There follows a guest post by Dr. David Seedhouse, Honorary Professor of Deliberative Practice at Aston University, who says the public are being fobbed off with a Government petition website that never brings about any change.
For the last year I have run a website promoting participatory democracy: Our Decision Too. We have a small group of loyal supporters on the site who debate topical issues, providing examples of how citizens might be involved in direct decision-making, were we to have the opportunity. One of our members, concerned about the one-eyed mainstream media framing of the Ukraine-Russian conflict, asked if we might create a petition on the Government petitions site. Her original suggestion was:
We request that the House of Commons holds a full, emergency debate on the Government’s policy on the war in Ukraine. The war in Ukraine is a complex issue, not a simple matter of Russia = bad, Ukraine and the West = good.
While any U.K. citizen can start a petition, only 80 characters are allowed in the title so we agreed this version: “Debate the history of Ukraine-Russian relations to inform U.K. policy.”
The petition was rejected on the ground that it was “not clear what the petition is asking the U.K. Government or Parliament to do”. Apparently, one of the rules is that petitions need to call for a specific action and it seems a debate doesn’t qualify. So we had another go: “Hold a referendum on sending deadly weapons to Ukraine.”
This time the petition was published, but it was an edited version, altered without permission to this: “Hold a referendum on sending deadly offensive weapons to Ukraine.”
I received no explanation and have no opportunity to challenge the Government’s amendment since its email address is a ‘no reply’ address.
Were I able to, I would tell the Government:
- Adding ‘offensive’ significantly changes the meaning of the petition, implying that ‘defensive’ weapons (whatever these are) are acceptable.
- My name is now associated with a statement that I didn’t write and do not believe. I believe the Government should not fund any weapons to Ukraine without the informed consent of U.K. citizens.
A little digging reveals a depressing picture. Almost 40,000 petitions have been posted, three quarters of which have been rejected outright. The House of Commons has debated 126 and responded to 658, though the comebacks are largely bland and non-committal. Sometimes the Government claims to be doing what the petition asks already or makes blatant value judgements without apology. For example, the petition “make parking at work permanently free for all NHS workers” prompted this retort:
Free hospital parking for NHS staff was a time-limited measure during the pandemic. It is right to end this now as we learn to live with the virus. Free parking for staff working overnight remains.
While it is a relief to learn that the pandemic is officially over, there is an unmistakable sense of a jaded schoolteacher reprimanding a recalcitrant pupil, “Not again Jamieson, how many times do I have to tell you I make the decisions around here?”
In fact none of the 40,000 petitions have succeeded in bringing about their desired change. As Amelia Tait reports in the New Statesman: “Despite accumulating millions of signatures and hundreds of thousands of shares, not a single one of these campaigns succeeded in obtaining its intended outcome.”
The Government argues that petitions have occasionally been a catalyst for policy change, but can point to just four rather slight examples. Even granting these, a success rate of 0.01% is hardly an example of productive public engagement.
So why bother with a Government petitions website at all? If you are going to prohibit most submissions from the get-go, fob off almost all that do pass scrutiny with a vacuous response, and even change the wording of some without consent, is it really worth the effort?
I can only guess why the Government continues to run its weird petitions site but suspect that it is partly self-delusion and partly deliberate subterfuge. By running a website open to any U.K. citizen the Government reinforces its own myth that it really does believe in democracy. At the same time, by minutely managing what is allowed, it runs no risk of any group of citizens actually exercising what should be a basic democratic right – asking the Government to represent the will of the people.
Of course, we know from the past two years of repeated assaults on our fundamental freedoms that the U.K. Government, like many others, has no interest whatsoever in including citizens in any part of its decision-making processes. We have a practically meaningless vote once every five years, and that’s about as far as it goes.
Yet there are readily achievable alternatives. For example, instead of ‘possibly’ debating petitions if they reach 100,000 signatures, it would be a relatively simple matter to guarantee a vote on any petition over a threshold of say three million:
Petition → Threshold passed → Informed debate in the House → Free vote → Law passed or rejected
This form of direct democracy, though less immediate than the Swiss version, would require a radical divestment of power by the handful of people who guard it so jealously. At the moment there seems little chance that this will happen. To those outside the self-congratulatory Government bubble, inclusive citizenship seems as far away as ever.
The bottom line is the Government doesn’t trust us. It claims to be delivering what we want and thinks of itself as a world-leading example of democracy while doing everything it can to prevent representative change, including micro-managing its petitions process.
If we are ever to have meaningful democracy, superficial non-solutions like token petition sites and antiquated first-past-the-post elections must be seen for what they are and replaced by systems where we can reflect, debate and make our own decisions without Government censorship.
David Seedhouse is creator of Our Decision Too and welcomes new members. The site is free of charge.
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My assumption is the parliamentarians did not know. Twitter did though, and very quickly. I also suspect Trudeau did. But that’s probably based more on my dislike for the little tyrant than any actual intelligence data. There are some very strange things going on. This whole Zelenski appointment of Marina Abramovic as an ambassador is more than a little weird.
Spirit cooking
Ambassador.
If Rothschild is bothered about anti-semitic conspiracy theorist rumours that he is an evil puppeteer ruling the world – probably best not to get photographed in front of a painting titled “Satan Summoning his Legions” with a self proclaimed dark magic witch!!!
Marvellous. So well posed.
He appears to have managed to summon the first two!
I don’t normally lose it but the downtickers really are a bunch of Next Tuesday’s.
Yes I don’t get it. All I have done is post facts. I haven’t made any assertions about those facts. Seems odd so many Daily Sceptic readers would take issue with that.
I’m baffled
Why can’t these people say what it is they object to?
Dubious connections that make Jimmy Saville look like a saint.
“There are some very strange things going on.”
That is entirely the point. All that is happening is intended to be Orwellian.
Castreau knew.
Castreau
Canadian ‘values’
Full throated roaring for a Nazi
Their deputy PM Freeland comes from the same stock
What a bloody disgrace
A country in massive decline
Again with the massive downticking! What’s going on with DS readers today? Some sort of rent-a-mob thing? Weird.
Probably the government’s 77th Brigade, which should tell you something!
By our standards, huge down ticking for comments on this Ukraine-connected article. Perhaps it’s Ian Rons and his pro Ukraine mob? Fair to say though that there is a lot of establishment weight thrown into supporting this mad proxy war against Russia, and the ‘it’s a good idea for Nato to surround Russia and neutralise it before breaking it up and selling it to Blackrock’ brigade. Never forget – the alternative to this war would have been to stop shelling Luhansk and Donetsk provinces (ie civilians), grant them independence within Ukraine, and to enshrine Ukrainian neutrality, in military terms. That’s all Putin asked for in 2021.
There’s at least one Canadian who probably would not have applauded: (2) CAUGHT ON CAMERA: Pastor kicks out police without warrant from Passover service – YouTube
What a bloody insult to those Canadian lads who died in two World Wars.
Fair do’s, I understand that Adolf misgendered far fewer ppl than Winston, so what else is there to say?
…Don’t any of them have Google? It would have taken 2 minutes to find out who he is…..LOL!
They know they are supporting those people in Ukraine anyway..they all do…so we shouldn’t be very surprised…..don’t forget until the West’s apparent complete ‘amnesia’ about the Azov Battalion and the gnatzi far right elements in Ukraine…the USA Congress did not allow any weapons to go the Azov Battalion by law.
“This year, (2018) the $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill signed into law last week stipulates that “none of the funds made available by this act may be used to provide arms, training or other assistance to the Azov Battalion.”
White supremacy and neo-Nazism are unacceptable and have no place in our world,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), an outspoken critic of providing lethal aid to Ukraine, said I am very pleased that the recently passed omnibus prevents the U.S. from providing arms and training assistance to the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion fighting in Ukraine.”
Anyway the complaints are already coming in…
https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/jewish-group-demands-apology-after-mps-honoured-man-who-fought-for-nazis-1.6575593
OTTAWA – Several Jewish advocacy organizations condemned members of Parliament on Sunday for giving a standing ovation to a man who fought for a Nazi unit during the Second World War.
The Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies issued a statement
saying the division “was responsible for the mass murder of innocent civilians with a level of brutality and malice that is unimaginable.”
It’s highly unlikely that the 14th division ever harmed black people so what’s the problem, why keep raking over the past? (sarc)
The sooner folks realise that MPs are just a bunch of grifting dilettantes the better. As for the downticking, I’d say the site is being trolled by a bunch of goons.
It would be funny it it were not so tragic! The Canadian Parliament member claimed he didn’t know who he was honouring. Well this has opened up a lot of eyes and hopefully has brought many people to their senses.
This guy was a volunteer in the Galician Einsatzgruppe of the Waffen SS.
Amongst their other actions was Babi Yar, one of the worst atrocities of the Holocaust.