Les jaunes câsaques?

France is on fire.

I'm sure we all know what's happening across the water. For five weeks, "yellow vest" protests have gripped France as decades of austerity, tax rises and attacks on workers boil over into blockades, demonstrations and violence on the streets. The French police, protectors of the French ruling class, have responded as police always do - with beatings, gas and armored personnel carriers bearing the flag of everyone's favourite industrial-financial cartel, the European Union. Still, the French aren't a people to take this sort of thing lying down, and every week they've been back on the streets - angrier, more prepared, and more demanding.

Of course, no self-respecting protest movement goes uncopied, and, since the middle of November, movements trying to catch onto the yellow vests movement have popped up in Italy, Bulgaria, the Benelux, Germany, and even as far off as Jordan and Iraq.

And, now, famed local nonce-catcher Cheyenne O'Conner has put together a Facebook group to encourage us Beans to get our jaunes câsaques (Jérriais for "yellow jackets") on and get out on the streets! In a post from the 15th of December, she writes:

"Time to get off our arses and start doing something about the issues we have on our island.

We are going to pick 5 big issues to protest. We will need one person standing for each issue.

This can be any relevant issue on the island, Rental prices, wages, childcare and so on.

If where going to make this big we have to do it properly, we have to discuss the problems and make this massive."

Well, lar-di-da, people in Jersey standing up to the ruling class! Not often we see that, now is it? 

Even if the involvement of local fascist Ciaran Gettens has got my alarm bells ringing (this time, my man's informing us of how "unwelcome" he feels if people speak Portuguese around him - you'd almost think he's a racist!), the poll O'Connor has set up to determine what the new movement's goals will be has turned up a few interesting results. Top, of course, is higher sentences for paedophiles - unsurprising on an island where paedos can get away with a couple of months in La Moye for plotting to groom a child - with some others being lower rents on social housing, a £10 an hour minimum wage, abolition of GST on essentials and a general legalisation of cannabis. 

They're no revolutionaries, our jaunes câsaques, but I find this whole thing pretty interesting nonetheless. £10/hr, abolition of GST on essentials, lower rents - these are all things we've all been pushing on for ages, but no-one's yet organised into a cohesive movement. O'Connor's jaunes câsaques have the potential to bring together a big section of Jersey society which austerity and Parkerism have left badly pissed off. As I write, the group on Facebook has 500+ members, and growing, with a couple of half-decent left voices taking their forms in Jan McAllister (the woman behind this), "Phil Example-Card" AKA Phil Renouf (local libertarian socialist, direct democracy activist and architect of a bright idea from a few years back to establish a "Jersey Pirate Party" as a part of the international pirate politics movement) and the man, the myth, the legend, John McNichol, a Reform Jersey candidate from May's election and a committed socialist and anti-imperialist. 

I'll definitely be keeping an eye on this.

Connétable de St. Ouen updates Parish website after criticism

Just a quick PSA for my fellow gris ventres - following a request by yours truly to update the Parish of St. Ouen website, the Connétable, Richard Buchanan, has made significant additions to the website to include names and contact details for each and every elected parish official - Procureurs, Centiniers, Vingteniers, Constable's Officer, Roads Inspectors and the members of the Roads Committee and the Rates Assessment Committee. This comes after Deputy Sam Mézec's major attack on the current state of Parish democracy posted on his blog last Wednesday exposed the anti-democratic bent of the Comité de Connétables, the lack of information available about elected roles and the general vestigial state of Parish democracy to a massive degree (something we also analysed, asking what Jersey's democracy movement could learn from libertarian socialism and the ideas of Murray Bookchin).

St. Ouen continues its slow, slow crawl towards something resembling the 21st century!

You can view the newly-posted information here.

PPC pushing for democratic reform

I don't agree with Russell Labey on much, but if there's one area the man's on point with, it's States reform.

Labey, the chairman of the Privileges and Procedures Committee (PPC) has said that proposals to completely overhaul the makeup of the States should be lodged within the next 12 months, with a Royal Commission potentially needed to give the States a kick up the arse if they continue to resist change. Labey described the current discussions around States reform as "getting ridiculous", saying that "we can't carry on with the status quo".

Hear hear, Deputy! As the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association found not two weeks ago, our political system remains broken to the core. With three different types of members, a confusing voting system and unelected members galore, the system remains completely out of line with international standards, yet the turkeys in the States will never vote for Christmas. The current discussion around States reform is essentially based off pure self-interest - members are afraid that they'll be the ones who cop it if the system is made fairer, and that's why Labey wants to bring in a Royal Commission - a big fat inquiry authorised by Brenda herself, and, more importantly, managed by outsiders not beholden to Jersey's culture of coverup and circlejerk who won't be afraid to ask tough questions that make the gangsters that make up our ruling class uncomfortable. The fact is, no-one wants to bring in the big guns from the UK, but if the States continues to fight any kind of democratic reform, there won't be any other option. If we want to keep calling ourselves a democracy (as opposed to the oligarchy we so transparently are), there are certain standards we have to meet. If the local ruling class refuses to grant us even that, then clearly outside intervention is needed.

No-one wants it, but we might just need it.

Let's hope not.

Our democratic deficit - yet another critical report

Uncomfortable times for Jersey's anti-democratic political establishment.

To the surprise of absolutely no-one, a report by international observers have found Jersey and our dodgy electoral system to be in breach of international democratic standards. In 18 pages of some of the frankest international criticism of the system yet, the report finds its' main issue in of our clapped-out, anti-democratic electoral system . Let's dig in!

 The report states that "The EOM finds that the method for seat distribution in the States Assembly is not consistent with the principle of the equality of the vote due to significant differences in vote weight from one parish to another for the election of Connétables". Gosh, you say, didn't the Clothier report make the exact same conclusion nearly two decades ago? Indeed it did! 18 years after the original report was written, its recommendations have been left summarily ignored. The Senators and Connétables remain in the States, the electoral system as a whole remains unreformed and undemocratic. The report doesn't hold back on this issue, at all - it accuses the continued presence of Connétables in the States of "challenging fundamental principles for democratic participation in a modern society, exacerbated by the fact that they frequently stand unopposed". Bang on. Look, I get why people are opposed to the Connétables leaving the States - it's seen as an erosion of the parish system, et cetera. Democracy is simply more important. I'm a localist - I love my parish and I'm proud to be St. Ouennais. Strengthening parish identity is crucial to building the libertarian socialism that I believe in, but that isn't done by packing our elected "Father of the Parish" off to St. Helier to play-act as a politician for three days a week. Connétables need to be brought out of the States to focus on doing their best for their own parishes, and leave the shenanigans of politics to the Deputies.

It's simply irrefutable at this point that Jersey can't continue to pretend to be a democracy while the Connétables remain States members. Most stand unopposed, facing no election whatsoever, representing populations ranging from a few thousand to forty thousand. The system is broken and reform would be so simple, if only the Assembly would get on with it.

So let's do that.

Let's get on with it.

The full report can be found here.

Democracy behind a paywall?

Don't you just love it when the wife of a former Chief Minister and oligarch tells you that what our electoral system REALLY needs is a paywall to keep out the plebs?

Apparently unaware of the complete lack of meaningful democracy in Jersey's system as it currently is, Fiona Walker, the wife of former Chief Minister Frank Walker (currently chairman of Andium Homes, courtesy of the old boys' club) has called for the introduction of a "deposit system" into Jersey's electoral system - to keep what she terms "no-hopers" and "time-wasters"off the ballot paper. 

The colonial subjects of the British Empire used to say that "when the gentlemen of England start losing the game, they change the rules". Even with Jersey's rotten-to-the-core electoral system, one which has been crying out for reform for years if not decades, the Island's elites refuse to loosen their grip on power - in the fine tradition of the 19th century reactionaries that resisted the tides of liberal capitalism (back when liberal capitalism was an emancipating movement), they instead propose the addition of further anti-democratic structures to strengthen the ruling elite and even further reduce the political power of those outside of the ruling clique - and it is those outside of that clique, people who desire a change to the system, who would be the victims of any paywall system. 

If Mrs Walker decided that she wished to stand for election, presumably, as the wife of an oligarch, she would have no trouble procuring the money to put down a deposit. You only need to look at recent elections to see this kind of thing in action - take Gino Risoli, a barely-literate, incoherent fruitcake who stood at the last two general elections. Regardless of how unlikely he would be to succeed (he came in bottom of the poll in St. Helier No.1 both times he stood), as a business owner he would have no trouble finding the cash for a deposit. Ditto figures like Maureen Morgan (of "black one-armed lesbians" fame; bottom of the poll with 6.8%, St. Helier No.1 by-election 2014)  or Chris Lamy (AKA la petit Farage, received 17% in the St. Ouen deputy election in 2014 to Richard Renouf's 83%) - these people clearly had no chance whatsoever of actually winning an election, but none of them would've had trouble finding money for a deposit. 

The people who would be really affected by the introduction of a deposit system wouldn't be nutters like Risoli, Morgan or Lamy, or indeed Mrs Walker - it would be ordinary people who want to change the way things are run, but don't have hundreds of pounds lying around for a deposit. It's perfectly clear to see that this, infact, is Walker's definition of a "no-hoper" - someone who disagrees with her and her husband. Money equals power equals more money; the Walkers know this simple equation very well, having exploited it for their own gain quite handily. The wealthy only have economic power because they have political power - to keep the means of production, the resources, the factories, the computer networks and whathaveyou under their control, they must control the political system, the police, the courts and suchlike. If the working class are without political power, they are unable to challenge the system that exploits them. 

It is worth remembering that the upper class - in Marxist terms, the bourgeoisie - are highly class conscious. They know that the system is rigged in their favour, and they work as a cohesive unit to maintain it. Walker's column should be seen for what it is - yet another attempt by a representative of the ruling class to divide everyone else - the proletariat - so that they might be lorded over more easily.