Jury Team - The Verdict

Today sees the launch via the Times of a new concept in politics. No Parties, No policies, just lots of 'Independent' MP's and MEP's.

The Jury Team, as it is to be known, is the brainchild of former Tory grandee and captain of industry Sir Paul Judge. He has written a book, 'The End of the Party', railing against the abuse of democracy and government by the partisan system.

The concept is an interesting one, lots of independents representing the people rather than a Party. So what exactly will these 'Independents' be representing, themselves or the wishes of their constituents?.

Those who vote for them will know that 1 individual at least has put up a platform, but 1 out of many hundreds of other independents who may have, or probably will have other interests, will have put up a completely different platforms. I am afraid that 1 MP or MEP will never be heard, will never change anything, will never have an impact on, anything.

We know within the Libertarian Party, and I suggest that it is no different in other Parties, that to coalesce thoughts and ideas into policies that can be presented to the electorate is a difficult path. With so many strands of Libertarianism it has been likened to herding cats, but we have managed to put together a manifesto that reflects good Libertarian principled values, and we can speak with one voice in explaining those values.

Jury Team tell us that beyond signing up to the sleaze busting, "our candidates pick their own policies and would be completely un-whipped". So what exactly would voters be voting for?.

Have we grown so used to government lacking policy ideas that we want to create just that on purpose?. Looking at Westminster, 646 Independent MP's means 646 different ideas on how a country should be governed, but then maybe that's the idea. Divide and Rule is very EU.

Surely this is the dawn of post democratic Britain, a communitarian dream, and to leave it totally open to 646 MP's who don't have a clue where they are going beyond transparency is a recipe for sheer chaos, vested interests and corruption.

I could not support someone who didn't know where they were going, could not tell me why, but only wanted to let me know that when they got there, wherever that may be, they would like to let me know they did so honestly.

Their initial stance of cleaning up sleaze, making politicians more accountable, making the system more directly democratic, and trying to make government more transparent, are all policies to be found in the Libertarian Manifesto, and whilst for Jury Team this is very admirable, then what? This is surely the same problem that UKIP has always had, out of Europe, then what?

After cleaning up Westminster, do they just sit around twiddling their thumbs? Waiting for the EU to tell them to rubber stamp some more legislation, providing the now leaderless, rudderless British with a continual stream of ever more regulation, ever more costly solutions to problems that don't exist, that lines the pockets of the vested interests of those who have lobbied the EU Commission for the next set of rules. Whatever the EU commission wants, it will get. I will let Gunter Verheugen, Vice-President of the European Commission explain.

The kind of politics that Jury Team are presenting is clearly the next step in the EUropeanisation of the UK. They have pretty much destroyed our National identity, they have worked well to destroy the national will and fabric of our heritage, and now they will destroy our ability to speak out, to challenge, to defy, to oppose through government by destroying the Party Political system.

Is this to be the future, powerless individual figures who will, because they do not have that strength of unity or purpose, merely have to enact whatever is put before them.

Without a purpose, without a coherent vision that the voting public can debate and support, and without a single collective voice these 'Independents' may just as well take a fishing boat into the North Sea and shout the odds in every direction from afar, because no-one in Europe will be listening.

MP's following party policies you can vote in, and you can vote them out again if you don't like how they govern, but the EU you can never vote out.

It should be remembered that within the EU it is the EU Commission that draws up legislation, not the EU parliament. Even with the strongest of Party blocs in the EU parliament it is difficult to oppose and debate to raise amendments, but without that Party system, without policies that guide that Party and the governance that they represent, you are no longer governed at all, you are ruled.

Yes, it is an interesting concept, but a concept that is founded in Communitarianism, a concept that means you will lose your freedom to choose the way that Britain is governed in the way you want it governed, this is a concept that is to surrender to the will of the EU forever.

Sir Paul Judge tells us:

We need to make our democracy more open, our politicians more accountable, and our government more transparent. That won't happen as long as the party oligarchies retain a stranglehold on our democratic choices.

Yes Sir Paul, we do need to make our democracy more open, yes our politicians need to be more accountable, but surrendering our ability to protect our democratic choices to the EU is not the way to do it.

 

.