Britain has taken another small step towards democracy, expelling the last hereditary legislators from its House of Lords legislative chamber.
The remaining legislators in that chamber, including bishops, will continue to hold their seats for life, with no accountability to the people of this country.
And, in a compromise agreed to get the bill through the House of Lords, some of the hereditary legislators will keep their seats by becoming “life peers”, which means they to can continue as legislators accountable to no one, until they die.
In the words of the electoral Reform Society “This looks farcical. The principle that inherited seats should have no place in our democracy is made a mockery of if the very same people are given a lifetime appointment by a different means”.
Britain clings to privilege while claiming to be a model of democracy. As far back as 1646 republican Richard Overton in the Remonstrance of Many Thousand Citizens denounced the so-called Lords and denied the legitimacy of their part in government.
Three hundred seventy years later we still allow the scoundrels to steal democracy from us.