin the process of extracting Britain from the European Union. That such a constitutional change of this magnitude is being conducted by a party so riven by compromise and corruption, wrong-footed into acting by its own arrogance and the disproportionate political power bought to serve the interests of a minority of wealthy individuals, should alone be ringing alarm bells. The fact that the Tories face criminal investigations into election fraud and could well have had no authority to have conducted their EU referendum in the first place is even more alarming for those who oppose the action.

Britain stands on the precipice of change, a change driven by minority interests, bought and paid for by those who are seeking to further satisfy their own interests and bank balances. It will not be leaving the EU that will cripple Britain but permitting British politics to be dominated by those who buy disproportionate political power.