The Polite People Stealing Our Freedom (Why we want to Kick the Effing Establishment) Most of the Politicians and civil servants I have met are polite, professional and absolutely certain they are doing valuable work for the common good. On the other hand it is becoming increasingly obvious to the people of the UK and Europe that the political establishment is working in a way that is diametrically opposed to what they believe is right and against values that they have long held to be self-evident. So why should there be such a huge disconnect between our well-meaning governments and their citizens? This disconnect is no longer a matter of opinion, it is being shown as a matter of fact by the rise of anti-establishment political parties across Europe and the late surge in the popularity of the Scottish independence movement which was undoubtedly fuelled by a desire to Kick the Effing Tories as David Cameron put it so eloquently. He perhaps should have said the Effing Establishment because the anger is not just reserved for Dave and his Modern Conservatives. I never really understood how it was possible for politicians and their advisers to be so far removed from public opinion until I actually got elected and gained access to at least some of the corridors of power. On the night of May 22nd 2014 UKIP won a series of famous victories across the United Kingdom and I was not only elected as an MEP for the West Midlands but I won election to Dudley Borough Council representing my home ward of Sedgley. At the time many people speculated how I would adapt to holding down these two positions, one of them in the most local tier of government and one of them in the most remote, largest form of supranational governance. The first few months of the experience have revealed some fascinating similarities and perhaps some surprising contrasts. The stuffy, archaic Dudley Council building bears little similarity to the European Parliament building in Strasbourg and Brussels their huge modern grandeur is in an altogether different league but there are similarities in the way the organisations work. The breaking down into sub committees and acting largely on the advice and opinions of civil servants is uncannily alike. As is the stunted unnatural form of debate that is allowed in the debating chamber with a handful of people getting most of the speaking time and incoherently mumbling their way through a couple of minutes of precious speaking time to very little effect. Indeed some of the mumbled speeches are so incoherent I found myself reaching for the headset to get a translation, sadly this service is not yet available in the council chamber and I would pity the people employed to try and make sense of some of the speeches. The other similarity between the council chamber and the Euro parliament is the exaggerated special treatment given to the elected representatives. The staff at Dudley Council chamber are apparently instructed to refer to everybody by their formal title and no matter how much I prompt they find it difficult to refer to me by my first name, its always Councillor Etheridge. The same applies to The European Parliament where it is always Mr Etheridge and never Bill no matter how often I extend the invitation to be a little more informal. Indeed at the European Parliament there is special blue carpet running parallel to the rest of the walkways that only MEPs can tread on. Anybody who is not an MEP treading on the carpet gets quite a stern rebuke from the staff! The one main difference between the European Parliament and the Dudley Council Chamber is that our opponents within the European Parliament are always studiously polite. They look at the UKIP delegation in genuine shock when we oppose their plans to impose more rules and regulations for the common good as they see it. They seem almost hurt that anybody could oppose such well-meaning grand designs. On the other hand when the Conservative and Labour parties combine on Dudley council to try to push through unpopular but equally well-meaning legislation they react with spite and open aggression to the opposition from UKIP. The air crackles with an atmosphere of loathing, hate and perhaps beneath all that a genuine fear that they are unable to cope with real opposition. In both chambers there is a sense of the establishment parties pulling together to fight the movement for democratic change, they lace every speech with references to fighting populism and spend whole sessions congratulating each other on how well they cooperate. They seem to have united against what they consider a common enemy. I have no doubt there will be a similar story to tell next year when UKIP take seats at Westminster propelled by the desire of the British public to see real opposition to the settled path of the establishment parties and their acceptance of a managed decline of our country. The reality is that our established politicians and civil servants genuinely do not understand what is happening. They see the public as something separate from them, as people who can be called by their first names and who mustnt walk on the blue carpets. Instead of respecting the views and desires of the electorate they write them off as uneducated and populist to be humoured and tolerated but not to be taken seriously. The attitude has become embedded within the establishment that the people are no more than children. These children should be benignly cared for and looked after but also regulated to save them from themselves and guide them down the correct prescribed path. We must be saved from using powerful vacuum cleaners as they are wasting precious energy, we must be saved from drinking and smoking as we may harm ourselves, we must be protected from any form of hardship by an all-powerful state and welfare system which means we will never need drive or ambition again. These benevolent souls have become so far removed from the rest of humanity that they have forgotten one of the main facets of humanity. Man can never be happy in a cage. No matter how well cared for and comfortable the cage is there is an inner desire for personal freedom and a need to better your circumstances that can never be regulated out of existence. What is often referred to disparagingly as populism is increasingly the expression of the will of the people. They often cannot put it into words but they know something is wrong, they know they are being ignored and controlled and they have had enough. The time is here for democratic revolution. The desire to be free from overbearing regulation and the dead hand of the state has reached boiling point. Change is coming and those oh so caring masters of ours are going to find that we are ready to bite the hand that regulates us. The state, its functionaries and politicians must be taught that they are our servants and never again our masters
Posted on: Thu, 11 Sep 2014 15:35:48 +0000
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