Tuesday 27 October 2015

Are our leaders listening?

Is the Establishment that Stubborn?

Last night the Unelected House of Lords, the second largest unelected legislative chamber in the world – second only to China’s!  Stopped in its tracks the unrepresentative Government of the UK.

I will leave on one side the controversial, shameful and punitive cuts to the Tax Credit system that will wreak havoc to the lives of an estimated 3 million people. Rather I wish to concentrate on what now for our so called ‘Democracy’.

After the defeat last night the Prime Minister and Chancellor railed against the Lords,  that ‘constitutional conventions’ have been broken and that what happened has only occurred some half a dozen times since the 1700’s!. So what? Times change, politics move on and most certainly the governance of the UK has done so over the last 30 years.

There really is little point in bleating about ‘conventions’ and that the Constitution has been brought to a ‘point of crises.  As with the so many other aspects of our domestic politics and governance this was another chaotic situation that was just waiting to happen.

In six posts on this blog I have sought to highlight all this over 4 months:

June 27  Reflections on a Chaotic and Fragmented Union
Aug. 4     Reforming Britain’s Archaic System
Aug 20    Governance and the Voting System
Aug 17    English Votes for English Laws
Aug 29    We live in troubled and turbulent times
Sep 15    The Year the Political/Governing Establishments finally cracked

I cannot recall in my adult life a time like the present where governance arrangements at Westminster and the nations of the United Kingdom are being confronted with such a wide range of seemingly insurmountable problems. This applies to domestic and international politics, finance and economics, collapse of social cohesion, escalating humanitarian and refugee crisis, the global environment or matters of peace and security. There is an over-riding feeling that the political institutions whether at home, Europe or on the world stage are unwilling or unable to secure any semblance of control.

By now I frequently doubt the common will or indeed the competence of existing domestic institutions to resolve matters.

I have no doubt that the political parties and their leaders will descend into a plethora of argument and counter argument relating to the tax credit fiasco and whether the House of Lords acted unconstitutionally. Everyone will defend their viewpoint and there is high danger that the central issues will not be addressed.

I will not make this a lengthy post.

The conclusion is clear, as is the way ahead.

Our Constitution is unwritten – hence we descend to chaos from time to time. Almost every other domestic state in the world possesses a basic statute delineating the form’s and powers of the state’s institutions. It will also need to incorporate the reality of Britain’s situation in the modern world and end the old shibboleth of the ‘sovereignty of Parliament’.

Britain is not a representative Democracy. It is in need of modernising and reforming.

Our voting system is busted. The First Past the Post System that worked well when Labour and the Tories dominated from the 1930’s has not worked properly and democratically since the 1980’s. The system cannot cope with a political landscape which is one of multi-parties and consequently millions of people are not represented in Parliament.  The concept of a ‘mandate to govern’ in the democratic sense no longer applies.

Not only is the House of Commons unrepresentative of the way people voted we have in the 21st Century! an Un-elected House of Lords.

The governance of the UK Union is nothing short of chaotic and as a consequence the Union itself is fragmented and is in danger of falling apart.

In the middle of this unplanned and fragmented Union lies the problem of England and how to devolve power within it. It is a highly centralised nation and what has happened over two decades has been the introduction of a series of un-coordinated initiatives that only serve to add to the fragmentation.

There is only one solution.

The Prime Minister need for once to behave like a Statesman and establish a Constitutional Convention that will report on – a written Constitution for the UK, reform to the voting system, a coherent system for the Governance of the UK and the establishment of an elected Second Chamber.

Britain’s constitutional immobilisation has numerous sources, not least the country’s political culture and the continuity of its institutions. Of equal significance, however, has been the narrow self-interest of the political parties, especially Labour and the Conservatives. It is time for that to change now.

Appeals to the British way of doing things which is a tradition of ‘evolutionary change’ will not work for much longer.  

This Constitutional Convention need only deliberate for 18-24 months. Everything that needs to be considered has been researched, reported on, discussed and reviewed endlessly since the Crowther/Kilbrandon Commission on the Constitution in the early 1970’s. There’s a whole House of Commons library full of documentation.

What is needed is for the political leaders to engage and display the goodwill and vision necessary to create a modern, democratic United Kingdom fit for purpose to meet the demands of the 21st Century.