One of my major objections to EU membership is people of other countries (who probably won't have our interests at heart) setting our laws. We have now also got certain people who weren't born in this country, but we have generously allowed to reside here and take residency in many cases regularly using our courts to make our politicians vote on things that in the past have been taken as covered by the Royal Prerogative.
I have two major concerns here:
1. The running of our political processes being decided in what are increasingly politized courts rather than by our elected politicians under systems that have served us well for 100's of years. After all democracy and elections are about giving MP's the power to make decisions on our behalf.
2. Much like in my opening statement individuals or organization they belong to who may or may not be foreign agents interfering in our political processes. In the US if you are working on behalf of a foreign government or organization as a foreign agent you have to register to interfere in their political processes including lobbying. They recognise the dangers of their political processes being interfered with by foreign agents.
Now I understand there is a line to be drawn here on people's rights but should there be restrictions on those who were not born here or who represent foreign interests on how they can access our courts to challenge our political processes, so we don't end up with the external subversion of our democracy?
Sorry Rod, I know what you are trying to say, but you have at least missed some important facts in your piece, if not distorted the truth.
I was not born in this country, being a child of a Royal Naval family, but am only loyal to this country, as are many thousands of British citizens who parents/ or/and them were born abroad and came to this country to escape persecution or even death. Many of these fought for this country, with just one example, the Polish pilots who did battle over the skies of Kent in 1940 and in the case of one of their Squadrons, 303, had the highest kill rate of any RAF squadron. Now is it wrong for that generation and those that have followed being involved in formulating British Law? One example of many who have fought and sweated to improve and maintain British Law. How then could you ever "draw a line" and decide who has the right to vote and who is a third rate citizen and has no rights. Hitler did that, then dismantled the German democratic system completely. He knew how to "draw a line"!!
In addition your claim that "our elected politicians under systems that have served us well for 100's of years" is wrong. It was not until 1832 that men over the age of 21 had the right to vote; they had to own property over a certain value, and their votes, which were publicly made, were in no way representative of the population. Many rural areas had far more MP's per 1000 of electorate than the major cities. The reforms of the 1832 Reform Act was a step in the right direction, but still the system was rigged for the benefit of the aristocratic landowners and generally the very wealthy. In practice the lower classes, and of course the poor, had no right to vote. No say at all in British Law. Acts of Government were passed for the benefit of the wealthy, not the country as a whole.
It took a great deal of populist action, as by the Chartists from 1838 to 1848, to gradually bring about a fairer system, but it took decades to bring about the start of the real modern voting system in 1918 with the Representation of the People Act giving the vote to all men over 21 and to all women over the age of 30 years. It was not until 1928 that all women over 21 got the vote.
So it cannot be said that the system has served us well for 100's of years, unless you are aristocracy. In truth it also took the First World War, and then the Second, to finally bring about British Law and Social Reform that was truly beneficial to the average man and women in the street; it was then that the "toffs" lost the power they once had over you, me, and our forbears. Barely 70 years then that we have had some form of real power over our politicians. Would you intend to put the clock back and actually take the voting rights away from British / those that live here tax payers? Do you want a French style Revolution as in 1789? Don't think so.
European Law has been decided outside our Parliament, something that we knew in 1975 and that is why I said a firm "NO" to the European coupling. In fact though much European Law has made our lives, as the working class, safer, more rewarding, and supportive. It has protected us from employment practices that should have been long consigned to history in 1975, but it took that, for instance, to greatly improve Health & Safety, working conditions, employment rights, with far greater legal protection for us all. Our industries are at least on a par with those of Germany, and is a reason why foreign car makers for instance are still investing in this 21st country (I sincerely hope that Brexit does not screw that one up!)
We, with Brexit, now enter a new era which will give us great challenges. But, it is not conceivable that what the British Parliaments will do from 2019 will turn the clock back and rid us of the protection given to us by the EU. In conclusion, unless your ideas of limiting voting rights were introduced, we as the people will still be voting for our rights and aspirations in the best democratic system in the World.
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Topic: External agents setting our laws (Read 1008 times)