Policies - Government & Democracy

“You know the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you.” Matthew 20:25-26

Small Government

The Christian Party is committed to small government and finds both political and theological justification for its commitment. Big Government costs far more than small government and restricts individual freedom as it creates more and more laws in order to justify its existence. Jesus’ biggest problem was with the ‘big Government’ faction of His day, known as “the teachers of the law and Pharisees”. Like Britain’s ‘big Government’ they placed regulation upon regulation, law upon law; restricting freedom and damaging society.

In the words of the economist Paul Romer “a crisis is a terrible thing to waste.”
The current crisis has provided the perfect opportunity for a strong leader to reduce
Government dramatically. Unless radical steps are taken the outlook is
bleak. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
predicts that the United Kingdom’s output will decline by 4.3 per cent in 2009,
there will be zero growth in the United Kingdom economy in 2010 and further
predicts that the United Kingdom’s total public debt will exceed 125 per cent of
gross domestic product in ten years’ time. It does not have to be that way.

One fifth of the work force in Britain is officially employed by the Government.
Indeed, the number and percentage of the workforce that work for the
Government has increased year by year under the Labour Government of the
past decade, in contrast to a year by year decrease under the last Conservative
Government. Almost three quarters of a million people have been added to the
public sector workforce under Labour. This is unsustainable.

According the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development the recent
budget cuts implied by Gordon Brown will only result in 350,000 public sector jobs
being trimmed over the next six years. This is not enough to change the culture of
big Government, yet even these cuts are predicted to lead to “a ‘guerrilla war’ of
strikes from public sector workers.”

It is clear that there must be cuts in the public sector workforce. It is equally clear
that the unions will be up in arms whether those cuts are 350,000 or 3.5 million.
There is going to be a battle and it may as well be one that produces real and
lasting change, rather than a battle with no ground gained.

The Christian Party will seek to make cuts in public sector employment – in
concert with its economic growth generating tax regime – dramatic enough to
change the nature of Government from ‘big’ to ‘small’.

On-the-job re-training and job search facilities will be provided to enable
public sector workers to bypass the dole queue and move into jobs in the private
sector with the minimum of disruption. Negotiations with trade unions would seek to
convince union leaders that it is better for their members to have a planned
transition into the private sector, than eventually face inevitable job cuts in a
‘sudden death’ environment after protracted industrial disputation. Highly paid
quangocrats and Government sinecures would also need to seek employment in
the private sector.

As part of a holistic fiscal policy shrinking ‘big Government’ will reduce
Government spending and interference, and play an integral part in
stimulating growth in the economy. The middle class will have greater opportunities for
business with less red tape and thus less red ink on their balance sheets. The
poor will be rescued from the poverty trap. The rich will be encouraged to invest
in the United Kingdom and pay all the taxes asked of them and Government will
restrict itself to things that only Government can do.

The European Union

The Christian Party, in keeping with its stance on ‘big Government’, does not
support Britain’s continued membership of the European Union as constituted
under the Lisbon Treaty. The British people voted for a free trade area – a
Common Market – not a European State.

Now that the Lisbon Treaty has been ratified without a United Kingdom
referendum the Christian Party believes that a referendum on whether or not
Britain remains within the European Union must take place as a matter of urgency.

Given that the Lisbon Treaty does provide a mechanism by which a member state
can withdraw from the European Union, no logical impediment exists to prevent
the question of continued membership being asked, answered and acted upon.

The Lisbon Treaty

The Lisbon Treaty has been ratified and will shortly become European Union law. Yet there remains a crisis of democratic legitimacy in the European Union.

The flaws in the European project were exposed when the European Constitution was first rejected and then its replacement, the Lisbon Treaty, also ran into trouble. Strikingly, while a series of national parliaments chose to vote their approval, both the Constitution and Treaty failed when the public in some member states were asked their views. The peoples of Europe do not want a new political entity foisted on them.

The Christian Party intends to listen to the deep concerns of the British public,
who neither want a European superstate nor believe that the European elites are
truly committed to liberty. We understand that the European ideals held by the
Christian founders of the EU were based on convictions about the proper limited
spheres of government action and the space due to civil society. This Christian
idea of subsidiarity has been replaced by the bureaucratic fiction of a European
‘home’ with a nascent state that has no political, legal or cultural anchorage.

The fundamental flaw is clear to see. The peoples of the European Union have
never been given a proper say about the destination the politicians have chosen
to lead them towards. As a consequence, the European Union not only has ended
up possessing such symbols of statehood as its own flag, anthem, motto and
annual official holiday. It now has its own government, with a legislature,
executive and judiciary, its own President, its own citizens and citizenship,
its own human and civil rights code, its own currency, economic policy and
revenue, its own international treaty-making powers, foreign policy, foreign minister,
diplomatic corps and United Nations voice, its own crime and justice code and Public
Prosecutor. Can anyone really argue that the public truly knew this was what they
were signing up to?

The unwillingness of European politicians to understand the mood is revealed by
the identikit nature of the EU Constitution and the Lisbon Treaty. The content of
the Constitutional Treaty and the Lisbon Treaty is almost completely the same.
Both embrace important institutional innovations and substantial deepening of the
integration process.

We believe important questions about the Lisbon Treaty require an answer,
especially over claims it will improve ‘efficiency’. For example, all kinds of
existing and new Presidencies are going to function next to – and in
competition with - each other: the Commission President, the new permanent
President of the European Council, the new High Representative for Foreign Affairs as
President of the Foreign Affairs Council, and the rotating team Presidency of the
other Council formations. What each of these Presidencies is supposed to do has
not been clearly defined, and they might encroach on each other’s turf.

The total picture of the Treaty is one of less transparency. As the Lisbon
Treaty makes changes to - and thus complicates - the existing Treaties, the whole
has become even more incomprehensible. All kinds of protocols, declarations,
transitional provisions and exceptions have been included. There have been
some improvements in democratic accountability - in particular the idea of
co-decision-making between member states and the European Parliament in the
passing of legislation and the all-important budget. We welcome the improved
position of the national parliaments in the decision-making process. But the
overall picture is murky, not clear.

As to the deepening of the integration process that the Lisbon Treaty brings
about, the British public have a right to decide whether new competences should
be transferred to the European Union. At the moment, every member state must
be agreed on police and judicial cooperation before policy is made. However,
by abolishing the pillar structure, criminal matters will now be decided on by
Qualified Majority Voting (QMV) instead of unanimity. The content and applicability
of the competences in the area of freedom, security and justice are also changed
under Lisbon – having been more broadly formulated. We see this too in asylum
and immigration. And we see the Lisbon Treaty transferring new competences
where QMV will be applied in areas such as intellectual property rights, sport,
tourism, space, energy, civil protection and administrative integration. Lastly,
integration in foreign and security policy will be further intensified by the creation of the (potentially) important figure of the High Representative, who will be supported by
his own civil service.

Many Christians across all denominations see a divergence away from the core
founding principles of the European Union in these developments. They see
that instead of true convictions and ideals, a new pragmatic attitude has been
allowed to prevail. This managerialism compromises on essential human, moral
and social values on the basis of the lowest common denominator. And it has
now embedded itself as a dominant culture in European affairs, together with the
relegation of the expression of individual religious convictions to the private and
subjective sphere.

The experience of many Christians within the European Union is that this
lowest common denominator approach also coincides with the secular and relativist
tradition within Europe, which denies moral absolutes with an objective basis,
rather than the Christian view. Such an approach has ended up with Christians
being denied the right to intervene in public debates. It also dismisses their
contribution as an attempt to protect unjustified privileges, such as, for example,
the right of a Christian institution to employ people who support its Christian ethos.

The Duty to Vote in Elections

The Christian Party believes in the democratic process. We believe in ‘one person, one vote’. Sadly, the size of the democratic deficit in the United Kingdom is such that the legitimacy of the electoral mandate of most politicians can be called into question.

Democracy is valued so highly that wars are fought in pursuit of it, yet in Britain not enough value is placed on the importance of voting. It can hardly be assumed that not voting is an endorsement of whatever outcome an election has. Neither can it be argued that voting is any less important than submitting one’s tax return or leaving a parking bay on time. In both these instances fines are administered.

The Christian Party believes that voting in civic elections is a duty. With the proviso that there should be an opportunity on the ballot paper to abstain formally, participating in the voting process should be compulsory. Failure to participate in the ballot should result in a fine of no less than £100 (one hundred pounds), which should be pursued with the same vigour as parking fines and congestion charges.

Funding For Political Parties

The Christian Party is fundamentally against the funding of political parties
from public funds. Instead, political parties should be given the same status as
charities for the purposes of fundraising.

Christian Party Members of Parliament will:

Christian Party Policies

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