Democracy?

I, along with thousands of others around the country, have been growing increasingly frustrated over the last few weeks and months. Unhappy with how our government are acting and angry at being so completely and utterly ignored. In fact, angry isn’t a strong enough word. I am furious. Since coming to office the Conservative government under David Cameron has first targeted the weak and vulnerable in our society; cutting benefits and tightening rules to an extent where our papers are full of stories of severely disabled and dying people left with little or no money to survive on or the indignity of being asked to attend a fit for work interview when it is quite clear that they can’t. They moved on to attacking our public servants, we’ve seen protests and strikes from our firefighters, our doctors, our teachers. Their concerns have been brushed to one side, they’ve been accused of lying and melodramatics. They are sneakily trying to sell off our national parks, to push through fracking despite almost universal opposition. Our Prime Minister has gone through two major scandals (‘pig gate’ and more recently, the Panama papers) in less than a year. Enough is enough. Twice in the last month, several thousand people have flocked to London to demand a change, to see Cameron leave, to call for another general election. We’d have gone ourselves if we could have afforded the fuel to get there. Several online petitions have received hundreds of thousands signatures demanding action.

And what has happened in the weeks since? Not much. I received a reply from The Petitions Committee effectively brushing off the petition, saying it’s claims weren’t true and that they cannot call a general election under rules that were passed under the coalition government (how convenient). Then tonight I read an article on The Canary about censorship and some legislation that Cameron is thought to be trying to push through. This new legislation apparently will ‘include measures to gag individuals, close down premises and ban organisations’ who fall under the Domestic Extremist category. This sounds legit until you realise that they’ve somewhat changed descriptions so a ‘large number of persons in pursuit of a common purpose’ whose conduct is ‘motivated by a political or ideological viewpoint’ could qualify. You can’t get more vague than that, bit of a convenient catch-all category that could be applied as and when it suits the government, from people protesting the privatisation of our national parks to civil servants striking. Scary stuff.

To be honest, it feels like democracy is Britain is a complete and utter farce.How can it be that so many people are so desperately unhappy with the state of affairs, that people are protesting and striking in unprecedented numbers, that petitions are gaining near half a million signatures, that opposition parties memberships are sky rocketing and still, nothing is changing. What more can we do to get them to listen and either make changes so they are actually representing what the people of Britain want or call a general election? I genuinely don’t know the answer. And along with many, I’m starting to get more and more concerned about what is going to happen over the next few years. If things continue the way they’re going, things are going to be a hell of a lot worse for the majority of us before the next general election. As a Christian, I believe God has a plan for us but I also believe that Jesus told us to look after those in need, to stand up for those without a voice, to love our neighbours. So I want to do just that.

I’m aware that my readership is small but if you’re reading this and share my concerns, please please comment. If you have any ideas, any helpful words, I would absolutely love to read them. Let’s get a discourse going, let’s start brainstorming. We can’t stop fighting this. We need to stand up and unite in our opposition to the selfish, cruel government that is currently driving us into the ground. We need to make change happen.