One last heave by desperate PM

Tweet

 

In his last-ditch attempt to ensure the success of Project Oblivion, the PM has apparently been sending out hourly tweets making increasingly fantastical claims about what Labour will do if they win, including the abolition of exams, the demolition of the green belt, and taxing people for driving their cars. About the only things he hasn’t so far accused Starmer of planning are the abolition of democracy and the installation of Starmer as PM for life. Which is something of a pity, because it takes much less deliberate misinterpretation of Starmer’s words to conclude that he wants to do both of those things.

Yesterday, Starmer told us that the UK will not rejoin the EU in his lifetime, one of the few definitive pledges he’s managed to give in a somewhat lacklustre campaign. Since no government can bind its successors, the only way he can deliver on that pledge is to remain in office until he dies. That, in turn, obviously means the abolition of democracy. It’s a silly extrapolation of a silly statement, of course – but no sillier than much of what Sunak has been saying about Labour’s plans.

But there is a real point here about democracy, and it doesn’t just apply to Starmer; it equally applies to Sunak (or whoever succeeds him as party leader). Ruling things out categorically clearly implies that public opinion has no role or place in decision-making. And nor is it just about the EU. Both parties have repeatedly made it clear for example that even if the SNP were to win every seat in Scotland on a manifesto pledging an independence referendum they would ‘never’ allow such a referendum to be held. They’ve gone further as well – they have claimed that a defeat for the SNP in today’s election, an outcome which is possible according to the polls, will kill the idea of independence for ever, as though those who argue for it have no right to continue promoting their views after a single electoral setback. It is a profoundly anti-democratic stance to take.

Whether the issue is the EU or Scottish independence, or whatever else, it is reasonable to suggest that the decision shouldn’t be revisited by an annual referendum, and to debate, in that case, how long is a reasonable period before re-assessing public opinion. It is not reasonable, and not the act of any democrat, to argue that it doesn’t matter what the public think (nor, in the case of Scotland, whether they vote for parties supporting such a proposition) and that the decision can and will be made by the PM of the day. It serves to underline how strongly both the main English parties are wedded to the idea of absolute sovereignty being vested in the crown-in-parliament rather than in the people. On the basis that you can’t abolish what you don’t have, they don’t really need to propose the abolition of democracy.