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Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Extinction Rebellion has demanded the citizens assembly offered by the British Government be given real authority, the power to override Democratically elected politicians, so Britain can properly address the climate crisis.
It’s Time The Public Had A Say On How We Fight Our Climate Crisis
By failing to act right now, we’re condemning our children to a bleak or even non-existent future. The public has a right to respond to this crisis, writes Extinction Rebellion’s Linda Doyle
30-08-2019 By Linda Doyle…
As an event that challenges established politics and offers new ways of doing things, it is the perfect place to highlight our third manifesto demand: that government “must create and be led by the decisions of a citizens’ assembly on climate and ecological justice”.
In short, what we want to see is something called a citizens’ assembly which will give a representative sample of the UK population the opportunity to debate and decide how we tackle the climate and ecological emergency.
Decades of inadequate political action have led to a climate and ecological emergency that poses an unprecedented threat to humanity and all life on Earth — “politics as usual” will not meet the challenge we face.
In June the Select Committees announced plans for a citizens’ assembly aiming to reduce greenhouse gases to net-zero by 2050, but these plans lack the scale and scope that we desperately need. 2050 is way too late; we have 17 monthsnot 31 years.
The assembly has no teeth, so the select committees are free to ignore their recommendations and the government is free to ignore the select committees.
Parliamentary democracy cannot solve long-term problems. Politicians focus on getting re-elected, so short-term policies are prioritised. A citizens’ assembly is an upgrade to democracy that fixes its flaws. People in citizens’ assemblies can think long-term about what they want for themselves, their families, and their communities. There’s no tactical voting or influential lobbyists behind the scenes.
Read more: https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/climate-crisis_uk_5d68d836e4b0488c0d127f74
…
Extinction Rebellion is not the first group to demand a citizens assembly because they are dissatisfied with the representatives voters choose.
President Maduro created a citizens assembly, when Venezuelan elections failed to deliver the elected politicians and policies he wanted.
Venezuela’s President Maduro calls for new constituent body
2 May 2017Amid continuing anti-government protests, Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro has called for a new constitution.
Speaking at a May Day rally, Mr Maduro said a new constitution was needed “to restore peace” and stop the opposition from carrying out a “coup d’etat”.
He decreed that a citizens’ assembly be convened to write the new document.
Opposition leaders said the move was aimed at neutralising the opposition-led legislature, the National Assembly.
…
National Assembly leader Julio Borges called it “a scam to deceive the Venezuelan people with a mechanism that is nothing more than a tightening of the coup in Venezuela”.
“It is Nicolas Maduro dissolving democracy and dissolving the Republic.”
…
Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-39775092
You might think it odd that Britain, the birthplace of modern democracy, would be seriously considering the idea of establishing a Venezuelan style citizens assembly which can dictate to elected politicians what they can and cannot do.
But in my opinion the concept of an undemocratic citizens’ assembly which can override the will of elected politicians fits quite neatly into the political procedural vacuum which will appear when Britain leaves the EU.
For decades elected British politicians have been accused of hiding behind EU rules dictated by the unelected European Commission, when they want to refuse the demands of voters.
If you accept this charge, the creation of a new and powerful unelected citizens climate assembly makes perfect sense. The new assembly, whose claim to legitimacy would be drawn from the perceived urgent need to address the climate “crisis”, which would have the power to dictate policy to elected politicians, would provide ample cover for politicians who want an excuse for not fulfilling voters’ wishes; politicians could use rulings from the new citizens climate assembly as a drop in replacement for the political cover they used to receive from being subject to EU directives.
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I am an American in Britain these next three months with a front row seat for Brexit. It is a thorny issue, but the British people spoke in a referendum that was declared legitimate, after it was completed, by a large majority of each of the major political parties. Brexit must happen or British democracy loses its legitimacy.
My report to the states is: Brexit will happen. Johnson is the leader for this moment as Churchill was as the Nazi’s started war on the continent and Chamberlain was shown to be feckless.
This last weekend, because of the move to prorogue Parliament, the left in all its vehement glory called for massive civil disobedience and demonstrations Saturday across this “scepter’d isle” as Shakespeare once called it. I am in Liverpool…spent much of the day in Center City on Saturday. People went about their day shopping and drinking in pubs, focused on the local football club. Nary a word or sign seen referring to Brexit, though in the papers, the most recent poll showed Johnson gained substantially post-proroguing.
Johnson is playing the support green energy on a precautionary basis as his political stance. He has a much bigger fish to fry in the next months that worrying about the climate. But he is a very clever fellow. Read up on him. It is heartening that the British political process has ended up with him at this time. He will be Hobbes’s Leviathan, in the good sense.
kwinterhorn
down here in the south west the topic is not even being discussed. it is the excitable metropolitan elite who are demonstrating, fearful that at last we might actually be leaving their beloved EU
tonyb
kwinterkorn
Nice to have a balanced perspective of the whole mess.
Thank you.
kwinterkorn
Nope, you got it wrong.
The clever man in this saga is standing in the corner next to the industrial black ventilator
You would do well to read up on him.
A randomly drawn citizen’s assembly couldn’t possibly endorse more alarmist measures than the UK Parliament. It might well endorse less, as it would give climate contrarians time to debate with alarmists, and to present skeptical material that the general public is not now exposed to, especially about the hidden cost of Undependables, and about the failed predctions of alarmists.
Citizen’s assemblies have been growing in interest among political cientists for a decade, and not just leftists. Keith Sutherland is a conservative who favors them. The Center for Deliberative Democracy, run by James Fishkin at Stanford, has been doing trial runs of informing large random bodies of citizens juries on weekends on political topics, with both sides presented fairly. The change in jurors’ views over the course of the session reflects greater rationality.
I wrote:
“Demarchy—small, sample electorates electing officials”
From Cornucopia of Ideas, the Social Inventions Journal for 2001, pages 237–44
Online at:
https://www.academia.edu/38701375/Demarchy_small_sample_electorates_electing_officials
To Download click:
https://www.academia.edu/attachments/58784483/download_file?s=work_strip
You’re right, obviously, that “a randomly drawn citizen’s assembly couldn’t possibly endorse more alarmist measures than the UK Parliament”. So why are they suggesting it? What’s the plan? They do think strategically, so that’s a relevant question.
I suspect they will decide the list from whom citizens are randomly drawn. Believing drastic measures must be taken to ‘save the climate’ would be a requirement to be on the list.
So like elections in the Soviet Union, where the vote was restricted to Party members, and the central committee approves all candidates.
What makes you think they have any intention of selecting people randomly.
Each and every person on that committee will be handpicked by the current politicians.
Climate fascists. How insane-a bunch of useful idiots demanding to override Democracy. This is effectively demanding a usurping of the government without any rational debate.
What would happen if their was a Labour , Green or Labour/Green government? Would they just roll over and cave in to the insane demand?
Make no mistake, Democracy and human freedom are in peril.
High Treason,
You say, “Democracy and human freedom are in peril”.
Your comment ignores that Parliament has been prorogued; i.e. UK democracy has been suspended.
Richard
“
Suspended? This is the longest sitting since the civil war. it is high time it was brought to an end so the new govt can present their programme. As done by Dominic Grieve in 2014 and John Major in 1997.
Parliament will have 3 days less sitting. it has taken them 3 years to get this far so I don’t think another 3 days is going to make any difference. If things were so urgent Parliament would not just be returning after a 5 week holiday.
tonyb,
Your comment is disingenuous.
Prorogation IS suspension of Parliament and Parliament IS how the UK fulfils democracy.
The Tory Party promised to provide a Brexit with a trade deal between the UK and EU in the election campaign prior to its election. Recently, the Tory Party has swapped Prime Minister (PM) and government members. The newly appointed PM intends to implement Brexit without a trade deal between the UK and EU (the EU is by far the UK’s largest trading partner).
Parliament usually is prorogued during the time of Political Party Conferences. This time the newly appointed Prime Minister (PM) has extended prorogation such as to prevent Parliament from fulfilling its duty of scrutinising a government policy which the newly appointed PM intends to impose on 31 October. This policy is to implement a no-deal Brexit which is NOT what the Tory government was elected to do.
It is important to note that the PM, Boris Johnson, has been appointed by the Tory Party and not elected by the public. Only weeks ago when promoting his appointment as PM he said he thought it would be wrong to prorogue Parliament, but now he is appointed as PM he has prorogued Parliament to prevent democratic accountability of his intention to impose a no-deal Brexit.
In the past Boris Johnson has been sacked from two different jobs for telling lies. It is a shame he cannot be sacked as PM for the same reason.
Even the Speaker of the Commons objects to the extended prorogation because the extension makes it very difficult for Parliament to do its duty of holding the government to account.
Richard
“The Tory Party promised to provide a Brexit with a trade deal between the UK and EU in the election campaign prior to its election. ”
And? They’ll leave the EU, then negotiate a deal. The EU clearly aren’t willing to negotiate before that.
The simple fact is this: the British people democratically voted to leave the EU. The ‘democratic’ Parliament have been doing everything possible to prevent it, and the country needs an adult to step up and get the children back into line.
MarkG,
You say,
“The simple fact is this: the British people democratically voted to leave the EU. The ‘democratic’ Parliament have been doing everything possible to prevent it, and the country needs an adult to step up and get the children back into line.”
OK. This response is me ‘stepping up’ to put you and other “children back into line”.
The British people did vote (by small majority) to leave the EU following a referendum campaign in which proposers of leaving all claimed it would be easy to get a trade deal with the EU. And they shouted down all who tried to explain that it would be very difficult to get such a deal.
It has proven difficult to get an acceptable deal that would not wreck the UK economy and not damage the agreement which ended the Irish ‘troubles’ (the New IRA has already started atrocities on assumption of ‘no deal’).
Some things take time. For example, a referendum vote to build a city on the Moon does not mean such a city can be built in three years.
Only three years has passed and the Tory government has attempted to get a deal which is acceptable to Parliament. Now, the Tory Party is so afraid of the nutty extremists of the Brexit Party (which has repeatedly failed to get any – n.b. not even one – of their number elected as an MP) that the Tories have panicked. They have appointed Johnson as PM and he has prorogued Parliament to force through a ‘no-deal’ Brexit which was NOT what the Tories campaigned for in the General Election which followed the referendum.
In attempt to get the ‘no deal’ Brexit Johnson has prorogued Parliament. Simply, the Tories have done what the above article reports ‘Extinction Rebellion’ wants to do; i.e. having failed to obtain what they want in the timescale they want they have replaced Parliament with their own ‘placemen’ who are forcing their small minority desires on the UK.
Richard
Parliament ws suspended for three days for defying democracy.
jtom.
Really? Please explain how your assertion can be true.
Richard
Richard S Courtney
“The British people did vote (by small majority) to leave the EU following a referendum campaign in which proposers of leaving all claimed it would be easy to get a trade deal with the EU.”
One million two hundred and sixty-eight thousand seven hundred and fifty-nine voters is not a small majority.
“…proposers of leaving all claimed it would be easy to get a trade deal with the EU.”
It will be easy when the UK eventually manages to extract itself from the EU. Sadly the Conservatives chose a Prime Minister who had voted to remain in the EU, who stuffed her cabinet with a majority of remain-supporting ministers and who permitted civil servants, whose connections to the Brussels politburo were well-known, to carry out the “negotiations” on her behalf while sidelining the cabinet ministers who she had appointed specifically for that purpose. Aided by her fellow remain-voting cabinet allies she wasted three years and strengthened the EU’s resolve to attempt to stop the UK from leaving.
The current Prime Minister about our “friends” in Europe. But the German, French, Dutch and Irish governments are not “friends”.
The first three are trade rivals who have worked for years to undermine the UK’s dominant position in finance, pharmaceutical, fishing, agriculture and other sectors.
The current Irish government cannot forgive the UK for bailing out their country when its banking system failed in the 2008 crash. Ireland still owes the UK some $17 billion (£14 billion) and will do anything it can to undermine Britain in the hope of annexing the six counties of Northern Ireland.
Hence, so long as we treat them as “friends” there will continue to be difficulties exiting the EU but when we recognise that friendship plays no part in our negotiations we should secure the trade deal that, as promised, will be advantageous to all parties.
If anyone still has doubts about the EU’s dishonest negotiating tactics they should read “Adults in the Room” by Yanis Varoufakis.
OT: A few days ago my defense of the use of “contrarian” was criticized in a comment (which I can’t now locate). It said that “contrarian” implied a congenital “gainer”—one who opposes for the sake of opposing. A good resonse has now occurred to me: the term “climate contrarian” does not suggest a congenital carping critic, or not very strongly, because it’s limited to a single topic, rather than being a general personality trait.
It’s the best term we can ask the media to use, given that it won’t grant us “skeptic,” and given that “Contrarian” is alliterative with “climate” and a natural antonym of “consensus.” The AP’s suggested “doubter” is too mild—we’re disbelievers or disputants or heretics. (Actually, I’d like any of those terms as well as contrarian, or even better.)
Alliteration is a poetic ‘sound’ effect,
not an effect of spelling.
It is the ‘head-rhyme’ of strong syllables.
In “apt alliteration’s artful aid”
alliteration does not alliterate.
Hence, contrarian alliterates with train.
A flea and a fly in a flue,
Didn’t know what to do.
Said the fly, “Let us flee,”
Said the flea, “Let us fly,”
So they flew through a flaw in the flue.
.
.
…I’ll be here all week, try the veal…
With the Sultan Boris aided by the grand vizier Cummings on one side and Jerome Trotsky with his band of Bolsheviks on the other, lot a fun to be had in the coming days and possibly weeks.
Who will qualify to be on the citizens’ assembly? Not me, not most of you.
Only those ER consider sufficiently ‘woke’ will qualify.
The result, an assembly in ER’s approved image.
Dr. Gail Bradbrook (co-founder of ER) spooky Astroturfer extrordinaire…
https://nowhere.news/index.php/2019/04/01/dr-gail-marie-bradbrook-compassionate-revolutionary-for-hire/
Isn’t this basically a call to arms, to overthrow the government? They didn’t word it exactly that why, but it’s effectively what they’re asking for.
Greg Cavanagh
They have stated it quite openly.
‘”There’s no tactical voting or influential lobbyists behind the scenes…..”
And the Easter Bunny is not a mythical being?
Read Christopher Caldwell’s Opinion Article in The New York Times, “The Problem with Greta Thunberg’s climate activism”.
The problem is that the social and economic revolution required to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 will run head on into Democracy.
Western Democracies are not voting and will not vote for the destruction of their economies and lifestyles, no matter how many “climate emergencies” are declared and how many “citizen’s assemblies” are demanded.
Politicians who run on explicit climate extravaganzas are headed for the rocks.
“Western Democracies are not voting and will not vote for the destruction of their economies and lifestyles, no matter how many “climate emergencies” are declared and how many “citizen’s assemblies” are demanded.
Politicians who run on explicit climate extravaganzas are headed for the rocks.”
I think that is exactly right. Voters are not going to vote to destroy the economic system that gives us our present lifestyle. Proposing to take all that away is not going to fly with voters.
Call it the Committee for Public Safety.
France went down this path in 1794. It didn’t end well.
Greta can be the new Napoleon!
When you cannot win the vote you search for ‘other means ‘ , for some that is the bullet or the bomb for revolution and for still others things often labelled as ‘Citizens’ which often result in lots of dead ‘Citizens’
Bizarre … our democracy with an elected representative body isn’t good enough … ? So we now need a directly appointed ‘climate assembly’ to take over as this is the ‘true voice of the people’ . Total BS.
All of this progressive carp demands have already been tried and documented by the Ancient Greeks as failures.
Read the Peloponnesian Wars and the effects on the government of the combatants. Athens’ various democracies all failed. In the instant case, the assembly of all 6,000 citizens led to failure. Lacedaemonian Sparta constitution the Great Rhetor survived from 900 BCE to 200 BCE as a state of disciplined elites.
The ravening hordes the bar-bar-bar barbarians will bring down post-modern Western civilization too. Gird for another Dark Ages. It is a good time to be old, be shriven, love your neighbors, be armed.
I walked through the Extinction Rebellion protest which took over the centre of Manchester at the weekend. My overwhelming impression was of the smugness. Also, that it is a cult. Everyone was of a certain type. It was sickening to sense the self-righteousness. Now I get it. These people have no clue but think they are doing God’s work.
Indeed.
Gail Bradbrook
“You might think it odd that Britain, the birthplace of modern democracy”
I’m not familiar with this history; can someone enlighten me? As I recall England was a monarchy (still is to a certain degree IMO) in 1789 when America established a democratic form of government.
In 1798 The United Kingdom was, as it still is, a constitutional monarchy. The sovereign had very limited powers, in fact far more limited than the powers of the President of The united States. The last King that tried to rule as an absolute monarch literally lost his head. Upon the restoration (1660) the powers of the king were limited to practically nothing of importance, merely the right to (always) approve the will of parliament.
Parliament was not the universal suffrage institution of today but the voting qualifications were taken over virtually verbatim by the United States.
If this comes to be it is time for all of us to consider armed counter insurrection against DR and any government craven enough to give way to their demands
So the Citizens Assembly would be free of lobbyists. How could that be arranged?
First a National (Citizen) Assembly, the a Committee of Public Safety to deal with their perceived Rain of Terror.
Whatever they take to the guillotine, let it not be our necks.
It would be odd, but nobody is seriously considering it. Nobody serious, at least.
It’s just another bunch of non-representative crackpots demanding something which is not representative of the views of most people in the UK. Every would-be authoritarian dictator throughout history claims that they are acting on behalf of “the people” while doing the exact opposite.
Somehow, i miss the days when London was a cool place to visit, and the Mods and Rockers were the most rebellious twits ever, and the Beatles, Dave Clark Five, Animals, etc., and Mary Quant’s dress designs were more interesting to teenagers than being obnoxious, self-important brats with inflated egos. I know, I know – that dates me a lot.
You remember that saying “Be careful what you wish for”? That applies to them. They might get it. And they won’t like it. They are classic examples of Useful Idiots.
An old friend, he used to sell me nice suits for the city from a shop in the home counties, a gentleman’s gentleman, very much loves the theatre and culture. He doesn’t visit London anymore, too dangerous.
People like these are why the second amendment to the american constitution was put in place.
All this insanity has been caused by the Climategate Data Manipulators who conspired to change the historic temperature record to make it look like the Earth has been getting “hotter and hotter” for decade after decade.
Without this manipulated temperature record, the alarmists would have no “evidence” to prove their case. The bastardized surface temperature chart is the only thing saying the temperatures are getting out of control, and it’s all a Big Lie meant to frighten people into taking action.
The Climategate conspirators deserve appropriate punishment for putting humanity through this false crisis of climate. They have driven millions of people insane with fear. Insane people do insane things, like proposing to do away with gasoline and cattle and airplanes and elected governments.
1. Who chooses who is on the Assembly?
2. What competence must they possess?
3. How many non-marxists will be on the Assembly?
4. Will minority reports be a regular feature to ensure SJW PC identity politics is not to be seen as a unifying force?
5. How will Assembly members be accountable for their decision-making and will they be remunerated?
6. When the shan hits the fit, what sanctions could Assembly members face for having caused intergenerational harm through ignorance, totalitarian zealotry and generalised immaturity?
They want fascism. When do they want it? Now!