As Britain gets ready for its seventh prime minister in just 10 years, it’s time to ask whether the parliamentary system itself is broken. That might explain not only why landslide election victories don’t translate into stable leadership in Britain but also why America’s Congress is so feckless. Is representative government an idea whose time has passed?
In Europe as well as America, leftists prefer that judges and bureaucrats wield permanent power, as supposedly impartial experts who know best how to stop the weather from changing and how many genders there are.
Britain’s Labour party started out as a vehicle for the working class, in theory. It was closely connected to the country’s major industrial unions—but Britain in the 21st century has lost most of its hard industry, and Labour is now led by the same kind of socially left-wing, technocratic wonks that make up the “inner party” of the Democrats in this country.
Brexit, passed by the British people in a referendum 10 years ago this week, proved Labour had lost the working class—the party elite favored remaining in the European Union, but working-class voters themselves cast their ballots for “leave.” Unfortunately, the Conservative Party’s elite also favored “remain”—Prime Minister David Cameron himself did, and losing the Brexit referendum compelled him to resign.
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