Thread by @Sakura509

@Maggie29047241 "A cross-party group of MPs is threatening to sue Boris Johnson unless he orders an independent investigation into Russian interference in recent UK elections and the 2016 Brexit vote."

@Maggie29047241 "The MPs say the government’s refusal to investigate Kremlin meddling is a breach of the European convention on human rights, which enshrines the right to free elections in protocol 1."

@Maggie29047241 "Caroline Lucas, the Green MP for Brighton, said: “Democratic processes are clearly at risk. It seems that the integrity of our elections is being deliberately undermined. Nothing could be more serious for our democracy."

@Maggie29047241 “Ministers’ behaviour to date has been shockingly complacent and negligent. The government cannot be allowed to shirk this because Tory party coffers are topped up with Russian money.”

theguardian.com/politics/2020/…

@Maggie29047241 "Appearing competent – at least in the way that term is conventionally understood – is no longer a priority for Conservative voters or politicians."

@Maggie29047241 "Instead, the government has other projects: centralising power, limiting parliamentary democracy, rewarding party donors such as property developers, and awarding public sector contracts to companies with Conservative connections."

@Maggie29047241 "In these tasks it has so far been pretty effective – you could even say competent."

Many observers, and especially Labour ones, concluded that competence in office was politically essential.

@Maggie29047241 "“What counts is what works,” declared Labour’s successful 1997 election manifesto, and the party governed Britain accordingly, producing modest, workable solutions to the country’s large problems, such as tax credits and the minimum wage."

@Maggie29047241 "Laughing at “bumbling Boris” and “failing Grayling” is easy. But in the end, the joke’s on us."

theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

@Maggie29047241 "First-past-the-post elections are what a game theorist would call ‘repeated games’: as somebody who supports a party that is neither Tweedledum nor Tweedledee you get the opportunity to be beaten up repeatedly."

@Maggie29047241 "Of course, when we talk about electoral reform we are just at the tip of the iceberg of the fundamental transformation that our political system is crying out for. The absurd mash-up of toffs and cronies in House of Lords is even more anachronistic, even more anti-democratic."

@Maggie29047241 "And the absence of a written constitution means that authoritarian politicians like Johnson can try it on with ruses like ‘proroguing Parliament’, hoping the apathy or weariness of ‘the people’ will allowing the outrage to pass."

@Maggie29047241 "The exact content of the joint platform for constitutional transform is open to debate. The urgent necessity of agreeing it is transparently clear."

@Maggie29047241 "In book How Democracies Die, US political scientists Levitsky and Ziblatt give examples of how, in various different societies, democracy was saved by politicians who were committed to it putting differences aside and working together in interests of democratic system itself."

@Maggie29047241 opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocra…

@Maggie29047241 "Since EU referendum, 2016, parliament has been cowering under instruction of higher democratic authority. MPs sit sullenly behind leaders imposed on them against their will, disciplined by manifestos on which they were not consulted and by activists who plot their deselection."

@Maggie29047241 "Yet our parliamentary constitution is a cause worth fighting for. Saving it will require a frank recognition of its failures, and a willingness to do more than dial the clock back to 2015."

@Maggie29047241 "During an earlier political crisis, in the 1830s, the Whig constitutionalist Thomas Macaulay adjured his fellow members to “reform, that you may preserve”. In that spirit, let us rebuild our parliamentary democracy."

@Maggie29047241 "The model that emerged in Britain – more by chance than design – was a distinctly conservative idea of democracy. Power remained in the hands of Britain’s medieval parliament, operating at arm’s length from the public."

@Maggie29047241 "Pre-democratic elements, such as the monarchy and the House of Lords, both survived and thrived, while governments successfully fought off demands for direct democracy or industrial democracy."

@Maggie29047241 "This was not the self-governing democracy of the ancient world, in which citizens made their laws in the public square. It was government by a select few, accountable at periodic intervals to the electorate."

Evasion of accountability is a subversion of democracy!

@Maggie29047241 "Yet the imaginative hold of parliament was never stronger, as the arena of Churchill’s great speeches and a symbol of national defiance. Churchill called it “the citadel of British liberty” and the rock on which dictators would be broken."

@Maggie29047241 “I do not know how else this country can be governed,” he said in 1943, “other than by the House of Commons.”

Yet #LiarJohnson presumes to attack the liberties and freedoms of UK & EU citizens, whilst misappropriating public funds for financial gain of Tory party and donors.

@Maggie29047241 "By the 1980s, Benn was calling for a “national liberation struggle” to tear down “the lace curtains hung by the Mother of Parliaments”. Britain’s parliamentary democracy, he concluded, was “a decorous façade, behind which those who have power exercise it for own advantage”."

@Maggie29047241 "At its best, parliamentary democracy embodies three core principles. The first is that democracy is a conversation, conjured from a glorious cacophony of voices and interests."

Today, we are subjected to daily party political broadcasts, laden with lies and misinformation.

@Maggie29047241 "The role of parliament is to bring those voices into dialogue. The very name comes from the French word “to speak”: parliament is where the people come together to parley."

@Maggie29047241 "For that reason, a parliamentary system does not entrust a single figure with the full powers of government; instead, it returns 650 different voices..."

Regrettably, those shouting loudest and saying the most bizarre contradictions of facts are heard above the wall of noise.

@Maggie29047241 "Parliamentarism not only legitimises dissent; it institutionalises it, in the role of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition."

"The archaic title expresses an important principle: that even those who have been defeated at a general election remain central to the democratic process."

@Maggie29047241 "Dissent is not treason or an offence against the people. It is a service to them, including those – perhaps temporarily – in a minority."

Mediating compromise through the many proposals and dissensions can result in optimal courses of action in national interest for common good

@Maggie29047241 Attempts to silence dissension seek to impose dictatorship!

Courses of action followed will neither be in national interest nor the common good of all UK citizens, but skewed to the self-serving interests and financial gain of those enforcing dictatorship on fellow citizens.

@Maggie29047241 "Third, no parliament can bind the hands of its successor."

"A democracy can change its mind; the process of argument, debate and persuasion is punctuated by the electoral system, not terminated by it."

@Maggie29047241 "Democracy in UK was at risk, the moment #Maybot denied the people their right to 'change their mind', or to have any say in HOW the UK would leave the EU!!

First, #Maybot, now #LiarjJohnson hijacked result of EU Referendum 2016, to serve their needs and those of party donors.

@Maggie29047241 "For our latter-day populists, the will of the people is a single, unitary intelligence, issuing instructions to its delegates in parliament. It is an authoritarian fantasy, made possible only by the ruthless suppression of dissenting voices."

@Maggie29047241 "The people, we are told, have spoken; and like a naughty child at a dinner party, they are not to speak again until the feast is over."

*uncensored version of populist Tory rule in UK.

@Maggie29047241 "On this model, “the will of the people” is no longer a negotiation within parliament. It is a weapon to be held over it."

@Maggie29047241 "MPs are instructed to deliver “what the people voted for”; but since none of the options before parliament was on the ballot in 2016, clairvoyance becomes a necessary art of government."

#May & #LiarJohnson wasted no time, laughing all the way to the bank, to cash blank cheque!

@Maggie29047241 "The test of a policy is no longer the strength of its arguments or its support in the House, but its mystical connection with an imagined people."

In reality, we witness that the test is measured in terms of financial gain to Tory Party cronies and speculators on chaos in UK!

@Maggie29047241 "How did these ideas gain traction? Parliament itself has much to answer for."

@Maggie29047241 "Above all, parliament failed in its core mission: to bring different opinions into dialogue. Too often, what passes for our national conversation is closer to a mass brawl at a football stadium, with MPs yelling and jeering across the field of play."

@Maggie29047241 "In the 2015 general election, unionist voices in Scotland were washed away by the Scottish National Party, which won 95 per cent of Scottish seats on 50 per cent of the vote."

@Maggie29047241 "The SNP had earned the right to the biggest voice in Scottish politics – and unlike Labour or the Conservatives, it did not choose the system that gave it power."

@Maggie29047241 "But less than a year after a referendum on Scottish independence, the result made a mockery of the most important fault-line in Scottish opinion."

Any parliamentarian with integrity ought to have reexamined result of indy 2014, given the earth shattering success of SNP in 2015.

@Maggie29047241 And, likewise, Russian interference in the EU Ref 2016, and subsequent general elections.

news.sky.com/story/russia-r…

@Maggie29047241 "The problem was exacerbated by constitutional jerry-rigging."

Now we have #Gove, aided and abetted by #Galloway, attempting to sabotage an imminent #indyref2.

thenational.scot/news/18666491.…

@Maggie29047241 thenational.scot/news/18663614.…

@Maggie29047241 timethrust.com/michael-gove-a…

@Maggie29047241 "The problem was exacerbated by constitutional jerry-rigging. David Cameron seemed to approach the constitution like the dodgy builder from Fawlty Towers: knocking through a wall here, putting in a door there, until the building nearly collapsed around him."

@Maggie29047241 "His Fixed-Term Parliaments Act, passed for the convenience of the coalition in 2011, wrought havoc with parliamentary accountability, severing the connection between “confidence” and the ability of a government to pass its legislation."

@Maggie29047241 "His casual use of the referendum broke the core principle of responsible government: that those who advocate a policy take responsibility for its results."

Let's hope #LiarJohnson's "leveling up" of injustices arising from Tory Rule, does not resemble the wonky table approach!

@Maggie29047241 "In bolting on to a parliamentary system elements of a presidential and plebiscitary regime, we have cut the central artery of the British constitution: that a government must command the confidence of the House of Commons."

@Maggie29047241 "LONDON — Boris Johnson is building his own White House."

"The prime minister and his top adviser Dominic Cummings have made what some consider unprecedented moves to centralize control over the civil service — sparking fears Whitehall is being politicized."

@Maggie29047241 politico.eu/article/uk-pri…

@Maggie29047241 "Like the buildings it inhabits, parliament needs urgent renovation. The first priority is a new voting system that more accurately represents the spectrum of national opinion."

@Maggie29047241 "The second is to replace the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act, which allows zombie governments to linger on when they can no longer pass their major legislation. Third, parliament should radically reduce its workload, distributing more of its powers to local and devolved government."

@Maggie29047241 "Just as importantly, we need a radical shift in the culture of parliament. The closure of Palace of Westminster for repairs offers a once-in-a-generation chance to shake up culture of the existing chamber, through a more civilised, less confrontational set-up."

🚮 Punch & Judy!

@Maggie29047241 "Our fractured politics has never been more in need of a place where competing ideas and interests can come together, in order to argue, to educate and to inform. But if we believe in our parliamentary system, we will need to fight for it."

newstatesman.com/politics/uk/20…

@Maggie29047241 And that about sums up the shambles in UK Government today! 🐝 👒 🤭

@Maggie29047241 @threadreaderapp unroll, please