Vision for a better politics
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The system of governance is a complete disgrace. It needs bold reform. The priorities for sorting inherited United Kingdom failings, looked at from a distance, ought to be:
1. Tackling the climate crisis.
2. Rejoining the Single Market and Customs Union, since Brexit continues to create damage.
3. Major political reform to prevent the policy errors of the past forty years ever occurring again.
4. Fixing today's problems, notably inequality, inadequate public services, and poor infrastructure. This will require proper taxation of the ultra-wealthy and putting an end to financial engineering.
Pretending these do not matter, and offering tweaks with no substance, is leading to a useless. The United Kingdom will continue to decline, perhaps not as fast as in the last few years, and a few problems may get fixed. Not good enough.
So let's consider democratic change. The elected government has absolute power. It can repeal any law and make any new law. The theory of the electoral mandate was destroyed by the Safety of Rwanda Act. It never appeared in the 2019 Conservative manifesto. Labour should have opposed it at second reading in the Lords. So why did they permit it to pass without a division?
The 2016 EU referendum created an ugly example. England can use its numerical superiority to impose its will on Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Lack of a written constitution means that any British government can make up the rules as it goes along. Nobody thought about needing half of electors to vote in favour or of requiring a majority of the affected nations to vote in favour (five including Gibraltar). Switzerland requires a majority of cantons to vote in favour and also a numerical majority of voters for a federal referendum to win. It’s past time to put the conceit of "we know best" to bed and learn something from other democracies.
Absolute power also led to the seven major policy failures over the past forty years, made by both Labour and Conservatives. In summary, they were: failure of some infrastructure privatisations, the Private Finance Initiative (still a cost until 30-year contracts all expire), favouring the oligarch class, political misrepresentations, austerity (mainly for the poor), the Brexit referendum, and taxation policy (failing to tax theoligarchs). These resulted in the conditions now to be resolved.
The UK desperately needs a written constitution to ensure these mistakes never happen again. How can the various needs of the four nations – with sovereignty redefined as the people of each nation – plus the overseas territories be accommodated? Answer: with a federal parliament for what must be tackled collectively, notably defence and foreign affairs, plus national legislatures for the four nations.
The aggressive nature of binary choices needs to change to more cooperation, with a touch of competition. Instead of spending billions rebuilding Westminster (where normal laws do not apply, because it’s a royal palace), let’s have a federal parliament outside London and four national parliaments, all using round or horseshoe-shaped chambers.
Further ideas include regional governments, integrating economic, education, transport, and work visa powers. Levelling up could be achieved by moving funds either direction between levels of government to aim at nearly equal living standards, instead of local councils competing in Whitehall for projects allocated to attract marginal votes.
Many have called for Lords reform but few realise that the Privy Council is the beating heart of the autocratic State. It makes legislation – Orders in Council – without democratic consent. Let’s replace them both by a People's Council, mainly elected but apolitical, with these powers:
1. Confirm whether state bodies are truly independent.
2. Enforce truthfulness and standards: all political and government communications should be clear, fair, and not misleading.
3. Receive requests for referendums and filter them, allowing the public to put issues on the agenda rather than long campaigns – women’s emancipation took 100 years. How long will it take to reverse the Brexit mess?
4. Listen to the people and thereby identify concerns before they turn into scandals, see Hillsborough as an example.
5. Grant the people’s assent to legislation, in place of the present joke of royal assent. Only national members would have a say in national, rather than federal, legislation..
6. Supervise a comprehensive Ombudsman service so that individual injustices can be put right promptly.
7. Supervise a facts hub, based on National Statistics, so that the people can find reliable data.
Such major reforms will take time, and need democratic discussion and consent. Instead of elected governments enjoying the divine right of kings to do as they like, an autocratic State can be brought under control and the UK acquire political governance fit for the twenty-first century. All this, including the first-ever written constitution of the United Kingdom, is in the book, only £15.99 from the distributor.
1. Tackling the climate crisis.
2. Rejoining the Single Market and Customs Union, since Brexit continues to create damage.
3. Major political reform to prevent the policy errors of the past forty years ever occurring again.
4. Fixing today's problems, notably inequality, inadequate public services, and poor infrastructure. This will require proper taxation of the ultra-wealthy and putting an end to financial engineering.
Pretending these do not matter, and offering tweaks with no substance, is leading to a useless. The United Kingdom will continue to decline, perhaps not as fast as in the last few years, and a few problems may get fixed. Not good enough.
So let's consider democratic change. The elected government has absolute power. It can repeal any law and make any new law. The theory of the electoral mandate was destroyed by the Safety of Rwanda Act. It never appeared in the 2019 Conservative manifesto. Labour should have opposed it at second reading in the Lords. So why did they permit it to pass without a division?
The 2016 EU referendum created an ugly example. England can use its numerical superiority to impose its will on Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Lack of a written constitution means that any British government can make up the rules as it goes along. Nobody thought about needing half of electors to vote in favour or of requiring a majority of the affected nations to vote in favour (five including Gibraltar). Switzerland requires a majority of cantons to vote in favour and also a numerical majority of voters for a federal referendum to win. It’s past time to put the conceit of "we know best" to bed and learn something from other democracies.
Absolute power also led to the seven major policy failures over the past forty years, made by both Labour and Conservatives. In summary, they were: failure of some infrastructure privatisations, the Private Finance Initiative (still a cost until 30-year contracts all expire), favouring the oligarch class, political misrepresentations, austerity (mainly for the poor), the Brexit referendum, and taxation policy (failing to tax theoligarchs). These resulted in the conditions now to be resolved.
The UK desperately needs a written constitution to ensure these mistakes never happen again. How can the various needs of the four nations – with sovereignty redefined as the people of each nation – plus the overseas territories be accommodated? Answer: with a federal parliament for what must be tackled collectively, notably defence and foreign affairs, plus national legislatures for the four nations.
The aggressive nature of binary choices needs to change to more cooperation, with a touch of competition. Instead of spending billions rebuilding Westminster (where normal laws do not apply, because it’s a royal palace), let’s have a federal parliament outside London and four national parliaments, all using round or horseshoe-shaped chambers.
Further ideas include regional governments, integrating economic, education, transport, and work visa powers. Levelling up could be achieved by moving funds either direction between levels of government to aim at nearly equal living standards, instead of local councils competing in Whitehall for projects allocated to attract marginal votes.
Many have called for Lords reform but few realise that the Privy Council is the beating heart of the autocratic State. It makes legislation – Orders in Council – without democratic consent. Let’s replace them both by a People's Council, mainly elected but apolitical, with these powers:
1. Confirm whether state bodies are truly independent.
2. Enforce truthfulness and standards: all political and government communications should be clear, fair, and not misleading.
3. Receive requests for referendums and filter them, allowing the public to put issues on the agenda rather than long campaigns – women’s emancipation took 100 years. How long will it take to reverse the Brexit mess?
4. Listen to the people and thereby identify concerns before they turn into scandals, see Hillsborough as an example.
5. Grant the people’s assent to legislation, in place of the present joke of royal assent. Only national members would have a say in national, rather than federal, legislation..
6. Supervise a comprehensive Ombudsman service so that individual injustices can be put right promptly.
7. Supervise a facts hub, based on National Statistics, so that the people can find reliable data.
Such major reforms will take time, and need democratic discussion and consent. Instead of elected governments enjoying the divine right of kings to do as they like, an autocratic State can be brought under control and the UK acquire political governance fit for the twenty-first century. All this, including the first-ever written constitution of the United Kingdom, is in the book, only £15.99 from the distributor.
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