Tomorrow in the grandeur of St Georges Hall I will be helping at a citizenship ceremony in which about 40 people will not only become new UK citizens but new Scousers as well!
Tomorrow, 2nd June, I will be speaking at two ceremonies in which I will welcome new citizens to full citizenship of our country. As it has done before this has given me the opportunity to reflect on my Country and why, despite its many failings, I am proud to be a citizen here and to live here.
I suppose that the Country which we are most often compared with is the United States of America. This country seems to be a train wreck for due process and democracy. One of the things that always surprises me is how judges are chosen, indeed some of them are elected by their local community at a lower level. People can be Bush appointed, Obama appointed, Trump appointed. Nothing like that happens in the UK.
There is a process that ensures that everyone from the local magistrate to the highest Supreme Court Judge are chosen on their merits by a system which is absolutely free from political bias. It is true that at lower level where some local councillors are magistrates, we can see their political affiliation. Crucially however that is not the basis on which they are chosen for these unpaid but highly skilled positions.
We can see the independence of the legal system at every level. Perhaps the best example was when the current Government tried to prorogue (close down) Parliament and actually got the late Queen to sign the appropriate documents. Then the Supreme Court stepped in and stopped the process. They ruled that the process had not been correctly carried out and was therefore invalid. They did so not be because their political beliefs said that but because their interpretation of the law said that. I don’t know how any judges vote in elections. I might guess at some of them, but I do not know and am confident that I cannot tell how they vote by decisions that they have made.
Our politics is now distorted and not as robust as I would like it to be, but it is still strong. The idea that any Party would put forward a convicted felon for a senior elected position is beyond my comprehension. Whilst I have complained that our politics is becoming too American, no Party in the UK would put forward someone with the appalling record of Donald Trump as a candidate for the smallest council never mind the highest position in the land.
Parliament has on three occasions recently taken decisive action against the Members of Parliament who had transgressed against the law of the land or the rules of Parliament. The process started inside a specific all-Party committee who looked at the facts and made recommendations to Parliament as a whole. They did so unitedly and most of the reaction in the House of Commons was similarly none-political with the vast majority of people not voting on Party lines but to support the committee’s recommendation.
Our system of democracy is far from perfect. I personally support a different and more representative voting system, but I am sure of the independent way in which our current system is administered. Politicians do not decide electoral districts at any level. Independent officers who are professionals then run the elections scrupulously according to the rules. If you cast a vote in an election in this Country, it will be properly recorded, and the results will reflect what the people said.
The American system is even less perfect but so much better than the sham democracies of Russia and China Where votes are solemnly counted in a system which is so heavily rigged that they are absolutely meaningless. It is interesting that Countries where the governing parties are ‘so-called’ proletariat parties are the countries where workers have the least influence.
Next week we will be commemorating D Day at big events and march pasts within our City. It is a fact that we have enjoyed reasonable peace, security, and prosperity since World War II. It is true that our citizenry as a whole has not been conscripted to defend our country but people from our armed forces have risked or given their lives because they have voluntarily signed up to join the forces.
Compare this, however, with the problems of Ukraine where more than 30,000 fighters and civilians have given their lives and many more have been injured as they have defended their country, and by proxy ours as well from the imperialism of Putin’s Russia.
Many citizens of the UK live in housing that is far from acceptable. But compare this with the shanty towns and barrios where so many people live throughout the world.
Whilst many of us take our birth in the UK for granted I know that will not be the case tomorrow. Few people belt out the National Anthem with the fervour of those who have just become fully paid up (and they have paid a lot to get through this process) fellow citizens. From tomorrow they will be entitled to every advantage that I and the rest of us have. I hope that as they settle into their new role, they will bring to our nation the enthusiasm and vigour of the ‘converted’.
I wish them all every success in our Country and particularly those who come to live in Liverpool. From tomorrow they are not only UK citizens but Scousers. What greater privilege could anyone have!
But what does Richard Kemp think? 