Page 1 of The Harrogate Agenda: "Demands for governance by the people for the people":-
"The original aim of the Chartists was to reform the political system to make it more democratic. And, although five of their six demands were eventually conceded, their work was not done. The system, although improved, is still very far from democratic. Thus we seek to continue their work, with another six demands, which we intend to be the focus of a new political movement."
On 1st October, 2016, I attended a meeting for The Harrogate Agenda. To choose one single subject to define the heart of the meeting: Power. There was some very deliberate and defined discussion at one point in the meeting concerning Demand 4: The Peoples Consent with respect to the mechanics of power. On the one side you have The Peoples Consent requirement to legislation proposed by Parliament and on the other hand you have Parliament's Consent to legislation proposed by people, which sparked a number of questions: Who then holds true power if the "right of proposal" is curtailed"? Or how is power truly restrained? There's more on this (see the website link above) on Page 14-.
This example is at the heart of the movement mentioned here and in the above passage all within the ambit of Power:-
Reform
More democratic
Continue their work
Six Demands
new political movement
It seems to me that The Chartists helped build some of the foundations of democracy, but the work is incomplete. And to complete this work or continue it, I think what is required is "people with skills" in political processes. The ability to develop these skills and educate more people with these skills, is I think the essence of real power in politics.
Much is made today, for example today's Daily Politics, just the latest example of types of power:-
Money (eg funding sources)
Vote Count (eg MPs per party) - this one mentioned
It's tempting to explore so much more and to elaborate on the ideas behind these basic ideas on power so much more, too. But to keep this report succinct: If we stop and consider that maybe our present politics really does revolve around such accepted notions of power as summarized above, then a consideration of where we are at with respect to political change as it exists today, may be in order:-
In times of transition or change, new problems arise. Not only are these new problems to solve, but old ways of viewing problems may themselves become problems too?
When you translate the above "viewing" into how the politicians "view" peoples current problems you end up with the type of "party speeches" that have been aired in the past few days, the usual fodder dolled out year on year:-
'Building a bigger, better, fairer more inclusive society'
'Those at the bottom neglected will be included again'
'We will regain control of immigration, housing, economy and...'
I don't even know, the monotone sound-bites filtered through the way politics is currently viewed according to the context of who has power and who is perceived to hold power. Apparently to then resolve/solve problems through that power that's filtered through the above channels.
Nowhere was this more in evidence than the Referendum on the EU. My assertion is this: The Leave Alliance affliation provided all the tools and much of the education for people to learn to skill themselves up for the Referendum, freely available: Power effectively was being given to people for free! What was potentially possible for people to acquire Real Power ie exercise Real Democracy was almost completely squandered and replaced by the vast majority of people cleaving to the above forms of power - in the hands of "The Few"!
Hence, in my opinion, at The Harrogate Agenda meeting, there was the feeling of being dwarfed by the scale of the problem: If this is such a good idea, why hasn't it already been done before, a "sanity check" style of question?
Interestingly, The Chartists already did attempt this, as stated before! And by the very means of perceived power of their time, too:-
"The strategy employed was to use the scale of support which these
petitions and the accompanying mass meetings demonstrated to put
pressure on politicians to concede manhood suffrage. Chartism thus relied on constitutional methods to secure its aims..."
What did they rely on that made them successful? I think if there is going to be any kind of success, for The Harrogate Agenda, then finding out what "this" is, will be essential; if it isn't already known? For more discussion on the challenges understanding this, Scribblings From Seaham provides further commentary:-
How strange: Politics is taking on the same reality as "quantum observation".
In the previous posts I've struggled to find a way of "unifying details with concepts" in such a way that at any level of a debate "communication remains useful".
In many of the previous blog posts I've failed: Either due to lack of time to both organize thoughts and present them effectively or else I've reached the severe limits of my own slowly growing understanding; which has been conveyed instead of the actual veracity of the subject itself. "Shit happens": Many more mistakes than correct answers in all things; many possibilities - until we correctly observe one fact and it then defines a component of what we call "reality".
But it all depends on first becoming observable: Before then politicians can spin the reality and suggest "anything is possible". What do we agree on that is observable equally and repeatedly? And just as relevant what happens when that breaks down? Let's see.
Additionally most of the blogs I've written have been dealing with an environment where there is a lack of such conceptual cohesion; namely different observers are appearing to be observing different things when they talk about armies of details interacting aimlessly! The last two days has seen Andrew Neill very usefully erase some of the deceptions over:-
Figures to describe how much legislation Norway adopts
How bogus many figures relating to gains or loses of Brexit
If a number such as 3m jobs can be abused for over 10 years without being cleared up or again "Fax Democracy", again for over 10 years then we have some seriously basic and deeply fundamental problems in the representation of reality politicians are offering to people: If they cannot help people make democratic decisions, but hinder them, what use are they?
This may sound very "fanciful" presently, but we shall see. However with that first sentence, I have succeeded in verbalizing the core aim of this blog all along, if not it's full application - yet! Read it again, then continue.
In this blog I want demonstrate:-
Provide examples of a "fragmented reality" of our debate on Brexit and the EU Referendum - a void of such "unity of thought".
Aieee!! Cloud Storm at Bondi Beach, Sydney: A clear edge is observable between sunlight and darkness
In general any "reform" sounds like a positive action or decision to take. Something has gone slightly wrong; what was clear and bright has become clouded and dark. Surely "reform" can lead us back to the light again?
This is applied in politics so often but it's misapplied in the case of the EU because it's never clearly observed accurately as to what is the EU? We know from The Great Deception what it is. We know the next Treaty is to increase the Political nature of the EU: That is it's reality. We've seen under Fisheries how this really does exist in all the details and recorded history in pointing to this consistent trend.
Perhaps in all our arguments, they must start with defining this reality so that it narrows down all "possibilities"? And here we see that once we do do that, we remove a lot of so-called uncertainty fabricated by the politicians. That is not removing risks (yet), but it is defining clearly that in all likihood the UK is not going to be travelling in this direction. Our Prime Minister through much phony and fraudulent behaviour demonstrates this with his The best of both worlds: the United Kingdom’s special status in a reformed European Union.
2. Deception & "Uncertainty"
Four Stages in a Bubble Creation
We can use the above idea of "bubbles" to demonstrate an intuitive feel for the progress of the UK's membership of the EU:-
Stealth Phase: Multiple evidence of deception of our government in the 1960's culminating with Heath's "No loss of Sovereignty nor Single Currency" merely a "Common Market" only.
Awareness Phase: It seems Margaret Thatcher became aware of this at the end of her PM time and was booted out of power consequentially via Howe and Heseltine amongst others.
Mania Phase: The crazy assertion that during Blair's time in office we might actually join the EURO, his intentions to be at the centre of Europe (the new paradigm of an end to boom and bust and signing the newly rebranded EU Constitution - the zenith of the EU as we'll likely see.
Blow off Phase: We're at the beginning of this, the first "denial" was with Greece but it was another illusion so we "return to normal" for the time being but the wide discrepancy between the valuation of EU membership and the deepening fragility with the center of the EU in the eurozone:-
"Independent experts estimate the benefits of being in the EU are worth
£3,000 a year to the average UK household - due to lower prices and more
jobs, trade and investment. (Source: CBI)"
Interestingly that last type of argument harks back to "the price of bread" if we don't remain a member of the EEC (Common Market), to which it actually went up. Again there is a deception at the root, here. It's fascinating watching the faces of the likes of Will Straw arguing these details, fabricating a reality, trying to make it exist in the minds of others, too. Likewise the Leave's figure of around 6-700£.
3. False Simple Narratives
"Don't Mention Europe!"
At some point in the 1960's, a section of the senior tier of office of state of the UK decided that the UK was going to join the EEC (EU) and that people would be led to that decision. What we see with the this particular narrative which is an over-simplification of a complex and messy web of causative and stoicastic interactions is that the origin deception over the nature of the EU Supranational project has lead to continued uncertainty in British politics, as the EU added more and more Treaties and this spills out into some of the politicians.
But where it spills into the politicians, the symptoms as per John Cleese above, what is not explained is the actual illness itself, which again John Cleese above is suffering some form of mental breakdown which explains the "bad behaviour".
A simple way to confirm this is that the EU has dominated politics and influences all areas of British politics subsequently via the UK's own institutions, the same under Labour or Tories or a Tory-LibDem coalition. The idea that sides of the argument really matter is merely the narrative simplification that takes over from so much analysis, constructive criticism and reasoned, calm debate. Personalities such "Boris" or "Cameron" etc dominate instead of the actual arguments.
4. Paradigm Shift of Iterative Withdrawal
There's glimmers of "informative learning" (productively) now the subject is experiencing high and higher exposure
It's interesting to note that a lot of economists complain about risk, uncertainty, "could".
google.co.uk/search?q=Brexit+could
Again if we go back to the original Supranational EU, we consider that we don't want to be a part of as Owen Paterson calls it "A new country called Europe," (though it has many challenges ahead to realize this future, ie it's full of even more uncertainty than Brexit). If we define this correctly then that leaves The Single Market (EEA) or European Economic Area and a gradual withdrawal over time from the EU upon leaving.
We see confidence is shaky, there is some de-stabilization, but this acknowledgement of the problem and it's nature allows us to consider a post-Brexit environment after this flux as a "facilitating environment" as we gradually lead to re-orientation with both a Single Market trade relationship with Europe (x31 members) and an increasingly global one too.
As is suggested the green line leads to a removal of uncertainty (loss of confidence and morale). Without acknowledging this what we have is our own government providing it's report Alternatives to membership: possible models for the United Kingdom outside the European Union framed entirely incorrectly that will sustain "uncertainty", Supranationalism, deception, false simple narratives: These concepts rule the details in debates endlessly in the legacy news-media. This surreal political unreality.
And supported in this delusion we have the Leave Campaigns:-
Tier 2 = Supranationalism (Remain) or Intergovernmentalism (Leave)
Tier 3 = based on: Logical and Reasoned Arguments
Tier 4 = linking policy Details with Concepts (T2).
Tier 5 = The Complete Market Solution applied successfully to democracy for the first time in >40 years.
Tier 1 is all the work voters have to do as democratic citizens of the UK. All their decisions can be framed between Tier 2 the 2 alternative paradigms which can be effected as a successful paradigm shift via FLEXCIT using Tier 3 an iterative or gradual withdrawal from the EU via The Market Solution. This in turn is backed up by Tier 4 observable evidence of details of essential policy areas that in turn affect everyone in Britain in the past, the present and the future.
What is Tier 5? Reconnecting the British Political Reality to a democratic reality. A better way to make decisions for the nation?
Conclusions
What is becoming more observable is that a lot of the work in FLEXCIT is actually turning into political reality, several years later than when it was published. It might be worth compiling a list of these... If there's one thing in my opinion that will help, it's in providing a conceptual model that fits the details into a context that is conducive to a direct real democratic vote on it.
Any question that asks how you might vote, is worth plugging into this unity between the concepts and the details. Any detail will create accumulatively the concepts and the concepts will order the details.
In the next blog I want demonstrate:-
Consolidate the examples of Fisheries in demonstrating how useful such a
unity of thought can be to a specific policy, extensible in applying to the full range of the arguments across policies that make the total choice for voters comprehensible.
