Don’t Attack Iraq

The Media Workers Against War web site currently features a link to the “Fax Your MP” web site (http://www.faxyourmp.com/). If you enter your postcode on this web site, it will look up who your MP is. You can then type a message to the MP, which the folks who run the web site will then fax to the MP in question. (I assume they’ve got this automated, instead of having to do all the faxes manually.)

You can use the service to get in touch with your MP about all kinds of issues, but right now it makes sense to use it to make your views known about a war on Iraq. It’s a quick and easy way to remind your MP that they are supposed to represent their constituents in parliament, and not their party’s whip.

Yeah, right.

In a capitalist world, monopolies are considered bad because they destroy (the illusion of) consumer choice. Oligopolies are just as bad: a shared monopoly is no improvement for customers. Likewise, in a democratic world, a monopoly on policial choice is bad for citizens’ rights. And a two-party system is just a shared monopoly on political power.

If you typically support Party A and despise Party B, what do you do when Party A starts acting unreasonably? Go to the opposition? Even temporarily, just to get the message across? Great–that leaves you with Party B in power afterwards. A two-party system is almost as bad as having no choice at all.

What incentive do MPs have to actually listen to their constituents, and put forward their views in parliament? The thought of being removed from their seat at the next election? Well, if they’re high enough up in party hierarchy, then the party will just parachute them into a safe seat the next time one comes available.

For a politician who wants to keep their job, it may therefore be a better strategy to climb the party hierarchy, and keep on the good side of their leaders, than to do what they were supposedly elected to do: represent the people who voted for them.

Which is why we in Britain are currently in the situation that well over 50% of the population do not want to attack Iraq, yet our Prime Minister is spouting the rhetoric of full-on war like it’s some inevitability.

It’s also why someone like George Bush can become President of the United States.

What’s the answer? I don’t know. What can be done in practical terms? Right now, we have to get the message across to our so-called leaders that they will face massive revolt if we step up hostilities against Iraq. (I say step up, because preliminary action has been underway for some time now.)

In Britain, the Prime Minister is not elected by the public. The public elects the MPs, and then the governing party elects the PM. By the same token, the PM can be removed by the governing party as well. Does the will exist within the Labour Party to do this if Tony Blair takes Britain into a war? (Also, if the country is at war, is the cabinet even obliged to allow a vote of no confidence?)

When I first saw the “Fax Your MP” thing on MWAW, I thought I would do that. But now I think I want to actually write out a letter to my MP (Nigel Griffiths) and properly hand sign it. Will Mr Griffiths pay more attention to a letter than to a fax? Probably not. But it feels more appropriate, somehow.

Will this all make a difference? Again, I don’t know. But it’s pretty clear that in this oligarchic excuse for a democracy going to the polls once every four or five years is just not enough any more.