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Diary of a (Maybe) Retired Pastor

Tag: Reform

  • Where’s The Outrage?

    mayberetiredpastor

    Where’s The Outrage? – Reform’s Accidental Recruiter!

    To make an apt answer is a joy to anyone,
        and a word in season, how good it is!

    The Book of Proverbs 15:23, Old Testament, The Bible.

    The appalling performance of the Labour Party in the recent local elections in England  has resulted in a serious challenge to the Prime Minister’s leadership (1). The overwhelming message from voters during the local elections was that the Labour Party had been given a huge majority in the general election in order to bring about radical change. But, instead of radical change, what the country saw was just more of the same. And the blame was pinned clearly and solely on the Prime Minister. Consequently, there is now a leadership contest in progress (albeit with glacial slowness but soon to gather speed).

    Amidst all the commentary and analysis, one aspect of Keir Starmer’s (the Prime Minister) leadership since taking over the party leadership that has not received much comment is his clear bias (I believe unintentional) in favour of the Jewish community. His outrage and anger against any antisemitic activity is clear and public. But when it comes to other communities he is strangely subdued if not silent. Most conspicuously, of course, during the war against Gaza the very cautious criticism of Israel’s actions seemed ludicrously out-of-step with the enormity of the suffering being inflicted at will by Israel. One felt that, David Lammy, as the Foreign Secretary, was chafing at the bit in parliament, longing to go much further in his criticism yet constrained by his office and the Prime Minister.

    Because he is the Prime Minister, this bias has significant consequential  effects in the country. The running political story of this parliament has been the rise of Reform. Reform follows an ancient  path to achieving political success. By focussing on dissatisfaction and anxiety in the country and offering a simple scapegoat it draws large numbers of people. Fundamentally, Reform divides the country into “them” and “us”. Inevitably, this provides a forum for racist tinged thinking, and, sometimes, explicit racist comment.  What one looks for from the government of the day, is a counter-narrative that unites rather than divides. Unfortunately, Keir Starmer’s bias serves only to divide the nation further, not only through his personal comments but through the policy actions taken by his government.

    Strong condemnation of antisemitism is right and appropriate, but so is condemnation of Islamophobia. Keir Starmer’s consistent failure to condemn rising Islamophobia with the same vigour and outrage as he does antisemitism divides the nation as corrosively as Reform’s “them” and “us” populism.  The proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation by the Home Secretary at the time when Israel was visibly intent on destroying all Gaza will only be read in one way by those who watch with horror the destruction of Muslim lives. One journalist (2) has written of Keir Starmer’s “tin ear”. The terrible irony is that his tin ear can lead only to more acts of antisemitism and greater division within society. He is Reform’s great, accidental recruiter!

    1. English Local Council elections are similar to US mid-terms in so far as they provide an opportunity for the electorate to express their evaluation of the current government’s performance.

    2. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/apr/13/keir-starmer-uk-china-menu-prime-minister-beijing?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

  • Reform the House of Commons

    mayberetiredpastor

    Reform the House of Commons

    At this, the administrators and the satraps tried to find grounds for charges against Daniel in his conduct of government affairs, but they were unable to do so. They could find no corruption in him, because he was trustworthy and neither corrupt nor negligent.

    Daniel 6:4

    So, the manifestos of the major parties have been published and some of you may be wondering if I secretly authored the Green Party manifesto. The answer is no – but maybe they’ve been reading my blogs! I have voted Labour consistently all of my adult life (with one or two exceptions) but you might have noticed that I’m unimpressed with the present offering of Labour. Therein lies a problem with our democracy.

    At school, I was taught that government proposes and parliament (i.e the House of Commons) disposes – that is, the government proposes the laws it wants to enact and the House of Commons decides whether or not to allow the government to enact those laws. But in our modern parliament that is a myth. In reality, the government both proposes and disposes, that is, whatever the government decides it wants to do it can if it has a parliamentary majority, and because of our first-past-the-post system of election governments almost always have a majority.

    Government gets its way because MPs are completely beholden to their political parties. Individual MPs rarely actually read or examine the proposed legislation (that only happens in the Lords!). The parties instruct their MPs how to vote and MPs are punished if they step out of line. The only path to progression as an MP is through the patronage of your party. If you constantly go against the party line you do not progress as an MP and may even be refused permission to stand as a candidate at the next election (witness the Labour Party debacle over Diane Abbott). The patronage of the political parties is wielded over the whole career of the individual MP from consideration as a candidate right through to whether you can hold position in government or one of the powerful committees in Parliament.

    Before 1832 there was a system of “rotten boroughs” in the UK. The MPs for those boroughs were nominated by powerful people who owned the boroughs and consequently the MPs were beholden to those powerful people. This particular system no longer exists but has been effectively replaced by the patronage of our two party system. The MPs we elect are not answerable to us but to their party. This is every bit as corrupt as the old system of rotten boroughs.

    Constitutional reform is not on the agenda of any party (Why would it be? It’s not in their interests!) but that we need it to properly reflect our views and achieve better governance and management of the country is, in my view, unanswerable. But what sort of reform do we need?

    Parties as prospective governments need to be separated from MPs as representatives. Much as in the US, we should vote directly for whichever party we believe should be entrusted with government, but MPs need to be elected separately to parliament. Candidates for MPs should be funded and overseen by the state and not by the parties and their election should be by a form of proportional voting. Political parties offer themselves for election as the government by first-past-the-post voting. Once in government they can propose their legislative programme to MPs who are no longer beholden to their parties (if they are members of a party) and neither parties nor government can require MPs to vote in any particular way.

     This is just the barest sketch of a reform. For very many people, including myself, our present system does not work very well. No party programme entirely satisfies all our aspirations for ourselves or our communities, and we have no genuine representation by our MPs who, as individuals, might give the nuances  to legislative discussion that we desire. We need constitutional reform, but what needs to be reformed is not the House of Lords but the House of Commons.