Mobbing the Tories by American Patriots in 1775-76; the Tory is about to be tarred and feathered (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The inquiry threatens the UK regime’s very fabric. What the recent Cabinet Office documents indicate is that the powerful pedophile predators were known.[1] The Crown knew about them. The police had files on them. The Home Office and the Cabinet Office had files on the allegations. In itself, this is not surprising given they have a responsibility for law enforcement within the UK. [2] Most of the names mentioned were already known or publicly suspected. Three things in particular make the inquiry a threat to the UK regime.
The government and its defenders need to prove their integrity.
First, the revelations and the inquiry undermine all official pronouncements by powerful figures that they and their cohort are beyond reproach. The defense based on authority and status has suddenly crumbled.[3] The files that confirmed what victims and survivors had claimed about the powerful predators. Those who had defended the reputation now face a reckoning. Were they deceived about the past or did they know? Either way, the claims of other powerful defenders is now in doubt. The integrity of any public person or any public statement must be taken with a grain of salt. There can be no more arguments from authority where a powerful political figure bullies the public into submission with claims of unimpeachable rectitude and integrity.[4] Not only is individual integrity in doubt, the integrity of the regime is in doubt. The best parallel to this is the Watergate crisis. In that crisis, the government lied to the American people and tried to cover it up. The President was shown to be dishonest. The arcana imperii were revealed[5] and people stopped trusting the government.[6] In response, government sought to reassure the public through open meetings laws, FOIA amendments to make it stronger, and more stringent financial reporting. As an aside the UK is in the midst of review to *restrict* the FOIA. Yes, that is correct, in the midst of a crisis of confidence that involves claims of a large scale cover up, the government has embarked on a review of FOIA to *reduce* its effectiveness.
The UK is founded in force and coercion not consent and reason.
Second, the regime is based on coercion not consent.[7] Such a regime, while it has a democratic veneer, is only in place from force of arms. No election or constitution created the Crown. Its legitimacy comes from the force of arms. Even though the coercion is now implicit rather than explicit, it is ever present. The implicit nature of that coercion is seen in the Oaths of Office. Through the Oaths of Office, the Crown has a monopoly of force. All the Crown’s major elements, not including the civil servants, swear an oath of allegiance to the Queen. The Army’s oath is the most extreme. They swear to protect the Monarch, not the state or the people, against all enemies.[8] In such an oath, the People might be a threat. If the people were to attempt to change the regime by force, the Army is duty bound to the Queen not to the people. Even in a situation where the Crown’s behavior is egregiously immoral and inhuman, the Army are bound to her not to a constitution or a higher law. Without consent, the regime has to rely on its force. If the institutions of force, the police and the military refuse to enforce the political order, the regime collapses.
The Crown only exists to promote the public good. How is protecting predators a public good?
Third, the Crown has broken its covenant with the people. The Crown is only accepted as long as it acts for the public good. In fact, its powers only exist for the public good.[9] The regime relies on an implicit social contract that the Crown protects the people. At a basic level, the Crown protects them from foreign enemies. At a more advanced level, it is to protect them from powerful predators, such as criminals, who prey on the people. The Crown through the force of arms and the laws will suppress criminals and the powerful who would prey on people. In other words, the Crown keeps the peace and ensures justice. Yet, the bargain or the contract only works if the Crown does not prey on the people. If the people, aware that the Crown knew about the powerful predators, continue to obey it? Should they obey it? What will sustain the Crown once people realize its complicity in these crimes?
No regime is stable that allows the powerful to prey on the weak and the vulnerable
History has shown that a regime will remain stable so long as the poor and weak are not exploited. The weak will not revolt or challenge the rulers if they are protected and free of abuse.[10] The regime, though, has to restrain the predatory few within the privileged. In this task, the Crown failed. It knew about and the predatory few. It did not bring them to justice. We now know that the government knew and the Crown failed to keep its bargain.[11]
The Crown exists to protect the people. When it fails to protect them why keep it?
At its root, the CSA Inquiry reveals a constitutional crisis. The regime, the Crown, has failed to protect its people. The Crown knew about the abuse and did not stop it. The same Crown, the same regime, is in power today. Unless it reforms itself, it cannot claim to have any moral legitimacy in the public’s eyes. How can anyone working for the government justify this behavior? How can any one look at a police officer or a government official knowing that the regime they work for allowed this to happen and did nothing about it for more than 30 years? What is truly frightening is that these are only the ones they have been willing to disclose. What about the other issues?
Who would obey a regime that relies on force and allows the powerful to prey on the people?
Who would obey such a regime or believe what it has to say? Over the next five years, the disclosures are going to get worse not better. The inquiry will show the public just how corrupt it is and nothing will change that fate. What happens as a result will determine the regime’s fate. You can have the soldiers, the courts, the judges, the police and the politicians, but that does not make your rule legitimate or honourable, which is what the Goddard Inquiry has begun to reveal.
[1] See for example this article that reveals the Home Office had the files http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2919664/Secret-file-detailing-unnatural-sexual-behaviour-Westminster-VIP-paedophile-scandal-80s-discovered-probably-seen-Margaret-Thatcher.html and http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2919664/Secret-file-detailing-unnatural-sexual-behaviour-Westminster-VIP-paedophile-scandal-80s-discovered-probably-seen-Margaret-Thatcher.html
[2] For an analysis of their search efforts see https://lawrenceserewicz.wordpress.com/2014/11/17/records-management-and-the-wanless-report-on-home-office-files/ and more generally http://thoughtmanagement.org/2015/02/01/who-cares-if-records-get-lost/
[3] See for example Dominic Lawson’s stout defense of Leon Brittan before the revelations of 22 July 2015 http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/comment/columns/dominiclawson/article1513628.ece
[4] One is reminded of Lord Scarman writing is almost bullying tones about anyone who would dare impugn the integrity of the senior Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) officers. Writing in 1981 he said
“The direction and policies of the Metropolitan Police are not racist. I totally and unequivocally reject the attack made upon the integrity and impartiality of the senior direction of the force. The criticisms lie elsewhere – in errors of judgment, in a lack of imagination and flexibility, but not in deliberate bias or prejudice”. (Para 4.62, p 64).
Found in the MacPhereson Report https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/277111/4262.pdf Paragraph 6.8 concerning the allegation that the MPS was a racist force. Events proved Lord Scarman’s statement to be false and suggested he was either completely unaware of the police corruption, which is strange given the numerous scandals, even at that time, or he was making the statement to protect the establishment from criticism.
[5] The child abuse is some of the UK’s arcana imperii https://lawrenceserewicz.wordpress.com/2015/04/13/official-secrets-act-and-child-sexual-abuse-inquiry-arcana-imperii-and-the-secrets-of-state/
[6] The chart shows how trust in US government declined steadily from 1968 and accelerated after Nixon’s resignation. The graph, copyright of the PEW foundation, shows the decline over 50 years.
http://www.people-press.org/2013/10/18/trust-in-government-interactive/
[7] See Xenophon’s Memorabilia. Book I 2.41-46. If a regime rules without consent, it is tyrannical. The UK citizens have not consented to have the Queen as their ruler and they must accept the next ruler, as they have no choice in the matter. The people may change the party in power, but they can change neither the government nor the regime. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0208%3Abook%3D1%3Achapter%3D2%3Asection%3D41
[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oath_of_Allegiance_%28United_Kingdom%29#Armed_forces .“I swear by Almighty God that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Her Heirs and Successors, and that I will, as in duty bound, honestly and faithfully defend Her Majesty, Her Heirs and Successors, in Person, Crown and Dignity against all enemies, and will observe and obey all orders of Her Majesty, Her Heirs and Successors, and of the generals and officers set over me.”
[9] “The reason is constitutionally fundamental: the Crown’s powers exist not for its own benefit but for the public good”. See the Lecture by Stephen Sedley The Royal Prerogative Then and Now. http://www.innertemple.org.uk/downloads/members/lectures_2014/lecture_sedley.pdf
See also
- The claim that the Crown may do anything an individual may do logically involves a claim that Ministers have an unfettered discretion in doing such things. But, as Sir William Wade once pointed out (in a passage subsequently approved by the Appellate Committee106),
“The powers of public authorities are…essentially different from those of private persons… a public authority [must act] reasonably and in good faith and upon lawful and relevant grounds of public interest. Unfettered discretion is wholly inappropriate to a public authority, which possesses powers solely in order that it may use them for the public good”. www.blackstonechambers.com/document.rm?id=373
[10] Aristotle Politics 1297b “For the poor are willing to remain tranquil even when they have no share in the prerogatives, provided no one acts arrogantly towards them nor deprives them of any of their property. Yet this is not easy; for it does not always turn out that those sharing in the governing body are the refined sort.” Politics Carnes Lord Translation University of Chicago Press
[11] http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/mi5-helped-margaret-thatcher-cover-6120006
Philosophical Politics 
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