The tyranny of the majority

(This letter was sent by our Chairman to several local papers in the Midlands)

6th December 2016

Sir,

“The Tyranny of the Majority” is Sir John Major’s complaint of the EU referendum result. He, Tony Blair and friends are seeking to overturn it by the old EU trick of sending people to vote again until they give the “right” answer – that is, one favourable to the EU, which then becomes our lord and master for another forty years or so.

Looking across the Atlantic, we see the remarkable victory of Mr. Trump. The Albany Atlas and Argus once described a presidential candidate as “a slang-whanging stump speaker of which all parties are ashamed”. But that was Abraham Lincoln!

Mr. Trump won in spite of such widely held opinions about him. He did not win a majority of popular votes but a majority in the Electoral College where votes are apportioned to states so that the influence of the most populous states is moderated in this enormous country. It is one of the checks and balances which the Founding Fathers built into the constitution. They also provided that each state should have two Senators – from the smallest to the largest.

Considering all the fuss which the Americans have since made about spreading democracy around the world – often at the point of a gun – it is remarkable how little their Founding Fathers had to say about it. They were classically educated men and knew that all previous democracies had ended in dictatorship or disaster.

So to them “democracy” was a politically incorrect word, meaning more or less what “populism”means to Guardian readers today. As John Smith of Roanoke Virginia put it “Too democratical a constitution and we have but exchanged King George for King Numbers” . Sir John Major appears to agree. Except he does not want King George but Emperor Jean-Claude Juncker, his heirs and successors to rule over us.

Most people agree that Tony Blair politicised the civil service. He also did the same to the administration of justice to fit the EU mould. Nobody was clamouring for a Supreme Court but our previous arrangement with Law Lords, who also sat in the House of Lords, did not fit the Napoleonic model. New Labour aspired to “ continental-style Ministry of Justice” and simply imposed it. But our Supreme Court is, in fact, subordinate to the so-called European Court of Justice.

Long live Emperor Jean-Claude! His predecessor, Senhor Barroso ( the erstwhile Marxist now promoted to glory with Goldman Sachs) said the EU was an empire and he was in a position to know! Major, Blair and company are its faithful subjects.

Yours faithfully

Edward Spalton