Democracy in Action

By Wednesday evening, Theresa May will be sitting in Number 10 as Prime Minister, and that’s frankly mollifying to somebody who not only votes against Tories, but also is typically given the opportunity to vote in the first place. Given her previous voting history, it’s clear that she’s against pretty much every progressional movement of the last twenty years, and whilst we’ve yet to see what she’s like as PM, I think I speak for many more people than myself when I say that we don’t particularly want to find out.

The fact that Theresa May has been chosen, not elected to lead the country speaks volumes about our stance regarding democracy as a country, and to those who will immediately raise the issue of Gordon Brown being an unelected leader, I say that, well, I was freshly twelve at the time and understandably wasn’t taking much notice of politics. And besides, calling out one bad PM to justify another doesn’t really constitute a strong argument, in my books.

I like to believe that Larry speaks for us all.

As for David Cameron, I always believed that when he resigned, it would be a day of elation, but as a certain character who’s name I forget in the Matrix once said… not like this. David Cameron may be an utter pillock (my own views, of course), but he was an utter pillock who ushered in same-sex marriage, and whether that was a political stunt or a legitimate interest of his, it yielded a pleasant result. I’ll be honest and say that I don’t spend my entire life studying the achievements and disgraces of politicians like some over, more professionally political oriented blogs and people might do, but I get the general impression that Theresa May is far more of a bad cookie than David Cameron. And if there’s one thing I cannot forgive, it’s somebody spoiling a cookie to make a political point.

In all seriousness, though, the lack of say that the general public has had regarding the appointing of Theresa May as Prime Minister is simply appalling. Sure, it’s how it’s been done in the past, but the past falls further and further into obscurity and outdated values with each passing year, and we are encouraged to learn from our mistakes rather than repeat them. Some will say that Theresa’s appointment is still part of a democratic philosophy, because of the idea that you could ask your local Tory MP to vote for the leader that you want, as the vote was strictly among MP’s. But that is a wholly less official and reliable system than public polling, as these MP’s mostly have their own agendas and are most likely to ignore the concerns of the public, because they, of course, know better. And when all of this is brought up, they get around the matter by saying that MP’s always have the exclusive right to vote for their party leader.

Sure. So appoint her party leader, and then hold a general election. Theresa May herself has already stated that there will be ‘no general election’, likely due to the already unstable nature of the country (source), but for all I know that could be an easy excuse to secure her seat in power. Before we know it, Larry the Downing Street Cat might be strung up as an example for all male cats who chase other male cats.We might be going to war more easily, seeing more nationalisation, what have you. But maybe those are just the panicked ramblings of an uneasy left-winger.

I’m not done yet, though. On the topic of going to war more easily – remember the vote on Syrian airstrikes? I detest that big, country-affecting decisions like this are made exclusively by MP’s. This follows the aforementioned philosophy of the public going to their local MP and asking for them to vote in a particular direction, and I refer to my aforementioned argument against this. I’m aware that it would be impractical to hold a country-wide referendum for every decision made by Parliament, but I personally believe that many, many more of the important decisions should be put to the public, if not as a percentage of the overall vote, then as a mandatory point of discussion within Parliament before a decision is made. The current system is antiquated, and allows for the richer few to control the poorer many in manners sometimes reminiscent of dictatorship.

(Side-note: I’m trying to make my politically charged blog posts less angry and more pleasant to read. I hope this comes as a welcome change.)