Once I’ve got my Doctorate, my qualifying law degree, and passed the bar exam, I want to write a Thesis to convert the bar exam into a Masters, titled ”The Co-operative Manifesto: An Investigation into the Nature and Cause of the Wealth of Communitiesâ„¢”
The European Union says that the EU Community is a ‘representative democracy’. I take democracy to mean governance by the people, not necessarily the politicians. I take representative to mean that everyone has equal opportunity to represent their opinions. I would enshrine the principle of ‘respresentivity’ into law – meaning at anytime an individual citizen is affected by a proposed cause of action they would have to be involved in the decision making process.
My initial thoughts on what would be in it include a proposal for whole scale reform of the UK’s constitutional and administrative arrangements, to create my ‘utopia’. These would probably be dystopic to most on the left of the Labour Party and most on the right of the Tory Party, but progressives on the left of the Tories and right of Labour might support it.
Initial thoughts on what might be in my thesis are as follows:
There would be a social and economic system called ‘equatricism’ to replace capitalism and socialism. It is called ‘equatrical’, as it has three elements for achieving an equal society. It suggests that Knowledge, Education and Information; Law & Order and Accountability; and Trade and Co-operation are the foundations of a successful civilisation/society. These are referred to as ‘info-scientific’, ‘socio-legal’ and ‘economic’ respectively.
This society would have these constitutional and administrative elements:
1). No privatisation, no nationalisation it makes no difference: Because of EU law it is the same people doing the same jobs under the same contracts. There should be no State-owned or run public service, no private owned or run services in the public good run for profit and after Part 2 below is in force the Government would make everyone in these services redundant if they haven’t taken up the opportunities in Part 2. Using Article 106 of the EU Treaty the UK Government should assume all the regulatory control of services that are in the public good and place all the regulatory and financial control over them into the hands of Parliaments in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. All the private utility infrastructures in Wales merged and demerged by resource (e.g. gas,
electricity, etc), and all the shares, pensions, etc, go into a new private sector monopoly like BT, which franchises out to all the private sector suppliers that exist now, whether they owned by a Spanish company, such as Ibrodrola, who I own shares in and who own Scottish Power who I used tobe a customer of,other EU public limited company. So I would still own my shares in Ibrodrola, and they would still be my provider for gas and electricity when I get a house, but they would be accountable to Welsh Gas Plc and Welsh Electricity Plc (or the appropriate Welsh langauge name, like Dwr Cymru for Welsh Water). Over the next decades, the public would be given the rights to take over the running of these franchises by forming co-operatives. They would be given the same powers to take over the running of State-run public services. Eventually, there would be a bonfire of these private sector monopolies, like there was the State Quangos, and the statutory powers they were found to have under Foster v British Gas would go to the Welsh Parliament, and the infrastructure would become not-for-profit like Welsh Water. I would still be able to get my gas and electricity from Ibrodrola SA, or I could get it from Tanwyddau Morgannwg Cymunedol Cyf (Glamorgan Community Fuels Ltd).
There would be a directly elected Executive that implements EU and international law, and exercises Royal Prerogative and control over the armed forces and secret services. The Executive, and these parliaments (except NI) would have to have their laws ratified by a House of Representatives which would be a merger of the House of Commons and House of Lords at Westminster to form a single scrutinising body.
2) Instead of spending lots of money on government officials writing up laws, the money saved could be spent on Legal Aid for the public’s representatives to create the law in the judiciary based on precedent and principles rather than partisanism and prejudice as we see in politics.
3). There would be a thriving private sector, free to innovate in areas outside the public good, providing outsourcing support, maintenance, building, etc to the community corporations. The government should then enable people working for the State or Private sector and other members of the public to take up control of the running of the services though co-operative corporations, Community Interest Companies, Charitable Incorporated Companies, or Charities. They would be financed through vouchers given to citizens to use those services under a market based system – they will be able to use any provider in the UK or EU, though they would be able to get dividends if they spent their vouchers at a provider in their local community corporation of which they are a member. There would be a statutory requirement that where the the market fails to meet the standards required of the elected representatives in the Parliaments these can provide the service until such time that they can give it up. This is like what happened with Northern Ireland during the hiccup they had, where the UK Government took over decision making.
The national Parliaments would apply the judements of the judiciary (include the European Courts) in line with local factors on this basis of ‘margins of appreciation’ by codifying the rulings, and their legislative powers should otherwise be used for framework legislation. All legislation would have to be checked by the House of Representatives.
4) There would be no police at national level, but there would be a strong and effective judiciary. Europol and Interpol would be in charge of investigating and prosecuting counter narcotics, counter terrorism, force prostitution, human trafficking, etc, and would have full permission to request specific and identified data held by the corporations, full access to the Courts of the nation, and would be able to enter and leave the country with only having to notify the Executive.
Most petty crime would be handled by professional bodies of which there would be a statutory requirement that people had to be a member of. The RSPCA model would be adopted for other serious crimes. Rape and domestic violence cases could be handled by Women’s Aid in the case of Women, Stonewall in the case of gay people for example. Other equivalents would be necessary for other protected characteristics of the Equality Act 2010 and Article 10 of the EU Treaty. In terms of Child Abuse, these would be investigated by the NSPCC or their equivalent in Scotland. In the terms of theft and personal injury and other ‘insured incidents’ the insurance companies would have investigatory powers and it would be a statutory requirement to have insurance, unless you have limited income in which case there would be a social insurance scheme. In the case of other unprotected groups and other social wrongs these would be handled by the market. People would approach a solicitor and their case would be assessed for its crediblity – they would also be assessed for legal aid, and could go to another solicitor if the one they went to wouldn’t take up the case. This is better than what happens at the moment, which if the police don’t take it up there is little they can do if they are not wealthy.
If the solicitor agrees, the citizen would sign a Data Protection form, which would give the solicitor powers to internally or via a private investigator, access all the data held in CCTV, and records relating to the person complaining. CCTV would not be controlled by the government or local businesses, even thought it may be on their premises, but by local Neighbourhood Watch groups. The solicitor could request futher access to the CCTV that their client is not in but is relevant to the case on application to a Court. Individuals would be able to access any CCTV in which their in, through using services provided by companies like Google, such as Goggle and Latitude, and the individual would have control over it and access to it. They could delete it, but it would have to be undeleted in the event of an investigation. The solicitor/investigator may request further search powers from a Minister in the Parliament, to search things such as company records not relating to the individual, but relating to the circumstances surround their cases. The Minister would be able to refer complex cases to the judiciary.
5). In the case of wrong doings by the corporations a Minister in the Parliament would be able to handle it through a transparent inquiry in minor cases or refer it to the European Commission in other serious cases.
6). In the case of wrong doings by the Parliaments or the Armed Forces, the Executive would be able to ask Her Majesty to investigate, through the current secret service organisations. These would be held in secret courts and only released to the press if that court felt it was in the public interest.
In the case of wrong doings by the Executive, Her Majesty, the European Commission, or other international bodies would be able to investigate.
7). The Parliaments would be responsible for redistributing wealth. Those struggling to reach their potential would be given more support. Those with more than their fair share of the cake with excess wealth would have to give it up for the state to redistribute. The judiciary would have the final say on what is a fair redistribution.
9). The government would make few decisions affecting people’s lives, these regional Parliaments would only have to ‘rubber stamp’ them. So for example, if a charity put in a planning application for a drug rehabilitation centre, the inevitable complaining public would enter mediation/arbitration with the developers, to reach a decision. This would then be presented to the regional Parliament’s planning committee to check compatibility with the laws and planning policy. These public decision making bodies could be organised through Her Majesty’s Court Service, Trade Unions, or Professional Bodies.
If all this was done I think we would be living in a society in which power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many through community-run co-operatives, not the few through state or private monopolies and where the rights we enjoy reflect the duties we owe underpinned by accountable legislatures and an effective judiciary, where we live together freely, in a spirit of solidarity, tolerance and respect.
