EU Referendum

Showing posts with label Referism. Show all posts

Picked up by Witterings from Witney, from the website which calls itself Vox - "Research-based policy analysis and commentary from leading economists" – is a paper entitled: "Direct democracy as a safeguard to limit public spending".

This looks at Swiss public spending over the last century and argues that one reason for its low debt may be its greater use of direct democracy. People vote on individual policies, as opposed to representative democracy, where people elect others to make decisions on their behalf.

The conclusion is that direct democracy indeed causes a decline in public spending. Voters are fiscally more conservative than elected politicians, and the tools of direct democracy help them to get their preferences better represented.

The work is carried out by two academics, Patricia Funk, Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, and Christina Gathmann, Professor of Economics, University of Heidelberg, who thus provide direct evidence that the concept we have come to call Referism actually works.

They themselves call in aid several papers, including one by Feld and Matsusaka (2003), which compare data on post-war spending in states with more or less direct democracy – focusing on the United States and Switzerland, as the two countries which allow for direct democracy.

The empirical evidence, say Funk and Gathmann, points to a strong negative correlation between a region's spending level and the existence of direct democracy in both the United States and Switzerland, and they then are able to quantify the effect, finding a mandatory budget referendum reduces public spending by twelve percent.

Interestingly, they find that voter initiatives that allow citizens to propose new laws also lower public spending. For every one percent reduction in the signature requirement, public spending declines by 0.6 percent.

Furthermore, the constraints imposed by direct democracy at the state level do not result in more local spending. This result, they say, suggests that state politicians cannot avoid the disciplining effect of direct democracy by simply shifting responsibilities to lower levels of government.

If one then takes account of the effect of local referendums, where tax rises have been rejected when put to the people, the case builds for both local and national plebiscites to approve budgets.

Even more, these findings undermine the legitimacy of representative democracy. What might have once been necessary, in the period when it used to take four days by stagecoach to get to Edinburgh, is already rendered obsolete by modern communications and polling technology.

But this work shows that elected politicians are also completely out of step with the people they purport to represent. Their role, it would now seem, is to convey a false sense of legitimacy to the extraction of more money than the people would willingly give.

That says that representative democracy can no longer be considered democratic, without much greater involvement of the people. One can see a case where the executives (local and central) prepare budgets, which are then debated by elected representatives, who then make their recommendations, for the people to then accept or ignore.

We cannot continue, though, with the situation where governments decide how much we shall pay them, with no mechanism for the people to reject their imposts. That is not democracy. It is theft.

COMMENT THREAD

To give credit where it is due, Eric Pickles the "communities secretary" has intimated that he will make mandatory a requirement to hold a referendum, where any local council seeks to impose a Council Tax increase of more than 3.5 percent.

"Councils have a moral obligation to help hard-working families and pensioners with the cost of living. If they want to hike taxes on local residents above 3.5 percent they’ll now need to get a direct democratic mandate to do it", he says.

This very welcome change is the essence of Referism and follows on from earlier experiments in local democracy, where tax rises were put to the vote.

More recently, the local paper ran a referendum in Brighton, which produced results very much in accordance with earlier votes – rejecting tax increases. The statutory requirement for a referendum, therefore, is likely to provide a powerful brake on council tax increases.

However, council tax is only a small part of the picture, and we are getting to a situation where income generated from charges exceeds that of council tax, which itself is only around 20 percent of councils' income.

Therefore, merely stopping local authority increases in council tax is no real control, especially when councils seem to have free rein to increase a wide range of charges, with no effective restraints. Any real democratic controls must extend far beyond just local taxation, and address council budgets in their entirety.

As a start, though, this is a good move, not least in getting people used to the idea of exerting their own power over local government spending. It would be better, though, if it was part of an incremental approach which eventually led to annual approval of local authority budgets, applied automatically to every single council.

COMMENT THREAD

Although there have been local experiments in putting council tax rises to a democratic vote via referendums, in each case that this was done, taxpayers voted down the increases. Unsurprisingly, the experiment has not been repeated.

However, that has not stopped the local paper in Brighton arranging its own referendum on a 3.5 percent increase in council tax proposed by the Green council.

And, with the results now in, the vast majority of the 2,800 people who voted (68 percent) opted for a freeze. Only 21 percent backed the Greens' proposal, and even fewer (11 percent) went for a five percent increase and a lessened impact on council services.

With such a low voting rate, this is hardly representative, and the poll has been carried out without any knowledge of the proposed budget, which has yet to be published, but the result is entirely consistent with earlier referendums. Whenever people have been given a choice of lower taxation – even at the cost of service cuts – they opt for the lower taxation.

Were we dealing with an honest system, this would put all local councils on the spot. None of them have any specific mandate from increasing taxes and none take the opportunity of asking. Instead, year-on-year, we have largely unrepresentative officials present their demands, backed by increasingly draconian collection strategies.

One would like to think, at the very least, councillors might change their language, as far too glibly they refer to those who refuse to pay the ever-increasing imposts as "tax dodgers". Some indeed may be, but many others are protesting at the entirely undemocratic money-grab which is little more than licensed theft.

If, of course, those same councillors were sure of their ground, they would put their annual tax levels to the vote, thus embodying the essence of Referism - except that they would largely find they have no popular support.

It cannot be said often enough, therefore, that until councils put their annual demands to the popular vote, they have no mandate for their taxes, and stand as unconvicted thieves, who have manipulated the law in their favour. Despite being cloaked in the language of entitlement, their demands have no legitimacy whatsoever.

COMMENT THREAD

I take the point, that in many respects direct democracy is far better than the charade that currently passes for representative democracy. And if I have understood him correctly, then that is the thrust of Wittering from Witney's thesis.

Much of this rests on the example of Switzerland, which is one of Europe's – if not the global – leading proponent of direct democracy. This amounts to rule by the people through the medium of the referendum.

But while I agree with WfW that there is much wrong with our form of government, I remain to be convinced that Swiss provide a suitable model for the English. Despite its apparent attractions, Switzerland is not a happy country to live in unless you are very rich, it is illiberal by character and governance is dominated by a mass of petty rules and restrictions that simply would not be tolerated here.

The idea of direct democracy, therefore, is to an extent simply swapping one form of oppression for another. Instead of being oppressed by the ruling élite, who believe they know what is good for us, we are ruled by the infinitely malleable masses, who impose their mores, in many respects more restrictive that a liberal élite.

What WfW might be neglecting, therefore, is that the term democracy comes in two parts, the dêmos (people) kratos (power). Direct democracy simply shifts the mechanisms by which the majority – the people – exert their power over the rest of us. It does not necessarily ensure a better use of that power.

Here, one must exercise more than a little caution. One of the reasons contemporary Germans are so reluctant to permit the routine use of referendums is that when in 1932 and onwards, Hitler sought to abolish democracy and impose an absolute dictatorship, he chose the plebiscite as the means to do it.

That, as much as anything, makes the point. Direct democracy may, under certain circumstances, be better than our form of representative democracy, but it has its dangers and pitfalls. Unless you actually know what you are trying to achieve with your governance, you could very easily have your system hijacked and end up with something you neither wanted nor anticipated.

Kindly, WfW mentions my idea of Referism, which on the face of it is an aspect of direct democracy – insofar as it has in common the referendum. But there are important differences.

Specifically, in terms of the referendum, this is a fixed point, carried out annually at the same time, with the same question asked each time, namely, do you approve the budget … yes or no. The fixed nature of the event confers predictability and familiarity, allowing people to get used to the question and to learn how to answer it. And it also places it beyond political manipulation, now allowing tactical wording or changes in timing, which can be used to advantage by one side or another.

But my thinking is that this happens alongside our current system of representative democracy, which I rather like, even if it has currently lost its way.

What perhaps needs expressing in this context is something I have not emphasised enough – that government is not a force for good. In an ideal world, we would not have one and the only reason we should tolerate it is because not having one is marginally worse.

Thus, I am actually no more enthusiastic about government by the masses, than I am government by a ruling élite, liberal or otherwise. All forms are to be avoided as far as possible.

On that basis, the ideal system is not one that facilitates governance. Our fellow man is never so inventive as when it comes to imposing his will on others, or acquiring our money and spending it as his own. He needs no encouragement.

What we need is restraint, a system one which makes government physically difficult, keeping externally-imposed rules to the minimum, and forcing people to deal with and settle their own problems – as far as is possible – without external interference.

Dwelling on this further, what one must emphasise is that for the bulk of our daily activities, we do not need government – we do not need leadership, we do not need governors, rulers or leaders. It is one of the myths perpetrated by the ruling élites that we need them to take such an enormous part in our lives.

The first and most important requirement of any new or improved system of government, therefore, is the ability of us, the people, to reduce the amount of government. As an individual or part of a collective, I have no desire to rule my fellow man – insofar as I want power, it is the power to prevent other people telling me what to do, and then charging me for the privilege.

And that is where the money comes in. In his Short History of England, Simon Jenkins writes as follows:

Nothing curbed Norman autocracy as effectively as the king's need for taxes. From this arose the power of the City of London under Richard I, a codified rule of law under King John and a House of Commons in the parliaments of Henry III and Edward I. This bartering of power was absolute. Even the ruthless Edward I worried that people might take against him, and that "the aid and taxes which they had paid to us out of liberality and goodwill … may in future become a servile obligation". He was right.

Therein lies the root of our problem. Over time, the parliament was set up to control the king, through limiting his taxes. But parliament has now become the king. No one now controls the taxes – and they have become a "servile obligation", but the obligation is ours, to pay money to which our ruling élites believe they are entitled.

When parliament controlled the king, it did so on behalf of the people. Now, parliament as king is out of control, and we the people must re-assert control. Then, the mechanism of control was to restrict the flow of money. Today, the same mechanism is just as applicable. We must starve the beast.

That is where we need our direct democracy, and there I am at one with WfW, but only in a negative sense – one of restraint. We take control to protect ourselves from our rulers … not in an attempt to replace them.

COMMENT: "REAL POLITICS" THREAD

Dislike him as I do, I nevertheless used to have some small respect for Hannan's intellect. But when the man sees the Spanish election as a contest between left-wing and right-wing ideology, you recognise in him a man on autopilot, one who has long since stopped thinking for himself – or at all.

It takes Raedwald to point out that the most interesting contribution on the election comes from The Guardian, with its exposition on the phenomenon known as the indignados.

Adopting a stance which has a ready audience over here, people were writing "ballot box" on drains and toilets, others suggesting cutting out the middlemen and depositing votes directly into bank machines.

What made this different, says The Guardian was that the campaign of ballot spoiling wasn't a subcultural anarchist prank, but a reflection of widespread popular disaffection. A typical sight during the election was a respectable middle-aged man going from one municipal bin to another writing: "Vote here" on the lids.

Slogans such as "They don't represent us" and "They are all the same", adopted by the indignatos, are now mainstream.

It is the complete inability of the likes of Hannan to understand or even recognise this deeper mood which guides him to the belief that we are seeing a standard shift in between the normal left-right paradigm. But the mood for change is indeed much deeper. Standard politics no longer has a grip and the average politician is the object of contempt which is fast becoming universal.

What is especially fascinating is that the indignados are exploring ideas that go far beyond party politics or even changing electoral law, such as participatory budgets, referendums, election recalls and other forms of citizen-initiated legalisation. "The debate is within the movement, aimed at creating new political forms from below.

Of these various ideas, the "participatory budget" has special interest, this being the core of Referism. Control over the money government spends is at the root of power. This Spanish movement clearly understands where power lies, which is more than can be said of some of the so-called thinkers here.

But then, when we have a political culture still dominated by the MSM – and the BBC – and where the likes of Boris Johnson are seen as serious politicians, we still have a huge amount of catching up to do. But at least, the Hannan brand of Uncle Tom politics does not seem to be catching on.

Nevertheless, the complacent and overly compliant British have still much to learn – not least that no one is going to hand them power. They are going to have to take it. How ironic it would be if the Spanish – not known for leading edge thinking in the promotion of democracy – provided the model.

Of one thing for certain, though, is that there is not yet any clear sign that the necessary political thinking is emerging from the political establishment in Britain. But then that was always the last place to look. Change is going to come from without.

And change is now on the menu.

COMMENT THREAD

Mary Ellen Synon offers us an outrageous example of EU profligacy in pursuit of its own propaganda, the like of which should have us marching the streets.

The facts of life, though, are that such things – however outrageous – will not get the protesters out. The issue is too distant, the impact too remote and, in the final analysis, is not something which the average person can affect. In the nature of things, people only tend to get worked up about things over which they can have some influence.

Thus, the issue that is getting the good citizens of Kington in Herefordshire worked up is car parking charges, with more than 2,000 people in this tiny rural town signing a petition against the decision to introduce fees at the High Street car park.

This is neither selfish nor illogical, but conforms exactly with the specifications of an issue which will bring people out on the streets (pictured). It is local, it has a direct, measurable impact, it is perceived as being unjust or unreasonable and, crucially, it is amenable to change, given a modicum of direct action.

That people are reaching the limits of tolerance is illustrated by events in Wiltshire where a downturn in car park income has triggered the classic (and economically illiterate) response from the local council. It has put up charges to make up its income shortfall, the effect of which – according to local traders – has driven business away.

Such is the level of protest here that the council leader has not ruled out a U-turn at a full council meeting on 8 November, again illustrating how, when expressed at a local level, people power can have an effect.

Arguably, there is a lesson here for all of us. Given that controlling government is about limiting the money supply, much more revenue generation needs to be originated at a local level. Instead of the bulk of money being raised through centrally determined taxes – and then passed down to localities – the flow could benefit from reversal.

What we could see is a variation of the pattern already adopted, where local councils collect money for counties, where they have them, the passenger transport authority, the police and fire brigades, and pay a precept to keep them functioning.

Thus we could see the bulk of taxes – such as sales, income and corporation - raised locally, with central government paid a precept according to means. And where money flows upwards, so does the power.

Ideally, one might see a situation where local authorities decide on the best mix of taxes and charges to suit the locality, with provision for healthy tax competition between districts.

Add to that real people power, with an annual referendum on the budget – with the ability to veto – and you would be beginning to see the emergence of real democracy. In this, there is no avoiding the central issue. Democracy occupies the low ground, not the heights.

COMMENT THREAD

It seems to have been a long journey since we started this blog – and I still write "we", even though my erstwhile co-editor has departed to her own blog. Writing here is very much a team effort, with much of the content guided and informed by the forum and the torrent of e-mail and Skype messages I get each day – to say nothing of the long and valuable telephone calls and the face-to-face political discussions in the local hostelries.

That it has been (and continues to be) a journey implies a beginning and an end, with a specific destination. At the outset, that destination seemed obvious – a United Kingdom free from the malign grip of the European Union. But that is no longer the case. It has become merely a way-station in a much longer journey.

The change of destination, I hope, explains what might otherwise appear to be an amount of incoherence on this blog. The change has not come easily or quickly, and we have spent many years realising that the EU is not the problem, or even part of the problem. The EU is merely the symptom of a much larger problem which starts and ends in the minds of people, and those who would wish to rule us.

But if the EU is just a symptom, identifying the problem has not been that easy, and I am still not sure we are there, with the completeness of understanding that we would prefer. There is, though, enough to set out some observations, which seem to make some sense.

Here, I rely on my own potted version of history, which I have sought to articulate in pieces such as this and this, all pointing to how we are seeing a re-alignment of politics. The line which once marked the division between left and right has now rotated ninety degrees. We are no longer left or right, but above the line or below it.

With that, the journey becomes more of a process, a task – ultimately to remove that line, or to re-align it, so that there are more egalitarian divisions in society. Such divisions as there are should be between ideas, rather than determined by status, position and wealth, with the dominance of a permanent ruling class perched over us.

Thus, my political world is divided not by left and right but by "above the line" and below it. And, in many senses – from my position firmly "below the line" – that is how I see the world. That is how I distinguish friends and allies from political foes.

Some of my readers express puzzlement as to why I attack people who would appear to be our allies - the egregious Daniel Hannan, for instance. As a self-professed "eurosceptic", he would seem to qualify as our ally in a common cause. However, I see him and many like him as "above the liners". For sure, Hannan would replace the autocracy of the EU – but with an autocracy of his own. He is, therefore, no friend of the people.

But what about "The Plan"? Thus do you ask about the famous offering from the Hannan and Carswell stable, which would bring us a new dawn of enlightenment, peace and prosperity? Except that it would do no such thing.

Like many of their ilk, this pair have stopped thinking. These are clever people so it is not that they are incapable of so doing. It is just that they have stopped doing it. Thus, they wrongly believe that "democracy" is a matter of having more and more tiers of elected officials – from tea ladies to mayors and police commissioners.

By this means, these people have lost sight of the essence of democracy – which is power to the people. Electing officials without having power over them is not democracy. It is simply an elective dictatorship. Turning this round, if we have power over our officials, it often becomes irrelevant whether they are elected or not. Elections are not a necessary condition for democracy and, even if they were desirable, they are certainly not sufficient.

As a very small example, you have to ask whether our representatives would be any better or any worse if they were appointed by a randomly selected jury who interviewed prospective candidates and chose them on the basis of merit. Or would our parliament be any the worse if our MPs were picked at random by computer?

On the other hand, it was "democratically elected" MPs who took us into the Common Market, and "democratically elected" MPs keep us in the EU. If we, the people, forced them to pull the UK out, by marching on Westminster, ransacking the parliament and putting to the sword the denizens - that would not conform with most people's idea of an election. But it would be democracy.

So it is that my pursuit of a more egalitarian and democratic society rests on the pursuit of power – for the people. I do not hold with the premise dear to the heart of the "above the liners" that the people cannot be trusted – and that we must elect only the pre-selected few to guide us to the path of righteousness and enlightenment. Nor do I accept that more elected officials is any answer.

In particular, I have far greater trust in the sense of the people than I do in the good faith of the ruling élites. My fundamental premise is that, in a society where people truly have power, they will grow into their responsibilities and use their power wisely. Even if they do not always do so, they can do no worse than our élites, who periodically "guide" us to war, famine and disaster, all in the name of peace and stability.

Democracy, therefore, is the destination. We seek democracy, in its true sense, not the pastiche that masquerades as such.

That then leaves us with the minor problem of how to achieve this desirable state but, here, we are beginning to formulate some principles of our own. Firstly, we take at as a given that the EU has reached it point of no return. The battle is not yet won, but the collapse of the "project" is now inevitable. In fact, it always was inevitable, as we wrote in The Great Deception in 2003. It is just that it is more obvious now.

Secondly, the collapse will make no great difference to us. Given our current governmental structure, our unaccountable ruling élite is quite capable of making a mess unaided. It does not need the EU. As we said, the EU is a symptom not the cause.

Thus, the real battle lines are over the shape of a post-EU United Kingdom. But we can't really talk about "restoring" democracy. In truth, we've never really had it. We need to take the next step towards the goal of achieving it, there having been no real developments since the Chartists took us towards universal suffrage.

As a result, the third principle we come to is the famous Tip O'Neill aphorism, that all politics is local. For democracy to work it must, in the first instance, be exerted locally. And here, we have a real problem. Not only did Heath destroy central government by taking us into the Common Market, he destroyed local government with the Walker "reforms" and the 1973 local government reorganisation.

Even before then, we had a top-down government, weak councils and excessive power at the centre. Over the years since 1973, this has got worse, with the accountability made even more fragile by the introduction of cabinet government, and the Bains Report dictum of all-powerful chief officers and delegated powers.

Thus, to bring democracy, we must address it first at a local level, altering the balance of power between local and central government. That is not "localism" - it is democracy. Democracy is local, first and foremost. Thus, it is a necessary part and parcel of a democratic state than we have a vibrant democracy at the lowest tiers of government.

It goes without saying, though, that it is not safe to give local councils more power until we have more power over those councils. And that means money. We must control the purse strings … the essence of the Referism concept. As long as we have "masters" who decide year-on-year how much we must pay them, and our choice is only how we pay them, there can be no democracy.

There lies the battleground – in my view. We perhaps need to be more formal, in setting out our lists of demands, as did the Chartists. And then we set out to make ourselves ungovernable until our demands are met.

Free people do not have rulers. Their governments are servants. We, in this benighted country of ours, have rulers – the "above the line" autocrats – in our town halls, in Whitehall and in Brussels. We will not be free until we clear out the lot of them and take control. Getting rid of Brussels is only a start, and by no means enough.

Autonomous Mind says it superbly. We must re-draw the line. Only then can we continue the march our forefathers started - towards real democracy.

COMMENT THREAD

A revealing piece is to be found in the Bournemouth Daily Echo, retailing news of a plea by Dorset Fire Service for more money.

There is nothing unusual in that, you might feel, except that, despairing of a free hand at the till, county fire chief Darran Gunter is appealing over the heads of the politicians, making an appeal directly to the public. He is asking people to support "a small rise in Council Tax" to offset an expected reduction in the central government support grant.

What is revealing though is that that, having exhausted all other options for more money, the beleaguered fire chief turns as a last resort to the people themselves. This might thus have the elements of Referism, except that the public is only being given the option of shelling out more money.

However, there was a time when such an option was given to a limited number of people, as an experiment and, in the interest of equity, it is about time it was repeated. If we are deemed by our masters as worth consulting when they want more money, then the other way around should also apply. We must take the power to decide how much we pay them in the first place.

COMMENT THREAD

I promised yesterday that I would start addressing ideas on how we, the people, start recovering power from the politicians or – as the case may be – taking power that we have never had.

On this, I recall a man – I think it was Rothschild, but the name doesn't really matter – advising on what it took to become a millionaire, in the days when a million was an unimaginable sum. He is reputed to have said that all that was needed was a burning desire to earn that much, and a determination to put that objective above all else - everything else.

In like fashion, all that is needed to acquire power is that same determination – and therein lies our problem. Generally, the English people are not power hungry. They are indifferent to the trappings of power and most often prefer simply to be left alone. Shorn of ambition, however, we tend be relaxed about other people doing the job, and we end up content to let other people do the ruling. Sadly in some cases, that means we can be easily led.

This is a tolerable situation when we are tolerably well ruled, and when our government is unobtrusive and inexpensive. But when we are badly ruled, when government increasingly intrudes in our daily affairs, and when the cost becomes oppressive, it is time for change. But, for that to happen, we must want it to happen, and be prepared to make it so.

Unequivocally, this leads to the first element in any "plan" – the gathering together of enough like-minded and sufficiently motivated people who are desirous to some extent of change, and are prepared to work constructively to achieve it.

Arguably, that is what political parties are about – but the iron rule of Selnick's "self maintenance" says otherwise. The purpose of a party becomes its own perpetuation – the task always ends up taking second place to that overpowering need. Any successful group must be unstructured, free from the dead hand of institutionalisation.

The second fundamental is the recognition of a simple doctrine. Primarily this states that we should tolerate governments only because the alternative – not having a government – is marginally worse. But it must always be understood that government is at its heart our enemy. Given a chance, it will enslave us.

From this stems the third vital element of any plan – the recognition that we are in a state of continual war against our own government. It may be a civilised sort of war, without bloodshed, against a foe with whom we can be cordial and good-natured. But it is our enemy and we are at war with it.

Fourthly, we have to control the money. In civilised society, he who controls the money that government can acquire, and then spend, controls the government. That is what Referism is all about. We have to be able to limit the amount of money any government can tax, and we have to be able to veto extravagant expenditure.

Then we have to fight within our means, usually as a part-time effort, as we all have our own lives to live. Thus, we also have to fight clever, to make up for our chronic lack of resources. Not any of us can match the richness and breadth of government, because it can use our own money against us.

Thus, effectively, we have to fight as guerrillas. The Mao precepts apply here: when the enemy attacks, I retreat, when he stands still, I harry, etc, etc. The detailed rules are here, but they have to be adapted to our civilised sort of war.

What that means in practice is that we have to pick the enemy's weak spots - his vulnerabilities – and exploit them. And this is where I particularly like the strategy of legality, making the government obey its own rules, using them to damage and harry it until it is prepared to concede our aims.

To that extent, we cannot necessarily choose the battlefield. One target may be the British membership of the EU, but the direct approach may not – and certainly has not in the past – yield dividends. But attack in a different area or direction may bring the enemy to the table, whence we can make our broader demands known.

Broadly speaking, though, we must remind those who wish to rule us that they rule with our permission and by our consent. Mostly, in huge areas of our lives, they have no permission to rule us at all, and we must remind them of that as well. In short – for the time being - we must as a group make ourselves ungovernable, in a very genial sort of a way, all to make that singular point, that we are the masters.

And if that all sounds terribly metaphysical, it isn't really. The real plan is that we don't actually want a plan. We don't need "leadership", inspirational or otherwise, because in our everyday affairs, we don't need to be led. We are quite capable of managing our own affairs, thank you very much.

What we want is that part of government that must exist to run itself smoothly, quietly, unobtrusively, and with maximum economy. But, if the price of freedom is eternal vigilance, and all that, every now and again we recognise that we have to put government back in its box when it gets above its station.

Now is one of those times, and that task falls to us. We didn't ask to do it and, frankly, we have better things to do with our time and money, but it is a job that needs doing. So, that is the "plan" – a non-plan, if you like. I'll pop down to the charity shop and get some clothes to put on it over the next few days.

COMMENT THREAD

One of the few intelligent commentators left in the mindwash these days is Simon Jenkins. I have his book now, on the history of England, and fine reading it is. I will review it when I have finished. This day in The Guardian, though, he takes on the vexed issue of taxation, to the evident approval of Tim Worstall, which is something very special.

What catches Worstall's eye is the Jenkins view on property taxes which, he avers,

… cannot be evaded, and properly imposed are a fair generator of government revenue. Better, they are traditionally paid in anger. Any tax paid in anger is a good tax – the opposite of a stealth tax, because the payer demands to know how it is spent. Property taxes are thus a spur to democratic interest and activity. That, of course, is why politicians detest them.

One can immediately see the power of this argument, although there is a long way to go before it can be said that our current system is "properly imposed". Personally, I am not sure it can be. There are so many inherent anomalies that by the time you have finished with devising rebates and adjustments, it becomes so complex that it is both expensive and unworkable.

However, what is missing from the argument – and essential to it – is discussion of tax levels. The perception of fairness, or otherwise, of a tax stems as much from how much is extracted, as the nature of the tax. People who might tolerate an "unfair" tax will become less tolerant when it becomes a significant imposition.

There are also the issues of how the money is spent, and the degree of control we, the people, are able to exert over the expenditure. Fairly self-evidently, if there is general approval of the government activity, and it is felt that popular demands are respected, then hostility to higher tax levels may be muted.

What is intolerable, though – and very much the situation in which we see ourselves today – is where taxation levels are high yet we neither approve of the way the money is spent, nor feel we have any control over how much is extracted, and how it is spent.

To that extent, the Jenkins argument speak for itself, as we see more and more people drawn into the political debate over the single issue of Council Tax. It invokes a degree of passion which few other local issues can match.

But, while we see the discussion on the nature and level of taxes, there is considerably less exploration of how we bring government spending under popular control. This, of course, was the thinking behind Referism, and I remain of the view that the annual budget must have a democratic mandate. Electing the fools to our parliament is not enough. We must have more control over what they do.

Arguably, though, national politics is too big and too distant for people to deal with, in which case the issues must be brought down to local level. And in that context, we hear arguments for local income tax, and even local sales taxes.

To restore (or improve) democracy, however, one might argue that all (or most) taxes should be local – levied locally and collected locally. Central government should then be paid from precepts negotiated with each of the local authorities.

A proviso of this might be, in extreme circumstances, where the local electorate refuses the local budget, the local authority might be forced to deny central government its funds. The root of all evil is the money tree, and that lies at the heart of the politicians' power. We must control it.

Such ideas, inevitably, would be an anathema to the politicians, but what has struck me about the independent blogosphere of late, and this blog's forum, is the number of ideas coming forward, and the quality of the debate. This we are not getting and will not get from the centre and, if we are to see any change, it is going to come from the bottom. Politicians follow – they do not lead.

As even today we await the bailiffs – if indeed they show – the bottom line is that we have a government without an electoral mandate, largely dictating what local government will do, with peremptory demands placed on us to pay the bills. This, to use the contemporary jargon, is "unsustainable". Whether it is by facing down the bailiffs on the street, or confronting the politicians in their lairs, we have to take back control.

COMMENT THREAD

... we gaze upon the report by the Daily Mail and its glad tidings that The Boy's much vaunted "bonfire of the quangos" has been a dismal failure ... like so much else he has touched. At least 4,500 civil servants have been taken on since the election in May last year by Government departments and quangos – three times the number that have been handed compulsory redundancy notices.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission, the Independent Commission for Aid Impact and the Committee on Climate Change are among the quangos which have been busy recruiting. Extra staff have been taken on while many parts of the public sector are making swingeing cuts to front-line services.

And, of course, we predicted this, back in September last year when we observed that there was no sign of any attempt to address the root cause of excessive regulation and officialdom, which gives rise to excessive civil service employment. That probably meant, we said, that this highly publicised initiative was just window dressing.


We revisited the subject in April when we reminded readers about the brave new world of Major's deregulation initiative, going back to the Conservative Party Conference on 9th October 1992. I put my heart and soul into that ... going down to London at my own expense (always at my own expense ... never a penny in expenses) to see officials at the "deregulation unit", writing reports (in my own time), and endless discussions, talks with MPs and ministers. Been there, done that one, got the tee-shirt.

You know, what people very often dismiss as cynicism and negativity on this blog really isn't. There comes a time when you've seen it before, seen it done badly, seen the same mistakes being made, and the same inadequacies paraded, and you know it's going to fail. That isn't cynicism. It's realism.

Now, one could launch in and explain why, in very great detail – but they are no more prepared to listen now than they did last time and the time before that. Having spent thousands of pounds of my own money and invested huge amounts of my time, one is simply not prepared to go through the same thing all over again, to exactly the same effect.

But that does not mean that we have to sit on the sidelines whingeing. This blog, at least, is a vehicle for projecting thoughts, the forum for discussing ideals and airing criticisms. There has to be a better way, and we are stumbling towards it.

During that original round of deregulation, in Major's time, I recall talking to a minister (I can't remember whom), who said it was all about money. Cut the money and you cut the activity. That, in itself, curtails the amount of regulation and interference.

What was happening at that time, though, was the creation of the Sefra, the Self-financing regulatory agency. Booker and I coined the term to describe this new type of agency. A lot of the so-called "quangos" are not quangos at all – they are Sefras.

The idea got some political traction at the time. But it was quietly squeezed out and forgotten. The bureaucrats had discovered an endless source of wealth. They were not going to give it up lightly. We revisited the subject on the blog, but look up Sefra on Google and you will struggle to find any references.

This in part drives Referism. Don't get bogged down in detail. The civil servants are good at that – they excel in it. They'll suck you in, exhaust you and then spit you out, dispirited and poorer, without having achieved a thing. Go for the money.

Interestingly, we see here in the Mail article, a reference to Redwood, who is fronting the story. Booker and I spent a lot of time with him back in the 90s, recruiting what we thought was an ally, trying to explain how to get the deregulation movement off the ground.

Then, as now, we found a man unutterably vain, interested in the issues only for what he could get out of them, in terms of personal publicity and career progression. You might wonder why a man who is so capable is not in high office in government – and that is the reason. None of his contemporaries trust him to, for that very reason - confide in him and it'll be all over the newspapers the next day, with his name on it.

And so, the wheel goes round and round. With weary predictability, these initiatives fail ... they always fail, because they are ill-founded. But we are coming to an end game. We can no longer afford it, and the public mood is changing – slowly, all too slowly. But there is reduced tolerance for the "parasite class" and all that goes with it.

Eventually, therefore, the system will crash and burn. It has to. Even now though, this could be avoided, if people only listened. But they don't. The mistakes of the past they insist on repeating, and will continue until they bring themselves down. All we can do is help them on their way.

COMMENT THREAD

Read the last two paragraphs here. Read my Sunday piece and then my Mail piece. More than six months after I complain that public servants have lost their fear, up pops Oliver Letwin to say that they need "discipline and fear". But look what happens when you try to reinstall some fear to the parasite class.

The lack of self-awareness from Letwin & Co is quite staggering. It is the same phenomenon that you see in mass murderers and other psychotics. Theodore Dalrymple would recognise the trait. That much politicians have in common with the dregs of society.

But then, incredibly – unbelievably – you have this and this, a bunch of the "feral elite" complaining that the country is run by a ... er ... "feral elite". This is the view of the likes of Greg Dyke, Caroline Lucas and Lord Smith of Clifton, who think we need a "people's jury" to apply a "public interest first" test more generally to British political and corporate life. Overworked as a cliché or not, you really could not make this one up.

But then, only last night I was writing that, if we don't come up with something, someone else will – and we may not like it. Well, someone else has, and we don't. We do have Referism. That is the only "people's jury" that matters.

The trouble is, you will never get the "feral elite" offer anything that amounts to the transfer of real power. If we want power, we are going to have to take it. The time is not yet, but what we are seeing here is the elites falling out. The time must be near.

COMMENT: "COMMON THREAD"

As the saga of the Edinburgh tramway continues, we now hear that councillors have decided on what they consider to be the least worst option – throwing more money at the project, rather than cancelling it.

Considering that cancellation will have cost taxpayers £750 million, the councillors seem to have come up with a completely new set of figures which allow them to claim that another, new, washes-whiter truncated scheme would only cost £774 million, and make an operating profit of £2 million a year. Whether that includes servicing the debt is not specified.

With a scheme that was supposed to cost no more than £500 million when it was approved, and is now running three years behind schedule, the public could be forgiven for taking a rather jaundiced view of the judgement of their civic leaders, the council being run by the Lib-Dims, who share power with the Scots Nats.

Breaking ranks, though, is the SNP's deputy city council leader Steve Cardownie. He opposes the scheme and has proposed a referendum, to allow the public to make the decision on the future of the tramway, rather than proven inadequate who run the council.

Needless to say, the idea has been rejected by the ruling élites. Cardownie says he was "obviously disappointed" by the decision, adding: "All options had a price tag but we maintained that the Edinburgh public should determine which one they preferred".

In a crucial statement, he then says: "We think it's inherently undemocratic not to give the Edinburgh people a voice in this matter. It's their money which is going to bridge the funding gap and it should have been up to them to decide".
And therein lie the tramlines of Referism. Cardownie is very clearly acknowledging that the confidence trick of allowing the public to elect their rulers – from a very limited gene pool – is not sufficient to confer democracy. What really matters is the power to control how the money is spent.

Control over the money is always at the root of power, which is why the EU is currently seeking ways of raising taxes independently of the member states. It is also why, if we are ever to have a functioning democracy, we the people must have a formalised right to decide on how much money is raised, and how it is spent.

However, referendums on individual budget items would be expensive and complex, but an annual referendum on the global budget is a good alternative, and a change that would be easily implemented – the general idea of an annual referendum having already been piloted successfully in respect of Council Tax. That is Referism ... an idea whose time has come.

COMMENT THREAD

"Europe needs an elected president with a democratic mandate to drive sweeping reforms and give the European Union leadership on the world stage", says Tony Blair to the paywall Times.

The assumption that an elected office is "democratic" and confers a mandate is one of those schoolboy howlers which only LSE graduates should be making. But then Blair always did have a limited grasp of reality ... and now he is proving just how limited.

Williams[i-Williams]On the other hand, this idiot has a point, complaining that the Cleggerons are forcing through "radical policies for which no one voted". Euroslime Dave and his not so merry men do not have a mandate, neither of the parties represented by the coalition having achieved a majority - with both parties having gone back on pledges made in order to secure their election.

This makes for an interesting contrast - but one which gets to the heart of the current inadequacy of our constitutional system. So much energy and effort is focused on choosing who elects us - with Blair falling into the trap of believing that this is what matters - while Williams puts his finger on deeper problem. We have a limited control over whom we chose for office but, once in office, we have no control over what they do.

Therein, if I may say so, lies the need for and the justification of Referism. The demos needs to elect its representatives - but that is not enough. Through the span of their office, we need an ongoing mechanism, in order to control them. Relying on politicians' promises, as we all know, is not good enough, it is too late to vote them out of office after the damage has been done, and the election itself is not that much use when the different parties come up with roughly the same bill of goods.

Bizarrely, I never thought anyone would ever find a use for Williams, but I suppose even idiots occasionally stumble on a greater truth.

COMMENT THREAD

If one had time to do a really serous job in analysing the day's news, one would certainly pick up the warning from the head of Airbus that the EU faces a trade war with China and other powerful countries over plans to make international airlines pay for their carbon emissions.

Tom Enders, Airbus chief executive, has joined the region's top airlines to tell EU climate commissioner, Connie Hedegaard, that "it is madness to risk retaliation" from such influential players.

One might also note The Daily Mail story, which has Hague and it pretend wife slumming in on a £3000 short break, proving that he is "one of us" and that we're all in this together, as we deal with approaching penury.

It would then be difficult to avoid noticing that a huge number of councils are not taking this "cuts" business seriously, and have not prepared (or had approved) proper plans for cutting spending. And we would note in passing the plans to give Huhne as hard time on his electoral expenses.

It might have been fun to do a ruminative piece about the SAAB Gripen, based on this, and wonder how it is that British and US economies (amongst others) seem to be determined spend more and more on defence equipment, to the point where it becomes unaffordable.

A quick look at Greece would be obligatory, where prime minister Papandreou is supposedly starting "a campaign of austerity" on a nation already seething over corruption and economic mismanagement. As if we did not already know, unease is growing within Papandreou's ranks about the consequences of waves of budget cuts demanded under successive deals with the European Union and IMF.


In considering this, we might look in at Roger Bootle, telling us that there has been another deal stitched up to help Greece, but "it won't necessarily solve the problem". Where would we be without these great sages, to keep us informed and to tell us what to think ... not that the Greeks are listening.

A quick glance at Chile might also be of interest, where they are having their own volcano problems (pictured) and are cancelling airline flights. It would be interesting to see how the authorities handle it there, compared with their European counterparts.

Then in the paywall Times, we see a story about "people power", where there are to be "local votes" to axe unwanted road signs. This seems a classic, clogging up the system with trivia, giving the appearance of vesting some power to the people, but in fact reserving all the real power to themselves. You won't find any rush to Referism here.

All this and more awaits ... but there is no time. Then, if you want a job done properly ...

COMMENT THREAD

From the school of nothing new under the sun, a reader points out that, in February 2001, Labour-controlled Bristol City Council held a referendum on its Council Tax, asking voters whether they preferred to increase it by two, four or six percent, or to freeze it at then current levels.

Much to the chagrin of the Council, which had expected otherwise, more than half of the voters opted for a freeze. Sentiment was such that, had a reduction been on offer, the indications are that this would have been the preferred choice.

According to the BBC, more than 115,000 people took part in the referendum - the turnout significantly higher than at the local elections. Some 61,664 voted for no rise, 11,962 for a two percent rise, 20,829 for a four and 19,841 for a six percent rise. Thus, even the total for some sort of a rise, at 51,732, was outnumbered by the "freezers".

Nor was Bristol on its own. The Council was just beaten to the punch by the London Borough of Croydon, which on 14 February 2001 asked its 235,000 registered electors to decide whether Council Tax should be increased by two percent (in real terms, an effective freeze), 3.5 percent, or five percent. Council tenants also voted on whether their rents should be increased.

Again to the chagrin of the Council, 56 percent of the voters opted for the lowest possible rise in Council Tax. A total of 80,383 voted, a 34.2 percent turnout. Thirty-two percent voted for the 3.5 percent increase and a mere five percent went for the five percent hike.

Of the 4,190 council tenants responding to the rents referendum (24.1 percent turnout), just over 58 percent voted for a rent freeze, keeping average rents at £65 a week. On offer to the tenants had been a community patrol service, community grants, money advice and debt counselling services – all of which were rejected.

Croydon was to repeat the experiment the following year, with 74 percent of the taxpayers who voted opting for the lowest rise on offer, at 3.65 percent, on a 35 percent turnout. The BBC observed, at the time, that the referendums suggested that Tony Blair "may have his work cut out to persuade the public to pay more for a better NHS". Of course, the voters were not asked.

Interestingly, this experiment in direct democracy had started in 1999, when Milton Keynes had put to its voters the choice of three levels of increase, ranging from five percent, 9.8 percent and 15 percent.

Residents were able to vote by post or by phone for their chosen option. A 9.8 percent rise would keep core spending at the same level, while the five percent increase would have meant cuts in the core budget and a 15 percent increase would have provided extra revenue). Forty-six percent of those who voted opted for the 9.8 percent rise, thirty percent for the five percent increase and twenty-four percent for the 15 percent hike. The turnout was 45 percent.

Council leader Kevin Wilson told the BBC he was "delighted" by the result. "The referendum gave the people an opportunity to be masters rather than servants," he added, declaring that the referendum had succeeded in its aim of reconnecting people with local government and gave public backing for council tax rises.

Buoyed by the result the following year, Bristol announced that the public would get a chance to vote on their council tax levels, "under plans drawn up to tackle voter apathy". The scheme had the backing of government ministers and, if the public had responded "positively", the plan was to repeat referendums across the country. Clearly, the response was not "positive" enough.

At the time, The Independent was to lament that, "in a victory for the maxim that people vote with their wallets, the results showed few people in favour of extra spending". "Voters of Bristol pick school cuts over taxes", it headlined. The Bristol experiment was not repeated by Labour.


What the experiments showed, however, was that there was some enthusiasm for voting on budgets – even though there seemed to have been very limited local and national media exposure. And in Croydon, voters were not deterred by votes in successive years - turnout increasing marginally on the second year.

The experiments also showed that the electorates were quite capable of dealing with multi-choice votes, a capability which gives much more flexibility than having to stick to a straight "yes-no" vote. Furthermore, there seems to be a willingness amongst the voters to block expenditure. Thus, fears that the electorate will necessarily vote for more spending might be overblown.

With the Labour defeat in the last election, though, the issue is being revisited by the Tories – but in a highly distorted fashion. As of July last year Communities Secretary Eric Pickles has declared that by 2012, he wants people to be able to reject Council Tax levels "if they exceed a ceiling agreed annually by MPs", by voting on them in referendums.


This is based on a promise made in 2007. Pickles calls the plan a "radical extension of direct democracy". It is not. Instead, it is a considerably watered-down version of the earlier referendums – which themselves did not allow for an outright veto. And, needless to say, there is absolutely no suggestion that referendums should apply to central government spending.

Pickles tells us that he is "in favour of local people making local decisions", and also says he wants to reverse "the presumption" that central government knows best when it comes to deciding local priorities. He also wants to make councils more accountable to their constituents for their budgetary planning.
"Let the people decide", he goes on to say – a sentiment with which we agree. But, with Referism, we want to go much further than Pickles and reverse "the presumption" that central government knows best when it comes to deciding national priorities. We are in favour of national people making national decisions.

The Tory plan, therefore, is not anything like enough. To be really in control, the voters must have the power to force down budgets, with the ultimate power of veto if the government does not come into line. A weak as ditchwater block on a preset level of increase is merely a sop, and does nothing the redress the balance of power.

As for costs of the referendums, the Bristol events cost £120,000 each, while Milton Keynes estimated £150,000. Tower Hamlets Council has estimated that a standalone referendum might cost up to £250,000 but, if combined with council elections, the additional cost is estimated at around £70,000. Translated nationally, the total cost of a referendum would be between £30-60 million. For taming the monster, this would be a price worth paying.

COMMENT THREAD

As the great debate continues, it is still – predictably – confined to the blogosphere and the web, the latest Google search on "referism" offering 6,750 results from the web and 3,290 results from the blogs. As always, a search in the MSM gives us: "did not match any documents".

Thus, it is the bloggers making the running in an important constitutional debate, leaving the MSM to pursue their tat and trivia. We do not need the MSM to set our agenda for us, and we see more examples of that with Subrosa and The Purple Scorpion discussing "citizens' initiatives". There is also a beautifully acerbic piece from Witterings on "bubble crap".

But, amongst the latest bloggers discussing Referism is Steve Higham of the Distributed Memory blog. Unfortunately, his is a clever-dickie (i.e., sneering) reference to "the quaint notion that a yearly budget referendum would do anything to check the ruling class".

Nevertheless, in discussing the issue, he puts his finger on an important problem, citing – without identifying the source - the great Lord Thomas Macaulay, and his dictum: "A democracy cannot survive as a permanent form of government. It can last only until its citizens discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury". More recently, democracy has been referred to as "two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner".

When it comes to a referendum on the budget, if you add together the public sector, the private sector that relies on the public sector for its income (consultants, defence contractors, etc.,) and then add pensioners and diverse benefit recipients, you pretty much have a majority in favour of public spending. Add the status quo effect - plus the unwillingness of people to rock the boat - and you are fairly well assured that a popular vote under the current system will never reject a budget. The vote must be weighted.

It is this concept, though, which is causing a lot of grief, as there is almost a religious attachment to the idea of one man, one vote (and the women). Few would believe that the experiment of universal suffrage in the UK is less than 100 years old, with no evidence that it has yet (or at all) brought us better government.

Reference has been made to the Prussian three-class franchise, and Nevil Shute's idea of the multiple vote, in his book In the wet. Shute saw it as a necessary reform of democracy and, in his scheme, a person could have up to seven votes. Everyone gets a basic vote. Other votes can be earned for education (including a commission in the armed forces), earning one's living overseas for two years, raising two children to the age of 14 without divorcing, being an official of a Christian church, or having a high earned income. The seventh vote is only given at the Queen's discretion by Royal Charter.

Playing around with this idea, I have been thinking in terms of potentially ten votes per person. One as standard, and then one extra vote for a married person; another for two or more children born within wedlock. Married men or women with two children each could have three votes each.

Anyone in paid employment, paying income tax, gets another vote (amount not specified - as long as the tax is paid). That makes four votes. The owner of an actively trading business, that has submitted accounts for at least two years and has paid tax for those two years, also gets another vote (the amount of tax is not a factor). The owner of a business or a natural person who employs two or more people (not directly related - spouse, siblings, children or parents) gets another vote. That gives the potential for six votes.

I think also, successful completion of a course of higher or further education (at least two years with the attainment of a recognised qualification) should permit another vote. Thus, HND or a degree would be an earner ... but also professional qualifications count. That gives seven votes.

A person who has undertaken continuous, unpaid voluntary service, at a defined level (say scout or guide leader, unpaid manager of a charity shop, special constable, magistrate), for a defined period (say two years) gets another vote. That is potentially eight. I am persuaded that a military vote would not be a good idea, but there could be a "special merit" award, akin to an OBE/MBE award. And then there could be an age award. Anyone over 40 gets another vote - lost on retirement.
Now, this is playing around with ideas. It is not a definitive proposal. But ideas we must have, and some will be both challenging and initially unpopular. But here, we have an interesting piece in Witterings, and an excellent comment from Edward Spalton.

He is just reading Alexander Hamilton's Federalist papers. Says Spalton, Hamilton was writing to persuade the citizens of New York state to sign up to the new US constitution. There were people in newly independent America who thought that the individual states could go their own ways and others who thought they might form three or more separate countries between them.

Spalton also tells us that Hamilton urges Union upon them to replace the looser arrangement which grew out of the War of Independence. He cites the obvious advantages to the people of Britain being one country and so better able to defend their interests.

He (Hamilton) also makes a point that local democracy can become exceedingly tyrannical and overbearing. Restrained within a larger framework, "republican" as opposed to "democratic" institutions would moderate this tendency to tyranny. He assumed, of course, that political parties would be composed of people with real interests in the real economy, not just groups living off the taxpayer.

To draw a parallel - a lynch mob is a democratic institution which proceeds by majority. A jury is a "republican" institution which requires unanimity and is restrained by superior authority. One of Hamilton's near contemporaries, John Adams, cautioned his countrymen against "too democratical" a constitution "Else we will but have exchanged King George for King Numbers".

"King Numbers" brought us the Cleggerons. We can do better. We need to do better.

COMMENT THREAD

The Daily Mirror squawks with righteous indignation today as it retails how the top official who presided over immigration "chaos" pocketed about £1million. Lin Homer earned £200,000 a year as UK Border Agency chief before moving to another high-paid civil service job after five years. She received bonuses of up to £15,000, despite criticism of immigration controls.

Keith Vaz, chairman of the Home Affairs committee which reported on the issue yesterday, was less than happy with this state of affairs, remarking: "The minister said the immigration system has been in chaos for years. Yet the person in charge was paid more than the Prime Minister and has been promoted. It is rewarding failure rather than success".

Put that together with the story of the egregious Cynthia Bower, chief executive of the Care Quality Commission – on an identical salary, add a few more stories from diverse sources and it is very easy to make a case that government expenditure is not only excessive, but out of control.

At the moment, though, it matters not what we think. Time and time again, government, with a level of insouciance that beggars description, simply ploughs ahead with spending that could not under any circumstances attract popular approval.

Given the opportunity to vote against this expenditure in an annual referendum on the budget, it is arguable that the people would do so. But Purple Scorpion argues that they would not, thereby injecting a welcome contrarian note into the Referism, putting independent political blogs at the forefront of the constitutional debate, as the dodo politicians struggle to find a voice.

As to the annual referendum on the budget, "That won't work", writes Purple Scorpion. "Voters aren't that interested, voters will be scared, how do they make clear which parts of the budget they like and which parts they don't? If they think they may lose the items of spending they like, they will probably vote for the budget".

Taking that first assertion, that "voters aren't that interested", one can only agree that this is certainly the case, currently. After the torrent of media coverage of the budget statement by the chancellor, there is next to no interest in the subsequent debates and votes in parliament, when the budget is finally approved.


But, imagine the case when the budget speech then sets the countdown to a referendum, when the public are going to vote on whether they approve it. Could anyone confidently assert that there would not be massive media interest? Would not the airwaves and the newspapers be full of pundits, pressure groups, politicians and others, all arguing the case for and against the budget? Would it then be the case that the voters would not be interested?

Those voters, however, says Purple Scorpion "will be scared", which is an interesting assertion. Why should they be scared if they are not interested? If you are scared, you are most certainly interested. Assuming that voters are scared, though, one has to ask whether that is a bad thing. For once, the voters will be paying attention to how much money is to be taken from them, and how much is to be spent. I will venture, though, that the politicians and their rent-seeking civil servants will be more scared.

Then, we have the problem of how they make clear which parts of the budget they like and which parts they don't. One has to say here that it is inconceivable that there will not be multiple opinion polls, exit polls and post mortem discussions on the vote. I would confidently expect the issues to be well-rehearsed and well understood.

However, while there is a possibility that voters could be asked to vote for each component of the budget – which I would not favour – there is also an option for the voting slip to include a questionnaire, asking voters for yes-no answers on whether each element of the budget is approved. This would give more than adequate information on sentiment.

We then have to confront the issue that, if voters think they may lose the items of spending they like, they will probably vote for the budget. And that is fair enough. Why is that a problem? Voters will have to form a balanced view. There will be elements they like, and elements they dislike. As with voting for politicians, they may hold their noses and vote for something less than wholeheartedly, or they may reject what they see.

Here, though, I have already stressed that the vote is not sudden death. One would expect the referendum to be held early in the year preceding the financial year in which to takes effect. Thus, if it is rejected, then there is time for a revised budget and another vote.
Purple Scorpion notes my comments that, if the electorate then refuse the budget, then we have a full-blown political crisis. "What fun!", I remark, suggesting that a government could then decide to resign and trigger a general election. They might indeed be forced to do so, thereby giving the people the effective power of a mid-term vote of confidence. Would people then not be interested?

What we see, therefore, is a situation where the people are back in the driving seat. Confronted with the requirement to seek popular approval for their budgets, one can see governments first avoiding highly contentious spending – and taxes – which might put a budget and thence the government at risk.

One would then see government taking great pains to explain their spending plans, far more than they do at the moment, and we could expect a major public debate on taxation and spending each year.

As to the underlying objective of Referism, to change the relationship between the government and the people, Purple Scorpion argues that the annual budget referendum will not achieve that. But that argument defies reality. At the moment, the government tells us what it intends to spend, and how much tax it intends to take from us. We do not have a vote.

With an annual referendum, the government has to ask us – and we have the power to say "no". What's there not to like?

COMMENT THREAD

Scholars tend to agree that the primary cause for revolution is widespread frustration with socio-political situation, and there is general accord as to the meaning of the term.

And, if the survey by the German institute Friedrich Ebert is any guide, we are getting close to revolutionary conditions. From a sample of more than 5,000 adults from Germany, Britain, Spain, France and Poland, researchers found that trust in their governments has considerably declined.

Only six percent of those surveyed had a great deal of confidence in their governments, while 46 percent of the participants said they did not trust their statesmen very much and some three percent had no trust in their governments at all. From there, however, there is a long way to go before the revolutionary process actually starts, but it seems closest in Greece, or perhaps Spain, where street protests are continuing apace.

According to author Crane Brinton, the revolution goes through a series of stages , beginning with a "financial breakdown of society". From there, there must be an "organisation of the discontented" to remedy this breakdown, who then make "revolutionary demands" which if granted would mean the virtual abdication of those governing.

The next stages, according to the Brinton doctrine, involve the use of force by governments, its failure, and the attainment of power by the revolutionists. The revolutionary group then fragments and power passes in increasingly violent stages from right to left, to the "terror stage", where the revolution devours its children.

Such seems to be the fate of many European countries, and despite the opportunities for relief revolutions afford, these is not to be welcomed. Classically, they are messy, violent affairs, which rarely if ever achieve the objectives of those who start them off. In fact, most often, they are the first to die.

The trick, therefore, it seems to me, is to achieve change in such a manner that it heads off the violent revolution, yet deals with the issues which, if allowed to continue, would inevitably give rise to such a revolution. The challenge, therefore, is to achieve revolution by non-violent means – at which the British are supposedly quite adept – although we have had our moments.

Conventional wisdom – or so I am told – is that to achieve anything of significance, unity is paramount. To that effect, political parties and other campaigning groups set great store by unity, often valuing it above all else.

However, it seems that organisational unity, as such, rather than assisting in the attainment of an objective, is more likely to interfere with it. As different groups strive to promote their own agendas, compromises have to be made. Unity becomes the ultimate objective, requiring the sacrifice of any specific group objectives.

To cite a fairly recent example, "eurosceptic" Conservative workers might accept the rejection of a long-stated wish to repatriate the Common Fisheries Policy, in order to maintain a unified front, in order to win an election. Theory has it that the unity is then prone to fracture after the election – but that it another story.

Thus, it would appear, attempts at unifying disparate organisations – or even individuals – in order to achieve campaign objectives, are not a sensible way forward. Rather than having an organisation and a revolutionary leader in the manner of Lenin, a more effective way of achieving an effect would be for different groups to maintain a unity of purpose, while keeping their separate identities and autonomy of action.

The effect of unity in such a context is similar to that of a magnifying glass concentrating the sun's rays in order to produce a flame. Without the lens, the sun will not have the desired effect. Without unity of purpose, it is difficult to prevail against the forces of government.

And therein lies the ultimate protection for government. It is not so much that it is highly efficient in protecting itself. Simply, its benefits from unity of purpose, derives from the need to perpetuate itself, and enrich its members, whereas the opposition is fragmented and uncoordinated.

But, if the focus derived from unity of purpose is essential for the success of a campaign, it is not enough. The other essential is persistence. One notes that the Chartist demand of universal suffrage did not see fruition until 1918, seventy years had elapsed from the date of publication of the charter, and then not until 1928 for women aged 21.

It will be recalled that opponents to the women's vote argued that they should not get the vote "because they were too emotional and could not think as logically as men".

Arguably, we cannot wait as long as the Suffragettes, but it has to be recognised that major change is rarely achieved quickly. On the other hand, persistent failure is timeless. The eurosceptic movement has spent 35 years failing. Success in ten years would be short by comparison.

What the Chartists and the Suffragettes both had in their favour was also the simplicity of their idea, and the broad appeal. The idea of one man (and woman) one vote, was simple to convey and could attract support from across the political spectrum.

Similarly, Referism has that simplicity, and potentially, the same broad appeal. The left, such as it is, and the right, can unite on the need for an annual referendum, as a means of budgetary control over government, albeit from different perspectives and with different objectives.

Thus, we are able to identify four elements necessary for a successful pre-revolutionary campaign, those necessary to head off a violent revolution. Firstly, we need a simple objective, and one with broad appeal. Then we need of campaigners unity of purpose, and persistence.

Of all these, possibly the hardest to achieve is unity of purpose. As I pointed out in the original post on Referism, there will be all sorts of resistance to the idea.

However, those who have different agendas should ask themselves whether they fulfil the requirements of simplicity and broad appeal, whether they can forge a unity of purpose amongst different groups to achieve their aim and whether the idea is sufficient to inspire persistent campaigning over the years. Campaigners then have to ask themselves what their own objectives are – whether they are campaigning just for the sake of it, or whether they actually want to succeed.


That question came up when I had the privilege of standing as the candidate for the Referendum Party in Derbyshire South, in the 1997 General. During that time, the founder, James Goldsmith came down to Swadlincote for an epic public meeting - amid dark complaints that he had only set up the Party for his own self-aggrandisement. What none of us knew then was that he was terminally ill with cancer, and had nothing personally to gain.

And that, on the scale of things, applies to most of us. For myself, on and off, I have spent some 35 years fighting the EU. I am not going to see another 35 years, and - like James Goldsmith - I would like to see the glimmerings of success before I die.

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