“NO-ONE SHOULD BE IN ANY DOUBT: prisoners
are not getting the vote under this government”: thus spoke Dave.
But Lord Lester of
Herne Hill; late of Trinity College, Harvard Law School, chair of the legal
sub-committee of the Campaign Against Racial Discrimination (CARD); Council
of the Institute of Race Relations, British Overseas Socialist Fellowship and
the National Committee for Commonwealth Immigrants; founder of the Runnymede
Trust; special advisor to Roy Jenkins at the Home Office; adjunct Professor of
the Faculty of Law at University College Cork (Ireland); and appointed by prime
minister Gordon Brown as an advisor on constitutional reform; and patron of the
Family Planning Association - begs to
differ
The term the Great and the Good was designed for the likes of Lord Lester. He
accused the prime minister of placating “the
right wing of the Conservative party”; when in point of fact Cameron, if he
is placating anyone, it is the British people, who are overwhelmingly
supportive of continuing the ban. But in any such case Lord Lester would have
accused the prime minister of “popularism”; a favourite rebuke of the European
elites whenever an elected politician has the majority support of the people
who, after all, elected them.
If the people of
this country, for very sound reasons, support the banning of a prisoners “right” to vote; there is nothing
the European Union, or Lord Lester’s curricula vitae can do
about it. In a democracy it is the will of the people that becomes the sole arbitrator
of the kind of society in which they chose to belong.
Lord Lester believes
that we will have to comply with European human rights law, and allow prisoners
the right to vote. The self-importance of this man, following his life-long
forays between dinner tables of the chattering classes in London and academia,
is another characteristic of the Great
and the Good.
LESTER,
LIKE HIS Europhile brethren, find the whole business of having to obey the
wishes of the electorate in circumstances unfavourable to their own wisdom on a
particular issue, somewhat difficult and taxing. They regard democracy as the
best system of government if the people see things their way; and on those
issues that the people do not? Well then democracy is prone to being defective.
Defective, that is, in the sense of being “popularist”.
When
a citizen commits a crime he or she must have their freedom taken from
them and with it all the functions normally associated with it. It is part of
the penalty for stealing, burgling, raping, or murdering, or any other crime
that carries a prison sentence.
Voting is the main
function within a democracy. It is the right of every law-abiding citizen.
Indeed it is a privilege; a privilege that cannot be expected for those who
behave outside of the law. The laws are made by the people that are free, and who
vote. Those that are not free; and only for the period that they are not; must
not be given the vote.
If such people care so much about
their right to vote, then let them stay free of prison. After all; are not the
prison reformers looking for ways by which they can keep people out of prison?
So such a constituency lead by Lord Lester should welcome this latest
demonstration of opposition to European legislation.
Prison is meant to be a punishment,
which involves sacrificing many of the options enjoyed on the outside. This
must surely include voting. After all, parts or whole of our prison population
enjoy flat screened television plugged into Sky Sport, where they can watch
Premiership football; something which millions of ordinary law-abiding citizens
are not in a financial position to enjoy.
LORD
LESTER WAS recently told;“ that in Beijing two weeks ago a British delegation was
there to discuss the rule of law and some of the senior Chinese officials said
‘oh then will you please tell us why Britain is flouting the judgement of the
Strasbourg court’. If that has reached Beijing then it stains our fine
international reputation of the rule of law.”
If I were part of the delegation, my first response would be
this. Why does China torture and imprison hundreds of thousands of dissidents?
Why does China not allow its people the sovereignty of the vote in a democratic
election with multiparty participation? Why does China railroad and trample the
homes of hundreds of thousands of peasants when they embark upon infrastructure
development?
This
is the kind of riposte any Western democratic nation should make. But not our
noble Lord, he just takes it at face value. He does so because he, like the
Chinese hierarchy, are like minded when it comes to the distrust of the people…which
in democratic terms means “popularism”.
As
Lord Lester should know, the Chinese are in no position to muddy our democratic
waters. China is a curious example to use to better any kind of democratic argument.
Yet Lord Lester uses it to bolster his; which cites only desperation. This may
be because our noble Lord seeks, as a lawyer, not to better a democratic
argument but a legal one.
That
Britain is “flouting the judgement of the
Strasbourg Court”, as our tenant of the red benches insists, is neither
here or there. It is the flouting of the people’s will that overrides our
eminent, yet Europhile lawyers opinion.
THE GREAT AND THE GOOD are recruited by
politicians ( not elected by the people) to oversee any of the government’s
troubled areas. These new political constructs were given the title quangos…comprising
unelected members of the Great and the
Good.
This Quangocracy as
it has become known, which, as part of the Great
and the Good, Lord Lester belongs, is fast becoming, like the European
Commissioners; unrepresentative of any popular franchise to control their behaviour. Yet having the
power to override the popular will if it transgresses.
The popular vote and
nothing more should govern the governance of a country. It should not be
transgressed by political expediency.
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