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Conservative party heading in ‘very dark direction’, says former minister
(www.theguardian.com)
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this post was submitted on 10 Nov 2023
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UK Politics
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What's got me is the line that he no longer feels the need to vote with his party due to loyalty and is now focusing on what his constituents need.
**That's what they're voted in to do, look after their constituents, not the party. **
I listened to too much Joe Rogan back in the day and I'm still convinced that the way politics is right now is a dusty bullshit, not democracy.
We used to have to vote for someone to represent us in Parliament because it was a 4 day ride on a horse to get to London, but we're currently living in the age of AI and Blockchain, not horses and carriages.
I'm not saying I have the answer to what new age democracy should look like, but relying on a Party to look after us is not it. Not when we can instantly communicate around the world.
Personally I think the future should be none stop referendums on ideas that we can vote on electronically. Cue the "Oh no, but looks what happened when we had a referendum that one time" and I'll say yes, because it was a one time thing everyone went a bit silly, but when it's an everyday occurrence it will just be another boring thing that nobody but the interested would pay attention to.
So should we legalise weed in this country? The only people bothered to vote would be pot heads, medical users and those that are rabidly against weed. Most of the rest of society would just ignore it.
Net Zero? That would be an interesting one, but the oil barons would have to buy off more votes than the Stop Oil side instead of a few political types.
I'm used to Reddit, so I'm expecting lots of replies off people telling me I'm dumb, so let's see if I'm surprised.
I feel like I remember reading about a hypothesised digital voting system where every voter can either vote for themselves, or pass their vote to a representative, that can in turn pass their own and any collected votes to another representative. But each voter can withdraw their vote from a representative at any time.
So you could still have a representative body, which I think is important for getting work done. But citizens are far more empowered; if you disagree with your elected representative over a particular issue, you can rescind your vote from them temporarily and vote directly on the issue yourself.
I like the idea of this, although there'd need to be a robust verification system in place to make sure people aren't being bullied into passing their votes off to others.
I think it'd generally lead to people being more engaged and politically literate, though. And it could even lead to individuals bargaining with people they know. Like, I could say to my neighbour, "hey, I'll vote your way on this policy that I'm indifferent about if you vote my way on this other policy".
I do wonder how much of an issue disinformation campaigns would be under such a system. Would it increase their influence? Would hate rags like the Daily Mail find themselves with more influence? Or would people start to cotton onto the fact that nothing they suggest improves anything?
Absolutely it would, just look how Cambridge Analytica influenced the Brexit vote, it was basically brainwashing. But that's happened now, it's history and could be taught in schools if it hadn't been swept under the rug...
But that's the thing, "Western Democracy" could flourish because we would have all the debates on the public forums with the outside interference from other states and our own propaganda campaigns going too.
It would still be Politics, but with less Politicians.
My first thought was of thousands of people mindlessly giving their votes to their favorite celebrity, and how horribly that could go.
What your suggesting is called Direct Democracy, everyone votes on everything. But there is a very chilling black mirror episode (pre Netflix, so it's actually good) about why direct democracy doesn't work. Mostly because people are stupid.
Well I mean if we're gonna go to fiction to back up what we try before we try it, I've read lots of books by Iain M Banks that suggest giving up the running of things to benevolent AI is the way to go.
But it's fiction writen by people who have lived in the society we have, not a model of if or how it would work.
But yeah, Direct Democracy is doable now more than at any time in the past, but humans cling to the past. What can I say, I'm a progressive dreamer living in a society of traditions.
This is exactly what a failed republican candidate said about people voting against abortion rights. First google link I can find here. There is a huge difference between being stupid and less informed. The reason MPs can make better decisions is because the access they have to experts. Even then, a lot do not take that advice. Johnson with covid comes straight to mind. The public make bad choices when they are either not informed or in the case of Brexit misinformed.
Direct democracy can work, but the larger the group using it, the more work is needed to inform the participants.
But you've also got the people that seem to go out of their way to be misinformed. The type that post about 5G nanobots on Facebook and post a picture of some water in a glass and claim that it's somehow evidence the earth is flat.
No matter how much educating you do they will never learn.
I disagree. As I said the larger the group the more work you have to do. I do agree some arguments are too complex to field to a large group. Brexit should never have been thrown to the public. However the abortion argument is fine to throw to democracy, because they can see the effects first hand. And in the same light we know which way a second referendum on Brexit will go because again they have first hand information to learn from. This in itself refutes your argument regarding the feasibility that people will never learn.
That is not true. When you stand for a party then you stand for the manifesto it presents. When the vote is based around that, then you have to vote with the party. It is what you were voted in for.
Johnson called a three line whip with the Patterson vote. This is where Tory MPs should have grown a pair. It was not part of the manifesto to change the ministerial code.
A lot of what Tories have voted in was in the manifesto. People were jumping up and down and pointing at it.