Today, Parliament officially marks the 750th anniversary of The Simon de Montfort Parliament which reasserted the values of Magna Carta issued 50 years earlier. We have no neatly filed Hansard recording of the issues debated in that first parliament, but what we do have recorded in history, is a story of betrayal and the loss of trust, and of the struggle for equal rights and justice.
But the struggle isn’t over. We must look back and assess how far we have come and commit ourselves to the distance we still have to go. Apparently the late Tony Benn said that there were 5 principles of democracy – ‘when you meet a powerful person ask 5 questions:- What power do you have? Where did you get it? In whose interest do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? How can we get rid of you? He went on to say that anyone who cannot answer the last of those questions doesn’t live in a democratic system. These 5 simple questions are a great way to engage people in a discussion about democracy.
In recent years it has become fair game to ridicule our parliamentarians and our parliamentary process. That doesn’t encourage constructive engagement . It doesn’t help us ask questions such as why women and certain social classes were missing from the first Magna Carta, and why they are still missing in significant numbers from the heart of the political decision making process.
The Church was present at the first meeting of Parliament in the Chapter House of Westminster Abbey. It’s still present in my role as Chaplain, and in the role of Bishops in the House of Lords, controversial though that may be. Of course it hasn’t always lived up to it, but the Church’s calling is to speak with a prophetic voice on behalf of those who have been edited out of the frame.
The extra-ordinary events that brought over 2 million people out on the streets in Europe and here in Britain recently, is a reminder that we oughtn’t to take the gains of the past for granted, or consider the work of building our democracy finished. We must still have the opportunity to mould Parliament, drawing from our past those elements which are foundational, including our Christian heritage, and setting new and attainable goals for the future.
I believe our parliamentary democracy is still evolving. The important thing for us to contemplate at this junction, is that, this is not just about celebrating history, this is our story, this is part of a continuing story.