MEMBERS AND SUPPORTERS of the National Liberal Party – NLP – will know that we intend to promote the idea of Self-Determination For All! by standing for election in the Greater London Assembly elections.  These are due to be held in May 2020.

We have already posted up some preliminary information about our campaign here: http://nationalliberal.org/self-determination-for-all-3 We will also be producing regular updates as our campaign progresses.

In the meantime, however, we thought that it would be appropriate to provide some general background material relating to self-determination and explain why we feel that it’s such an important concept.  Indeed, it’s probably fair to say the raison d’êtrea of National Liberalism is the concept of self-determination.

The NLP produced a general statement relating to the concept of self-determination some time ago.  Whilst regular readers may be familiar with it, we’ve decided to serialise it over the next few weeks, so that others can both read and digest it at their leisure.  This first section relates to National Self-Determination.

As debate is free with the NLP, we’d appreciate any comments, suggestions, queries or constructive criticism relating to our statement.  Please post them (in the comments section) on either the National Liberal Party Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/NationalLiberalParty/ or the National Liberals Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/groups/52739504313/ when you see this article posted up.

Here’s our general statement relation to self-determination – don’t forget you give us your thoughts:

SELF-DETERMINATION FOR ALL!

THE DISCONNECT between professional politicians and the people has never been greater. The decisions taken by the former are more often viewed as self-serving in the eyes of the latter.

Professional politicians, often labelled as so-called ‘elites’, are largely divorced from the everyday experiences of the great mass of people. Thus, we should not be surprised that they are often seen to take political positions and decisions at odds with most people.

The answer to this gulf between the present day ‘rulers’ and ‘ruled’ is found in the principle of Self-Determination; i.e. Putting decision making into the hands of the individual rather than ‘others’.

PRINCIPLE OF SELF-DETERMINATION

This principle can be applied largely in three areas; National, Political and Economic.

• National Self-Determination seeks to ensure decisions affecting the collective future of a nation are taken by ALL the people via referendum. This may be ‘External’, for example: the creation or maintenance of a nation state, or ‘Internal’ – framing/updating a constitution to reflect how a people should rule themselves. (We favour independent nations and liberal, democratic, states).

To be continued.