The post-Brexit political landscape is beginning to resemble a reversion to the norm – where mainstream parties have a complete stranglehold on our politics, resulting in political suffocation and stagnation. The so-called “revolt on the right” has stalled and has since fragmented, unable to wield the power it once did. The momentum of Brexit is fading, and reform is sliding down the agenda as Covid and Russia have displaced our political energies.

All the same, there is still a role for the dissident movement on the right. We believe that, though we cannot attract the majority of votes, we speak for the majority of people. Controlling borders and bringing immigration down is a majority concern. Energy costs must be brought down. We also agree that critical race theory and gender theory has no place in our institutions. We can all agree that our votes are increasingly meaningless, and the real influence in the UK, on energy to immigration, is held by a minority of radical activists in the NGOcracy and the civil service.

All these issues, when examined, revolve around one issue. Power; who has access to it, who it belongs to, and to whom are they accountable? With closer examination, we conclude that Britain is not a democracy. Our focus, therefore, must be on identifying and removing the barriers to meaningful and responsive democracy.

The premise upon which Brexit was fought for and won was faulty. Though Brexit was a necessary precursor to becoming a democracy, the democratisation process has stalled because of that faulty premise. The leave campaign fought for the doctrine of “Parliamentary sovereignty” – and though that brings power closer to the people geographically, it remains out of reach of the people. Our politicians once elected can do to us as they please. Net Zero being the latest manifestation of that “democratic deficit”.

Parliament is the supreme legal authority in the UK, which can create or end any law. Generally, the courts cannot overrule its legislation and no Parliament can pass laws that future Parliaments cannot change. Parliamentary sovereignty, says the Parliamentary website, is the most important part of the UK constitution.

We believe this should change, not least because, in the name of parliamentary sovereignty, our MPs have a licence to ignore the wishes of the people and to hand power to bodies such as the European Union. This led to a situation where UK courts recognised the supremacy of EU law in preference to our own, and can strike down laws made by Parliament.

To a large extent Brexit has not remedied this dynamic. Successive attempts to stem the flow of illegal immigrants and ramp up their removal have been stymied by the courts under “international law” despite the elected executive having a huge mandate to act. Our post-Brexit constitution still recognises international treaties and conventions as the last word. We hold that it is insufficient to simply withdraw from such treaties being that they can always be replaced. There needs to be a constitutional overhaul before we can say, with any sincerity, that we are a democracy.

That begins with one small but massively significant act; a formal recognition that the people are sovereign. This signifies that the fount of all political power stems from the people – and that sovereignty is regarded as inalienable. Because of that, it cannot be taken away by any body, governmental or otherwise.

Real democratic reform comes not with tinkering with the voting system. It must begin with the declaration that we, the Sovereign Citizens of the United Kingdom do hereby redeem and declare our Sovereignty. We assert our right, jointly and severally, to the ownership of the United Kingdom, and to the unfettered control thereof. As a sovereign people, owing no allegiance or duty to any other government or state beyond these shores, we are not bound by any statutes or laws other than those, which we ourselves approve.

The essential effect of a declaration of sovereignty and its formal recognition is the recognition that power resides with us, the people, making government in all its manifestations subordinate to us. Government must be the servant of the people, not their master. It is there to do our bidding, in a manner of our choosing. The word democracy stems from the Greek word, dēmokratía, comprising two parts: dêmos “people” and kratos “power”. Without a demos, there is no democracy. But people without power is not democracy either. Recognition of our sovereignty is an essential precursor to any constitutional reform for the purposes of democratising Britain. 

Taking the power back

Since the 2016 referendum there has been a recognition that Britain is in need of democratic reform. Little thought was given as to what form that should take. Opinion tends to gravitate towards proportional representation in the absence of bigger and more ambitious ideas. Proportional Representation, however, does not address the fundamental absurdity and anti-democratic nature of our current constitution. 

True reform must take into account that representative democracy is not democracy.

An individual selected on the basis of a fraction of the votes, often on in turnouts under fifty percent, cannot claim to speak for the people or claim legitimacy for assertions of power over us – including decisions made in our names. Moreover, the congregation of a political class in London (or anywhere else), financially insulated from the consequences of their decisions, will never properly reflect the wishes of the people.

The power to make law, and especially to reject it, is a measure of sovereignty. By that measure, the only true from of democracy is direct democracy – when the people have the power to demand that specific laws be made, or can refuse to accept proposals for new laws. The most obvious and common mechanism for expressing such true democracy is the referendum.

Essential to any democracy is the people’s consent. No treaty, trade deal or government decision with constitutional implications should take effect without the consent of the majority of the people, by positive vote if so demanded, and none should continue to have effect when that consent is withdrawn by the majority of the people. This, particularly, pertains to abridgements of freedoms imposed by Covid legislation. Clearly, there could not be a referendum for every one of the hundreds of thousands of decisions made each year, so the type of decision amenable to public voting would have to be restricted according to a constitutional framework to be confirmed by a referendum.

A parliament that works

It ought to be the case that the public vote for their local candidate by name. Our voting system is based on that assumption. In reality, though, people vote for party brands and party leaders. The local connection is then lost – leading to the kind of hat-standism that debases our parliament and the quality of decisions. Our system must change to reflect the reality of how the public votes.

The concern is that there should be a clear distinction between the legislature (Parliament) and the executive (Government). Should the executive thus be separated, the obvious and logical outcome is that the prime minister and his ministerial team would no longer be Members of Parliament. Prime ministers would have to be elected in their own right, a process which would reflect the increasingly presidential nature of general election contests. The selection of an MP is then exclusively a local decision. 

Presently, members of the ministerial team (including the prime minister) – the core of the executive – are appointed either from MPs in the House of Commons, from the Lords, or – not uncommonly – are appointed to the Lords for the purpose of making them ministers.

The use of the Commons as the recruitment pool for most of the ministers (and the prime minister) has a highly corrosive effect on the institution. Although the main functions of parliament should be scrutiny of the executive, and as a check on its power, all MPs who have ministerial or secretarial positions hold dual roles as members of the executive and the legislature. Inevitably, there is a conflict of interest.

Typically, there are around 140 ministers, whips and other office-holders in the Commons. Collectively, they are known as the “payroll vote”, people who may be assumed to vote with the government, and to defend it policies and actions. But the problem is far worse than this basic arithmetic would suggest. Add the Parliamentary Private Secretaries (PPS) and the “greasy pole climbers” who have hopes of preferment but have not yet been promoted, and the number climbs to 200 or so on the government benches. When it comes to holding the government to account, all these people are compromised.

Even then, this is by no means the full extent of the distortion. The fact that the Commons is the main pool for recruiting ministers – and the only prime ministerial pool – also changes the dynamics of the institution. A goodly number of people who enter parliament have no intention of remaining MPs for their entire careers. They want to join the government. For them, parliament is not an end in itself, but a means to a different end, the first step on a career path which ends up in ministerial office.

This should not be the case. We thus concede the obvious: ministers and other office holders cannot be members of parliament. If members become ministers, they must resign as MPs. As a consequence, prime ministers must appoint their own ministers – from whatever source they choose – subject to parliamentary confirmation and dismissal. This has the added advantage of widening the recruitment pool, leading to a higher calibre of ministers. 

Real local democracy

In Britain, the idea that we have local democracy is a fiction. We have a system of local authorities which function mainly as central government agencies. Their main task is to administer centrally-defined law at a local level. 

Local government units, whether counties, second-tier districts or unitary authorities, have no independent existence or powers. They are defined through Acts of Parliament and owe their existence, their boundaries and their powers to the diktats of central government. They are funded primarily from the centre and the nature of monies which can be collected locally is directed by the centre, as well as the amounts and terms of collection.

This, by any definition, is a top-down society. But it is also one which has become increasingly so over time. As a result, local elections are little more than opinion polls on the performance of central government, without even the benefit of random sampling techniques. There is no point in getting excited over the election of local officials when almost the entire extent of their powers is determined by national law.

To revitalise local democracy, the fundamental building blocks of our democracy should become independent local units which owe their existence to the people who live within their boundaries. 

Instead of being statutory bodies – i.e., defined by statute, from which they derive their powers, under the control of central government – they become constitutional entities. Their existence, powers and revenue-raising capabilities are defined by the people via the medium of constitutions, approved by local referendums.

These local authorities – which could be counties, cities or the former county boroughs – become independent legislatures is their own right. Whereas local authorities were once permitted to make by-laws, defined and permitted by central government, true local government makes its own laws in its own name. Each district makes all the laws for matters exclusive to its area, using powers defined by its own constitution, applicable within its own boundary. 

A consequence of this would be that the functions of central government would be drastically reduced. Mainly, the centre would concern itself with foreign policy and relations, including the framing of international law and making treaties. We would see central government take a hand in making maritime law, controlling deep water fisheries, and dealing with matters of national security and defence. In what would effectively become a federal-style body, central government would also concern itself with cross-border crime (where the perpetrators operate in two or more police districts), and serious, organised crime.

By localising politics and government, we dismantle the centralised state thereby reduce the opportunities for NGOs and activist groups to capture it for their own ideological ends.

Constitutional Safeguards

Britain has left the EU, and though we may never be able to fully explain why the public voted the way they did, we can say that the arrogance of the British establishment was a major factor. Opening up the borders to all EU citizens without consultation or consent, coupled with the decision to railroad a major constitutional modifier such as Lisbon through without a referendum, made Brexit a question of when rather than if. 

Brexit was a necessary yank on the leash to remind the establishment who they work for – but there’s no reason to believe they will heed the message for long, or that it ever sank in, and there’s nothing at all stopping them from doing it to us again. They may not take us back into the EU, but they will happily sign away powers which aren’t theirs to give.

As much as we must make democratic consent a cornerstone of our democracy through the use of referendums, we need a codified constitution flowing from the declaration that the people are sovereign, which forbids, in all circumstances, the surrender of sovereignty and decision-making authority, underpinned by a renewed offence of treason for leaders who, in full knowledge, subvert that constitutional principle.