Check 2: People and constitutional sovereignty: All political power resides in the people, who delegate a defined measure of that power to a government and other institutions.
Sovereignty – we’ve heard a lot in the UK about both sovereignty, and “taking back control” – but this taking back of control in the context of leaving the EU has so far barely extended to us as citizens. Why and how is the current UK system so paternalistic? What are the roots of the widespread and long-standing political apathy in the UK? What alternative models can we look to for inspiration?
In this episode we examine how the UK’s First Past The Post system creates, not least in Boris Johnson, but also Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher, rulers that are effectively sovereign monarchs, and a citizenry of disempowered subject-consumers. And we explore what it would take for us to assert our sovereignty more effectively.Talking points:
- The planet is ideally sovereign, but to be practical it’s people who are doing the doing
- Who actually exercises power in the UK?
- Centralisation leads to bureaucracy leads to powerlessness
- The Welfare System as a case in point
- Think Tanks vs. Thinking Tanks
- People are perfectly capable, regardless of background
- Switzerland’s consensual democracy as exemplar
- Fragmentation of the UK as an opportunity for this
- Hangover of Empire in the current administration
- Challenges to active participation
- Leadership model in Amazon
- Scientific Method, falsification and Karl Popper
Bonus Essay Link: Sovereignty boffin and Brexit campaigner Claire Fox celebrates the engaging effect that the UK’s leaving the EU has had on democratic participation in the UK, and that this is only the beginning – neatly illustrating that for some, Brexit is a gift that keeps on giving, even if for others it is a long, dark, damp, cold night with no promise of morning. Brrr.
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