Neo’s posts over the last two days are a reminder of what we had forgotten for a long time- that democracy as we have known it in America and Western Europe is a fragile creation. Today in the UK three judges ruled that the Government could not use the Royal prerogative to move straight to ‘Brexit’ without a vote in parliament. This was a right for which the English Civil War was fought; it was on that issue that the last of the male Stuarts monarchs lost his throne; it was on it that the 13 Colonies revolted. Parliament is sovereign. The outrage from the Brexiteers puzzles me. What is it about this they fail to grasp? As might have been expected in the sort of politics Neo has been describing, we get straight into conspiracies – this is an attempt by ‘the elites’ to ‘steal’ the results of the referendum.
But the referendum was actually an advisory one. The Government could have chosen to say ‘thank you, but no thank you, the result is too narrow’, but the then Prime Minister chose not to. Back in the 1970s when the Callaghan government ran a referendum on Scottish independence parliament insisted that only a two-thirds majority would suffice for such a major constitutional change, which meant that although a bare majority voted for independence, Scotland did not become independent. It is not uncommon for important changes to demand more than a narrow majority, not least in view of the fact that there is always a portion of the electorate which fails to vote.
Parliament now has to do its duty – and the folly of the referendum as a tool of governance is exposed. MPs are sent to the House as representatives, not delegates. We ask them to exercise their best judgment. Those who loudly demand they vote with the majority in the late referendum seem either ignorant of this, or think it does not matter; it does, as does not deciding things by Royal fiat. The will of the people is expressed constitutionally through an elected parliament with a revising chamber in the form of the House of Lords. That is how British democracy works and has worked for many years. Referenda are blunt instruments, and whatever the shortcomings of parliamentary democracy, they are as nothing compared to those of referenda.
In terms of the Church and the Faith, it would not matter if every bishop pronounced heresy, and every Catholic received it – it would still be heresy. Orthodoxy is not decided by a referendum, but by a settled consensus of the faithful which stretches back to the Apostles. If every Catholic theologian and a majority of the laity declared their vote for women priests it would not matter – the Church has no power to ordain women, even as it has no power to declare that Christ is just a very good man. But here we are dealing with revealed Truth. This may be why so many moderns have trouble with the Church – it speaks clearly of truth in a world where everything is relative. Everything, that is, save the opinion of a slender majority – that, it seems, is infallible. It was not upon such a principle that secular democracy was founded. It may be on it that it founders though; we shall see.
All Along the Watchtower 
C, I’m not going to pretend to understand fully British politics;however, isn’t the result of Brexit more in favor of Catholic social teaching and subsidiarity? Doesn’t Democracy work better on a smaller scale rather than a global scale?
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Hard to say – the unleashing of a tide of xenophobia seems rather unCatholic thought 🙂
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True, in the United States, of course, we had states’ rights which led to discrimination. I think a lot stems from a lack of faith in the West. For example, whereas when there is a small state morality can be enlightened in the Church, but when the Church is not beacon of truth and the state small–democracies produce the mob. The sentiment of many of the founders of the United States–e.g. Madison, Hamilton, and Washington.
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In my reading, I see very little of that tide. What I see, like here, in fact, is not all that much dislike of the immigrants themselves, as a strong dislike of the uncontrolled nature of the immigration. That, of course, is a large part of a nation-state’s sovereignty.
We did see that, but then again we have been making progress in that since the founding, it’s a process and a long slow one. I think Britain would be served to devolve much back to a lower level, I don’t know, perhaps the counties. I don’t understand the organization well enough. But there is no reason that competition between areas wouldn’t work there as well as it does here. Maybe better, given how London-centric HMG seems.
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There is, alas, quite a bit of xenophobia – those who felt unable to say it now feel they can.
England centralised early – really even before the Normans, and given the centrality of London to the economy it is hard to see how there could be any real decentralisation. The me as the SNP are making if Scottish education suggests there may be a probe,m about managerial capacity too!
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Fair enough, it just doesn’t show up where I read then. That’s true and England has been London centric since at least the Conquest. The SNP strike me as unusually incompetent, surely some of those brilliant people who brought the world the industrial revolution had kids, but maybe they all went out into the Empire. Then again everything I read about local government says that all they know how to do is read the book, and that unintelligently.
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Sam Johnson was right, the best prospect a bright Scotsman ever saw was the high road to London- which is where the brightest and best still go.
On the xenophobia, difficult to nail it. I suspect it is simply that people feel freer to say what’s they’ve always thought.
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True enough, and still is, I reckon.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing, although it can be uncomfortable. First part of fixing things is to realize there’s a problem, before it turns completely into violence.
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Very true, Neo.
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All very true C, though missing the point of the people’s disgust with those elite ‘representatives’ that throw their weight behind things that are rather far from the core questions their governments were founded to preserve: their own nation states . . . their own people.
When the government has the ‘right’ to shift the decision making to others who are not even of the same nationality, it seems that they have taken a bit too much on their shoulders. In the US we see the same happening in a loss of State’s rights and an adoption of UN resolutions which trump the will of the people. It is how we got Obamacare etc.
Globalist goals are tearing our democracies and democratic republics asunder. We have inched toward this ‘farming out’ of our self-determination to others who know better than those who live in the country and must put up with the ramifications of laws dictated from off of our own shores. It was a bad idea from the start and this may be the last chance you get to extricate yourself from this ever growing behemoth of a global governance. In my mind the EU was created for the ‘good’ of Europe in the economic realm . . . so that they might have more leverage with Oceana and the US in trade etc. not to mention the ‘false strength’ of a common currency. Currency aside, couldn’t that have been done by a series of treaties between nation states as well? Has the EU overstepped their rightful sphere of influence at this time . . . has the UN?
Self-determination is the soul of our countries which is slowly being removed bit by bit and I fear that democracy is, as you say, more fragile than ever. It will not last much longer if we do not apply the brakes to this movement toward a globalist utopia some of these folks seem to think they are creating.
At any rate I believe people throughout Europe and the US are getting fed up with this whole thing. So they can vote with the people or against them by rules of parliament but they will also have to shoulder the responsibiblity for the unrest and perhaps civil disobedience that will follow. The folks are angry and are not likely going to take it anymore.
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Good points. My one tomorrow will deal with some of the ramifications of the situation you describe so well.
Globalisation was a response to the insufficiency of he European nation states to competition from the USA and the USSR and China, and in that sense a good idea. Where they went wrong was thinking they could have a political union – very few people want that, and it is a devilishly difficult thing to do – certainly beyond the capacity of the people trying to do it in Europe.
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Looking forward to your post tomorrow C.
Yes a political union of diverse cultures and history is a devilishly difficult thing to do and even more difficult to undo should you start giving away your nationalism to outsiders bit by bit. Look at our states here in the US and how far our states have declined in importance . . . and it is now virtually impossible for them to regain their proper balance. New York, California and Massachussetts as cultures have nothing in common with the cultures of huge swaths of land and peoples here in the US and we are being forced to swallow their enlightened path whilst we keep losing our voice in this union. At times I think it might have been far better for the South to have won the civil war . . . for we have much more in common with one another through that simple demarcation of the Mason Dixon Line than we do without it.
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I think you will find much to discuss from this point of view in tomorrow’s post.
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Indeed, not to mention that we, you and the Sovs had pretty much wrecked the joint. Butt I don’t think it possible to make a European political union, the people are just too different, it took us till the Civil War to really figure it out, and we were essentially Anglo-Saxon based, with some cousins from Ireland and Germany.
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Sort of strange, I was (and am) a full-voiced supporter of Brexit, and the judges are exactly correct. No matter how much I respect the Queen (very much, indeed) Royal Prerogative in inimical to a democratic system. From the time, in about eighth grade, when I was introduced to the British system of the executive in Parliament, I thought it a dangerous one. Some of that is the American in me, checks and balances, don’t you know. But here’s the thing, Royal Prerogative is the same as what we call Administrative Law here, lawmaking delegated to a non-representative group, even with the best intentions it is not, it cannot be, democratic. It is ‘Rule by Experts’ who so often are such only in their own minds. Far too often they are self-serving men and/or groups of men, quangos and such.
I also have concerns that the Lords were reduced to an advisory body, at about the same time that our Senate was reduced from the representatives of the sovereign states to representatives of the people. I think both were a step too far. Both were a check on the mob, one that we need.
The American system was designed to balance the ambitions and corruptions of the men involved – to pit them one against another. It’s messy, but for most of our nation’s life, it worked well, it no longer is. Sort of a design to reconcile civil government with Original Sin.
Referenda are the bluntest of objects, a veritable cudgel in the hands of the mob – and that is not always a bad thing, but it is no way to run a government. Its use for Brexit is, I think, good, but it would not be an appropriate method for things even close to routine. Leaders need to lead, and from the front, not the rear. And that means to tell me why, not to try to scare me to death about the other.
The Anglo-American methods of government are, I think, the highest flowering of our species’s desire to be free (which is why I support Brexit), but as John Adams famously said, they require a moral people, without that they will not work, and I worry that not enough of our people remain moral enough to counter those who are not.
We shall see, indeed.
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I wish I’d thought of that. 🙂
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