Natural Law Party

The Natural Law Party was a trans-national political party with national branches in over 80 countries. The party is the political arm of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's Transcendental Meditation movement.

The party bases its platform on the Transcendental Meditation view that natural law is the supreme organizing principle that governs the universe. All the problems of humanity are caused by people acting against the natural law. The Natural Law Party claims that it can realign humanity with this organizing priniciple through the practice of Transcendental Meditation, and all problems would disappear.

There is some controversy regarding the party's legitimacy, with some claiming that the real purpose of the "party" is to take advantage of Electoral laws in democracies where parties are entitled at election times to free delivery of leaflets, and party political broadcasts on TV and radio. This has long been a problem dating back to the 1960s when small businessmen would stand in elections simply to take advantage of the cheap advertising it afforded—and in more recent years in the UK the so-called "Value Party" candidates run in Scotland by the now defunct What Every Woman Wants clothes store chain. This has resulted in various changes to electoral rules in order to stop the abuse. Despite the controversy over its legitimacy, the Natural Law Party claims a worldwide following.

The UK Natural Law Party

Contrary to urban myth, the UK Natural Law Party was not founded by Beatle George Harrison (he merely did a fundraising concert for them), but by Dr. Geoffrey Clements, the party's first leader within the UK.

The party—always attracting a derisory number of votes (usually under 100, even at a Westminster election)—was met with great amusement by the general public in the UK for their Party Political Broadcasts and a frequent claim that a decrease in crime on Merseyside was due to an increased number of "Yogic Flyers" within the area.

Other parties, however, particularly the smaller parties, were less amused. Quite aside from the feeling that the NLP deliberately broke the "spirit" of electoral law (and thus threatened further changes in it that could prove detrimental to all minor parties), most resented the manner in which Natural Law Party candidates after the announcement of the result would attempt to circumvent the standard convention that candidates gave their vote-of-thanks speeches in order of total ballots cast for them (i.e. winner first, runner-up second, etc.) and promptly step to the microphone after those candidates from the parties with Westminster representation, whilst attempting to present the winning candidate with a cake (most wisely refusing this crude attempt at a photo opportunity). The reasoning behind such NLP candidates' behaviour was as their party spent the most money in campaigns outside of the mainstream parties, they had an automatic right to a higher place in the "pecking order"—the fact this spending translated into few votes did not seem to matter.

This level of loathing can be illustrated by two infamous incidents. At the announcement on live TV of the 1992 General Election result in Torbay, the National Front candidate Bob Jones (a veteran Birmingham candidate from the party's heyday in the 1970s) was clearly seen pointing and laughing at the Natural Law Party candidate on the opposite side of the platform when the NLP result was announced. At the May 1995 Perth & Kinross by-election, the supporters of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party, Scottish Green Party and UK Independence Party all mercilessly booed the announcement of the 88 votes received by Gary Halford.

In April of 2004, the Natural Law Parties of the United States and of the United Kingdom formally disbanded.

U.S. Natural Law Party

The U.S. Natural Law Party, led by Dr. John Hagelin, ran as a third party that was largely center-left in ideology. It took liberal positions on abortion and gay rights, promised that it had scientific solutions to combat social ills such as poverty, crime, racism, bigotry and came off as being politically moderate to conservative on economic issues.

In 2000 Hagelin made a bid to create an independent coalition between the Natural Law and Reform political parties, that failed when Patrick Buchanan took control of the Reform Party.

The Natural Law Party made some efforts between 2000–2004 to try to create an independent coalition of voters interested in election law reform. In 2002 the party endorsed Independence Party of Minnesota candidate for Minnesota Governor, Tim Penny. In 2004 the Natural Law Party endorsed Democratic Party presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich for President. Not long afterwards the Natural Law Party headquarters announced that it was shutting down and many state chapters followed suit. Hagelin went on to start the US Peace Government.

It is not clear why the Natural Law Party dissolved. It was seen as one of the more organized third political parties in America, along with the Constitution Party, Green Party and the Libertarian Party. In 1996, it ran more than 400 candidates in 48 states and was attracting support from Democrats, Republicans and independents.

The Idaho Natural Law Party remains active, and had three candidates on the ballot for state and federal office in 2006. The Idaho Natural Law Party has entered into a coalition with the new United Party, and thus remains the only Natural Law Party still active in the United States of America. However, on June 16th the Idaho Natural Law Party changed its name to the United Party, effectively ending the Natural Law Party's presence on American ballots.

External links

The UK Natural Law Party

U.S. Natural Law Party

See also

External links