The Non-Political Party System.

         Since the formation of the European Union, the possibility of democracy through the party political system is now even more remote than ever. The EU functions at a level beyond the legitimacy of the local party system, and imposes legislation on the national governments, creating a power more remote and disconnected from the people than ever before. National governments are now simply bureaucratic organisations that implement policies of that greater bureaucratic institution, the EU. This in turn creates an even greater disconnect between the political class and the people. 

 

     The various parties have lost any real difference, they are merely bureaucratic bodies vying with each for the power to manage the national bureaucratic institution, within the terms laid down by the EU. Our so called democracy. based on the party political system, is not about the party asking the people what they want, but more a matter of telling the people what they will get. Hardly democracy. The party political system is depoliticised at the national level, we might be able to protest against, and influence, the building of a motorway going through a public park, but the fundamental shape of our society is governed by that higher bureaucratic institution, the EU. Which in turn moves in the direction dictated by the “economy” and the needs of the transnational corporations. This disconnect between the people and the political parties creates ever more disillusionment and scepticism among the ordinary people.

          Hopefully this will be fertile ground for the desire to control our own lives and to determine the shape of our society. Perhaps our anger, disenchantment, scepticism, disillusionment and frustration at a system that doesn't engage with us, yet controls our lives to our detriment, will engender the birth of true democracy. Whatever, it will have to be outside the present system of political parties and freed from the strangle hold of the “economy” and its beneficiaries and drivers, the transnational corporations.

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