BEST EMPTY

The British Government with due diligence is trying to extract the UK from the European Union with the maximum benefit and least harm, in accordance with ‘the will of the people’ as clearly expressed in a country wide EU Referendum two years ago.

The current Conservative government are in the challenging process of negotiating the UK’s leaving conditions with a bastard of an EU team intent on punishing our people for having the audacity to reject their vision of a United States of Europe [and being governed by it], even if that damages the remaining Union itself.

In parallel they are carrying through what should have been a manageable process of ending the supremacy of EU law in the UK when we leave, while ensuring existing laws passed since the UK’s entry in 1973 continue to apply, unless and until modified at Westminster.

However, the mechanism for this [the EU Withdrawal Bill] is being thwarted wherever possible by those amongst us that simply won’t accept the result of the people’s vote and believe that their own remarkable ‘informed’ views [that the Country should remain tied to the EU] should carry more weight because ordinary ‘unenlightened’ people didn’t know what they were doing or hadn’t put their Country first.

A number of them are MPs in the House of Commons [where despite having giving the government a bumpy ride, they have been badly defeated by significant majorities (384 & 372)], so the fight has been moved-on now to the House of Lords where the Government doesn’t have an absolute majority and it is stacked with Europhiles

[Conservatives hold just 248 out of a total of 794 Lords voting seats (with Labour on 197, Liberal Democrats on 100, Independent on 183)]

Predictably, the Lords have last night inflicted on the Government of the day, the first of a potential number of defeats on the Bill – they are skating on thin ice and playing with fire, aren’t they? You see, they are drawing dangerous attention to themselves on what is basically a democracy issue, at a time when many British people are questioning its fragility here, because the elite still seem to be ruling the roost at the expense of the masses – and you don’t get more of an undeserving elite than the House of Lords, do you?

Now, while the House of Lords rarely blocks government legislation, it nevertheless can seriously interfere with it while performing one of its supposedly key purposes of scrutinising legislation in a less hurried fashion than in the Commons.

The Lords attempt to reopen a debate now on the settled decision of the UK NOT remaining in a customs union with the EU (because any such union would prevent us gaining the benefits of other trading agreements) is an attempt by unmoveable Remain supporters in the Lords to wreck the Bill and tie the hands of our negotiators – if they succeed it will doubtless cause outrage within the Country.

Last year a poll apparently found that nearly half of respondents would be more likely to back abolition or reform of the House of Lords if it attempts to obstruct BREXIT.

While there is a clear advantage of having two separate legislative assembles, chambers, or houses [bicameralism], and so providing opportunities for second thoughts on legislation, as well as ability to ensure more equal representation for minorities [though less than half of Countries actually have it], but there can be no justification whatsoever for the continuation of the British House of Lords, which is an utterly unelected and unrepresentative (in every possible way – for example only a quarter are women) legislative body, but instead is stuffed to overflowing with life peers (670 so far), hereditary peers (91), bishops (26), and on absence (25)  [so currently 812 of the blighters], which grows like Topsy because Prime Ministers are allowed, at eye-watering financial cost, to ‘reward’ (and DO!) their cronies, without number limit, with a peerage. [PM David Cameron added 189 life peers in just 6 years – not much constraint there then, eh?

[The Commons has 650 elected MPs but the House of Lords is the bloody second largest parliamentary group in the entire World (after China no less), while the maximum capacity of its chamber is actually only 400 (with standing) – so it is a good job a large number of peers don’t show-up to claim attendance allowance (£300 for actual sitting, or £150 tax free for just turning-up?), isn’t it?].

There is a lot of talk about Lords reform including restricting the number of peers [say to 600], but unless they die-off in droves, past events show it just isn’t going to happen, is it?

What we need desperately is a fairly-elected second chamber, NOT a disproportionately-selected one, surely? Perhaps, a second chamber regional elected representative assembly, located in an impressive purpose built new facility ‘up North’, eh?

[Releasing the Lords’ space in the Palace of Westminster will prove to be a significant advantage to British democracy, don’t you think?]

The Congress is an example of another county’s bicameral legislature and is the federal government of the United States, consisting of two elected chambers, the Senate (100 Senators – 2 for each State serving for 6 years) and the House of Representatives (435 Representatives – representing single districts apportioned by State populations, each serving for 2 years)