Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Tamas]

Concentrating power just concentrates power - you concentrate power in a few hands with no checks in balances to fight the rich and suddenly you have created your own enemy.

Checks and balances are annoying when your guy is being checked and balanced but the best system invented so far to maintain a democracy.

[Sheilbh]

Sure but the classic left view does not centre on courts and judges and lawyers. The far end is a unicameral legislature, electing mandated delegates (not representatives) and annual election - it's not about building in circuit breakers but shortening the space between the people and power.

And what you say is true of all state power - which is I think where we are now where we have so disarmed the state that it is incapable of responding to democratic imperatives. And at the same time it's demobilised people who think they can rely on checks and balances as a deus ex machina.

I think what you're saying is true but I also think it's true of the institutions too. There is no reason to assume that courts, police, military, civil society etc will be where they are now - and plenty of historical experience of them aligning with all sorts of political orders. I think John Ganz had something of a point of this of the liberal vision which I think has dominated over the last few decades - exemplified by Soros and the Open Society Foundation (very influenced by Karl Popper) - emphasised the view of society as being about mediating bodies. It's the robust civil society that is the key feature of democratic politics - and that democracy is created through the existence of these spaces outside of politics. In its way it's quite conservative in the Burkean "little platoons" sense. And I think at an extreme this is the view of modern liberal democracy as basically being judges plus NGOs.

I think we've seen the limitations of that in recent years (not least in Soros' projects through the OSF). I think as Ganz has suggested that the better argument is the Gramscian view. Civil society does not organically check government power or support democratic power - it is a site of political fights over power and political conflict. And that it is, arguably, in and through the conflict that you produce democratic politics.

[crazy canuck]

Concentrating power just concentrates power - you concentrate power in a few hands with no checks in balances to fight the rich and suddenly you have created your own enemy.

Checks and balances are annoying when your guy is being checked and balanced but the best system invented so far to maintain a democracy.

Where are the checks and balances to which you refer? Sounds great in theory - it's in practice that it starts crumbling.  Take the US as the most recent tragic example.

[Tamas]

Concentrating power just concentrates power - you concentrate power in a few hands with no checks in balances to fight the rich and suddenly you have created your own enemy.

Checks and balances are annoying when your guy is being checked and balanced but the best system invented so far to maintain a democracy.

Where are the checks and balances to which you refer? Sounds great in theory - it's in practice that it starts crumbling.  Take the US as the most recent tragic example.

Sure but no matter what system you build (and this is in reply to Sheilbh as well), anything beyond sheer physical coercion requires the consent of the ruled and the powerful to accept the rules.

First stop is the ones in power agreeing implicitly not to use their power to diminish other branches of power. If they try those other branches should push back before it is too late. Failing that, the electorate should step in to stop those efforts.

Obviously if all those steps fail then the system fails but this is not something you can remedy except by giving up and just going straight for your preferred form of autocracy.

[crazy canuck]

Concentrating power just concentrates power - you concentrate power in a few hands with no checks in balances to fight the rich and suddenly you have created your own enemy.

Checks and balances are annoying when your guy is being checked and balanced but the best system invented so far to maintain a democracy.

Where are the checks and balances to which you refer? Sounds great in theory - it's in practice that it starts crumbling.  Take the US as the most recent tragic example.

Sure but no matter what system you build (and this is in reply to Sheilbh as well), anything beyond sheer physical coercion requires the consent of the ruled and the powerful to accept the rules.

First stop is the ones in power agreeing implicitly not to use their power to diminish other branches of power. If they try those other branches should push back before it is too late. Failing that, the electorate should step in to stop those efforts.

Obviously if all those steps fail then the system fails but this is not something you can remedy except by giving up and just going straight for your preferred form of autocracy.

Again, that is a very American centric view if the world. A parliamentary system does have competing branches of government.  The flaw in the US system is it did create competing branches and hoped each branch would be a check on the others. 

The Parliament system encourages cooperation.  For a third time (because you keep ignoring this point) a non confidence vote, like a budget vote, means there is a new general election.  That tends to focus the mind on what compromises are possible.

It also gives a lot of power to back benchers if someone like Trump (or Vance) were to arise.

[Sheilbh]

The China spy scandal keeps going with what sounds like basically corrupt pressure from the Treasury too.

Starring to feel a bit like the end of Johnson where the government is sending out ministers and putting out briefings that are then being almost immediately contested by former civil servants and intelligence figure who were involved. Can't help but feel this level of briefing against the government from prosecutors, ex civil servants and intelligence chiefs is because of serious unhappiness within those bodies that the prosecution has collapsed.

Edit: From what's coming out it increasingly sounds like the politicians (elected, democratically accountable) in the relevant departments, including the PM, had no idea what was going on. It was driven by Jonathan Powell (Starmer's "National Security Advisor") and the Treasury against literally everyone else - MoD, Home Office, prosecutors, MI5 and MI6. But ultimately the politicians are responsible and this is not the first time when someone Starmer has appointed causes problems (indeed, it seems like a pattern).

[Tamas]

Concentrating power just concentrates power - you concentrate power in a few hands with no checks in balances to fight the rich and suddenly you have created your own enemy.

Checks and balances are annoying when your guy is being checked and balanced but the best system invented so far to maintain a democracy.

Where are the checks and balances to which you refer? Sounds great in theory - it's in practice that it starts crumbling.  Take the US as the most recent tragic example.

Sure but no matter what system you build (and this is in reply to Sheilbh as well), anything beyond sheer physical coercion requires the consent of the ruled and the powerful to accept the rules.

First stop is the ones in power agreeing implicitly not to use their power to diminish other branches of power. If they try those other branches should push back before it is too late. Failing that, the electorate should step in to stop those efforts.

Obviously if all those steps fail then the system fails but this is not something you can remedy except by giving up and just going straight for your preferred form of autocracy.

Again, that is a very American centric view if the world. A parliamentary system does have competing branches of government.  The flaw in the US system is it did create competing branches and hoped each branch would be a check on the others. 

The Parliament system encourages cooperation.  For a third time (because you keep ignoring this point) a non confidence vote, like a budget vote, means there is a new general election.  That tends to focus the mind on what compromises are possible.

It also gives a lot of power to back benchers if someone like Trump (or Vance) were to arise.

A parlamentiary as opposed to presidential democracy is better no argument there, but just from my limited knowledge I can raise Hungary as a parlamentiary democracy that has failed. It even had a very modern two-rounds election system which was far superior to something like the British first past the post nonsense but once an actor like Orban got a constitutional majority it all went to hell.

[Valmy]

A parlamentiary as opposed to presidential democracy is better no argument there, but just from my limited knowledge I can raise Hungary as a parlamentiary democracy that has failed. It even had a very modern two-rounds election system which was far superior to something like the British first past the post nonsense but once an actor like Orban got a constitutional majority it all went to hell.

You got me there.

My point here is that in the Parliamentary system the Parliament just matters. In Presidential Systems it always seems like eventually the President just ends up in charge of everything. The prestige of Head of State just dwarfs everything and the people just blame everything on the President, and so logically the President is very motivated to control the things he is held accountable for and our House and Senate seem delighted to not take the blame or responsbility for anything.

But of course any system can become corrupted. It just seems like Presidential systems have authoritarianism much more baked into them and it wasn't like people weren't warning us about this back in the 1780s when we wrote our current Constitution. If anything it is impressive it took a few centuries for this to come to pass.

Naturally any system is just a piece of paper at the end of the day.

[Tamas]

just seems like Presidential systems have authoritarianism much more baked into them

I agree

[Tonitrus]

Again, that is a very American centric view if the world. A parliamentary system does have competing branches of government.  The flaw in the US system is it did create competing branches and hoped each branch would be a check on the others. 

The Parliament system encourages cooperation.  For a third time (because you keep ignoring this point) a non confidence vote, like a budget vote, means there is a new general election.  That tends to focus the mind on what compromises are possible.

It also gives a lot of power to back benchers if someone like Trump (or Vance) were to arise.

I still think you are very much wrong, or coming from a similarly Canadian-centric parliamentarian view.  The "non-confidence vote" only works if the members/backbenchers of the party in power think it is to their advantage/ambition to scuttle the current leader.  You would be hard-pressed to convince me that if we translated Trump/MAGA/GOP into a parliamentary system, that Trump would be under any kind of threat.  Sure, he might be more vulnerable in theory, but only marginally so. 

And even then...what stops a Prime Minister, with a loyal cabinet and administrative control of the police/security services from doing anything different than Trump is doing now?  What happens if a PM says "fuck your vote of no-confidence, I am not leaving power...try and stop me"...or "nope, no new general election is necessary just because we didn't pass a budget...we'll just keep going as we were"?  And has enough support, or I suppose, apathy, in the cabinet or other gears of power to stop it? 

There are no really superior, real safeguards in a parliamentary system than in ours...other than the theoretical hope that the administration, security services/military, or other pillars of power (including the willingness of the people/society to engage in mass protest), will do the right thing and stop the wannabe-dictator at the top.

These are the flaws of any democratic/republican system...and ours was always as subject to failure, just as Hungary was, or others.  They can all sink when those involved lose their ethics to ambition, nationalism, or some other anti-democratic drive.  Ultimately, "my system is better" doesn't get one very far if the other more important factors are crumbling around us.

[Tonitrus]

This line from John Adams seems apropros...in predicting our weaknesses: 

But should the people of America once become capable of that deep simulation towards one another, and towards foreign nations, which assumes the language of justice and moderation while it is practising iniquity and extravagance, and displays in the most captivating manner the charming pictures of candor, frankness, and sincerity, while it is rioting in rapine and insolence, this country will be the most miserable habitation in the world; because we have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

[Richard Hakluyt]

The armed forces and police in the UK swear allegiance to the monarch. This is irrelevant nearly all of the time of course. But, if an unpopular government tried to hijack the system and become a dictatorship becomes relevant. I think the same applies in Canada. Of course the authoritarians might be very popular, which would make any interference by the King less likely.