A petition calling for a general election can't fix the failing UK
Published in The National, November 26th, 2024.
A petition to the UK government and Parliament launched just over a day ago has attracted over 2 million signatures and will likely wind up with several million by its 20 May, 2025 deadline. It calls for a general election because the Labour Government has gone back on their promises. (It’s fascinating to watch the number climb in real time.)
English Labour hasn’t gone back on their promises because they were pretty clear about what they intended to do. Granted, their withdrawal of the universal Winter Fuel Allowance (WFA) came as a surprise to many who thought that not even neoliberal Sir Keir and Rachel Reeves would be so cruel, but everything else - sparing their corporate donors and the bloodsucking City of London, reneging on their manifesto pledges and sticking it to ordinary people - they made crystal clear well before July 4th.
Some have speculated the petition’s originator is affiliated with Nigel Farage’s Reform party. It doesn’t really matter who started it because it has tapped into and is reflecting the intense anger people are feeling after just 4 months of the Starmer regime.
And Sir Keir has told us that things are only going to get worse.
I’ll zero in on just 2 Labour policies that have angered people - cutting the WFA and retaining the 2 child benefit cap. Together these two measures “saved” the government £1.5 billion and £2.5 billion a year, respectively. £4 billion is chump change and cutting it is foolish. More pensioners will die this winter without the WFA and it will put an additional burden on the struggling NHS. The IFS reported that ending the benefit cap would be the most cost-effective way to reduce child poverty - more than any other change to the benefit system - and also called for lifting the household benefit cap that impacts the poorest families.
Every time we see Sir Keir strutting around the globe in his expensive suits and designer eyeglasses, we’re reminded of this:
Despite his dependency on Lord Alli, Starmer has declared war on what he calls Britain’s dependency culture.
Face it. Starmer doesn’t care about the great unwashed public - just 33% of the UK electorate voted English Labour, hardly a mandate.
Here’s what Sir Keir really cares about. Since February 2022, the UK has pledged £12.8 billion to Ukraine, £7.8 billion for military support. And Starmer has promised Ukraine another £3 billion per year for “as long as it takes.”
On top of this, he’s ramping up defence spending from £54.2 to £57.1 billion, a real increase of 4.5% and has pledged to spend 2.5% of GDP on the military, up from 2.3%.
And Starmer is staunchly defending the genocidal Israeli regime. The UK has granted more than 100 export licenses for the sale of weapons and military equipment to the Zionist state since October 7th, 2023.
But back to the petition. Unfortunately, a general election won’t halt the UK’s downward spiral. The first past the post voting system ensures that Tweedledee will replace Tweedledum at any future election. The majority of people in the UK have no political rights, no right to referendums or initiatives that would actually hold government to account. This petition will get a House of Commons debate but no more.
That’s because the Government controls Parliament, not the other way around. The centralised party machinery controls the money, the nominations to constituencies - there are no primaries - and whips its MPs into compliance and, if they don’t go along, removes their ability to vote.
The UK is not a democracy, but a feudal anachronism. The British Establishment is hanging on by its fingernails. It’s only a matter of time before the whole rotten edifice comes crashing down.
To speed up the process of the UK’s inevitable demise, activists have formed Respect Scottish Sovereignty (RSS), a grassroots movement that is demanding that MSPs enact the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) in Scots law, which would give the Scottish People direct political rights on devolved legislation, putting some meat on the bones of Popular Sovereignty. If Holyrood refuses to listen, then the Scottish People will have no choice but to take matters into their own hands.
Lets get the truth of England's dependency culture on Scotland out. Direct political rights at Holyrood is part of that process to take back our parliament. If the English system had primaries they would have done what the Democrats did in 2016 when Bernie Sanders won numerous states from West Virginia westwards. No, scrap that - what they did to momentum had the same effect.
I signed the petition not that it will make a difference and I also emailed my Liebour MP with this
Dear ----------- Just a note to let you know that my wife and I have both signed the petition to demand a new general election, since coming to power the Liebour government have lied endlessly about their policies and have deliberately ignored the mandates they promoted and were elected on
The FACT that Anas Sarwar publicly and loudly stated on broadcast television “ READ my lips there will be no AUSTERITY under labour ” shows the blatant contempt he and your party hold the electorate in, what makes it even more risible is that Scottish labour representatives either voted FOR the removal of the WFA or cowardly abstained on the vote
Keir Starmer has given billions to a war in Ukraine and has pledged billions more whilst pensioners in Scotland have the despicable choice of either heating their homes badly or eating , how can it be morally justifiable that the chancellor removes the heating allowance from pensioners whilst simultaneously claiming £4,000+ in heating allowance for her own home , and MP’s from a supposedly socialist party eagerly claim their own heating expenses, I will hold all representatives of the labour party responsible for any pensioner who dies from hypothermia during this winter
The cowardly actions of Scottish Labour MP’s in failing to protect their constituents will not be forgotten