Forced change cannot have a happy ending

But the fact that post the 2008 reform law, Sark would be unable to find enough candidates to fill Chief Pleas was not a surprise to anyone. This was known in 2008 and I argued as much in the House of Lords case. I said then that the primary problem in such a small jurisdiction was not being unable to pick and choose from an abundance of alternatives of who shall run your public administration, but finding enough people willing and competent enough to do it. Before 2008, the Tenants were obligated to provide this vital function and many of them were exceptionally competent people whom even large jurisdictions would struggle to recruit.

Voter (and candidate) non-participation should not be confused with voter apathy. Voter non-participation can mean many things, but more often than anything else, it means ‘I don’t like any of the options on offer’ or ‘I’m not willing to participate in a system I consider illegitimate’ or ‘I don’t want any of you lot to lord it over me'. If an unsolicited door-to-door salesman knocks on your door and you refuse to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to him offering his wares but slam the door in his face instead, is that apathy and is more participation from you required?

In the West, the liberal elites have succeeded in monopolising all the political alternatives, with all the mainstream political parties in all the major countries now offering only slight variations of the same formula. Since the silent majority wants nothing to do with it, voter turnout has plummeted. This is not apathy, this is silent rebellion. This is why when a real alternative, almost no matter what it is – be it Brexit, Trump, AfD or the Five Star movement – is offered, voters turn out in record numbers and tell the establishment where to stick it.

These silent rebellions threaten to expose the illegitimacy of the global subversion of democracy by the liberal elites, which is why the elites now often resort to exerting pressure on the unwilling plebs to take part and cover it back up. Obama even wanted to make voting in the US compulsory.

In 2008, London told the unwilling Sark to accept the imposed constitutional reform or London would impose it over Chief Pleas’ head. Sark was told that if it complied, London would interfere no more and Sark caved in. I warned at the time that this was a mistake which would only invite more meddling. Which of course it did. Today, Sark is being told to either play ball with the badly flawed and unwanted London-imposed system, or risk losing its independence. The Economist wrote as far back as 2008 that Sark’s constitutional reform could spell the end of Sark’s independence. Perhaps this has been a (small) part of the (big) plan of those who want to impose a one-world communist hegemony all along.

If you want someone to engage, you can either (i) order or pressure them to engage, (ii) try to force them to engage, or, (iii) offer them something they want to engage with. Which is the most likely to be successful? The vanguard of the proletariat in the communist Yugoslavia where I grew up tried to dominate the plebs using the Stalinist point of a gun; the liberal elite vanguard of the proletariat in the modern-day West try to do the same with the Gramscian long march; and London has been trying since 2008 the same on Sark by imperial diktat. None of these approaches, unless changed, can have a happy ending.

TOMAZ SLIVNIK