Guest post by Lord David Owen
www.lorddavidowen.co.uk
www.lorddavidowen.co.uk
‘Can
the parties build enough trust to bind themselves in before the election to
work together after the election’?
‘Another
progressive alliance building block must be establishing a cross party
Constitutional Convention with the aim of bringing forward draft legislation
for a federal structure for the UK’.
There are other ways of
introducing democratic reform than rolling out referenda after referenda. The
present Conservative government have made it clear that there will be no
all-party Constitutional Convention before the 2020 election (1).
A cross party Constitutional
Convention crucially depends on the Labour Party working with the SNP to ensure it has
the widest possible support, authority and participation.
A first order question for
such a cross party Constitutional Convention is can they and should they break
the assumption hitherto that it will be followed by a referendum? A
demonstration of both the unpredictability and the capacity for the
manipulation of a referendum is the national Alternative Vote referendum
conceded by the Conservative Party in the negotiations with the Liberal
Democrats as the price for a coalition government in May 2010.
Every poll in the second
half of that year showed AV being won in a referendum. By February 2011
Ipsos/MORI had "Yes" on 49% and AV looked certain to be endorsed ten weeks later.
Cameron was forced to focus
on the issue by Osborne who is reported to have said,
"we have to win this .... thing; who
cares what Clegg thinks?" (2)
Cameron true to his reactive
"Flashman" character moved fast. Money was found to overpower the
"Yes" to Fairer Votes campaign. More people became aware that AV was
neither truly proportional nor fair 16 and can have bizarre results. Some saw
it as another manipulation agreed post-election inside the coalition by
Conservatives with no electoral mandate.
The "No" campaign
spent the last few weeks exposing the three 'Cs': cost, complexity and Clegg,
who was lampooned. Cameron now talked of AV being "bad for
democracy".
On 5 May the referendum
resulted in the "No" campaign achieving 67.9% support with 30.1%
voting "Yes" to AV. The turnout was a miserable 42.2%. It is hard to
see referendums after this AV debate as the only respectable, let alone only
legitimate, way for a democracy to change the constitution and/or voting system.
Certainly the manifesto
mandate route will and should be tried at some point in the future on voting
reform, deliberately excluding referenda. House of Lords reform is also, after
even modest reforms, is being sabotaged and the place even more dominated by
patronage, a subject better dealt with through a manifesto mandate and stem
from a Convention based on a federal UK.
This raises the question of
the design of a people-led broad-based Constitutional Convention that should be
established by opposition parties in 2016. It needs extensive public
consultation and academic input but it will fail in Parliament unless there is
cross-party involvement from people close to the party leaders that can help
ensure its recommendations are carried through into party manifestoes by the
2020 General Election. This was what happened over the creation of the Scottish
Assembly and the practical steps on devolved government where Donald Dewar
played such an important role.
What the coalition
government of 2010-15 demonstrated is that the post-election horse trading to
form a coalition government, with no prior manifesto authority, is not a
sufficient let alone a satisfactory basis for ensuring legislation. Yet the
introduction of Fixed Term parliaments having survived one General Election has
demonstrated some staying power for a post-election "fix". If it
survives post 2020 it may become permanent.in which case it is likely to be a
key precondition in place for proportional representation, itself the glue for
a Constitutional Convention.
The ‘West Lothian question’
will need to be addressed but that will never have a simple answer. The McKay
Commission chaired by the Clerk to the House of Commons from 1998 until 2002 (3) made a good start with
the delicacy of watchmakers, and crafted with the skill of seasoned and acute
observers of Parliament. Sadly the House of Commons has not been able to reach
agreement.
The other important aspect
to the Scottish referendum has been how it has inspired a sensible concept if
not schemes in England to devolve more decisions to the bigger cities: London,
Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool and Newcastle, to Cornwall and
elsewhere. In part this follows the success story of the gradual introduction
of powerful elected mayors.
The time has surely now come
for a small elected four-national second chamber, revising laws across the UK.
If some appointed members were to be retained they could vote on
non-legislative matters, while speaking on any subject, but only elected
members would vote on the floor of the chamber. This proposition was a
compromise discussed in 1911, the last time the Lords was seriously reformed.
The present Lords is exploding under the load of its own contradictions. Broad
reform across the UK through a Convention offers a path to enlightened
federalism.
I will highlight only one
possible model for a second chamber and that is the US Senate where the elected
Senators are a reflection but not an exact copy of the population of the USA.
Every State with its own legislature sends two Senators to Washington
irrespective of the size of its population. What if the House of Commons
continued to follow the UK population like the House of Representatives but the
reformed second chamber of the UK followed more closely US Senate representation.
Such a second chamber even
though elected would have mainly the existing powers of delaying as well as
revising legislation, but in addition it could be empowered to block and to
instigate constitutional change in the UK.
Its membership, by not exactly following the populations of England,
Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, could more easily establish, as in the US
Senate, a significant vote percentage where representatives in such a UK
federal chamber could have a legitimate blocking vote on constitutional matters
that could not be overridden by English votes within the second chamber.
This
is a delicate mechanism to devise but if the right balance is achieved it could
be a powerful unifier for the UK and seen as such by fair-minded people.
It is an important sign that
Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the UK Labour Party, elected by close to 60% of
paid-up members without counting supporter votes, aims to give priority to a
constitutional convention. The Labour Party historian, Greg Rosen,
interestingly uses the term 'progressive alliance ' in relation to the
breakthrough period in the party's history 1901-1906 under Keir Hardie.
Hardie was always an
uncertain supporter of 'a progressive alliance' but he went along with
MacDonald's covert negotiations on a secret electoral pact with Liberal Chief
Whip Herbert Gladstone in 1903. As a result Labour secured a clear run from the
Liberals in 30 seats at the forthcoming election (4).
Here there is a choice. Can the parties build
enough trust to bind themselves in before the election to work together after
the election?
The first issue that looks as if it might face any progressive
alliance, in terms of today’s parliamentary timetable, and could perhaps be the
first building block of any progressive alliance for the next election, would
be the NHS Bill (5) designed
here in Queen Mary’s by Allyson Pollock’s team.
This is UK-wide in its
significance but focused on England and will challenge the slogan English votes
for English legislation. The Bill is before the House of Commons in the name of
the Green Party MP, Caroline Lucas. Before the General Election as well as
after the Election its cross party sponsors were Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell
and all SNP MPs, including their present health spokesperson in the Commons.
That Bill (6) is due
for its Second Reading on 11 March 2016. Whether it progresses could be the
litmus test as to whether a progressive alliance is possible.
The Liberal Democrats face
an early choice of whether, under their new leader, Tim Farron, they are ready
to divorce themselves from their earlier support for the Health and Social Care
Act 2012. No 'progressive alliance' worth the name will survive with one party
keeping the option open on doing a deal with the Conservatives again in 2020
and supporting the marketization of the NHS.
Another progressive alliance
building block must be establishing a cross party Constitutional Convention
with the aim of bringing forward draft legislation for a federal structure for
the UK. That could be accompanied by a commitment to legislate any agreed
recommendation early after a successful General Election and as they would be
entitled to do to act without a referendum.
Any Convention seriously
addressing the UK which has to include individuals close to the separatist SNP
would be making a massive mistake to exclude Sinn Fein which has cooperated
with power sharing. It would have Liberal Democrats but would not have the
Conservative Party and sadly possibly not the DUP. But by choosing people as
individuals it can be easier to forge a consensus in the UK as a whole.
Nicola Sturgeon said in 2012
that Scotland had to focus on – and here I quote - “the most effective
political and economic unit to achieve the economic growth and the social
justice that the Scottish people want. It is, in many ways, our version of the
same question being asked across all mature western democracies: how to build a
thriving but sustainable economy that benefits the many, not the few. The
Westminster system of government has had its chance – and failed. Today,
independence is the pragmatic way forward."
On this basis she can, I imagine, conceive at
least of a progressive alliance, a Convention establishing a better pragmatic
way forward than Scottish separation from the UK. Already many of the gas and
oil revenue assumptions on which the SNP campaigned in 2014 have been shown to
be invalid. There are many critical constitutional questions and techniques for
cooperation to study and fulfil. To start to establish a Convention
infrastructure, appoint research workers, and agree on an independent Chair of
the proceedings might be possible early in 2016 but start after the May
elections.
Then its recommendations
could be submitted before the end of 2018 or 20 early in 2019 allowing the
political parties, who would be well represented in all its decision making, to
have time to absorb it decisions at their conferences and agree recommendations
well before the General Election. This would give time for party politicians to
compete for votes while at the same time presenting themselves as ready to
fight for constitutional change as a cross-party manifesto commitment not
subject to a referendum.
Sometimes people talk of
constitutional reform as an academic subject something to be done only by all
party reform. That is rubbish and we should remember, for instance, how, on the
24 July 1911 during the Parliament Bill, the Conservatives howled down Asquith
as Prime Minister for 30 minutes in partisan rage while he remained on his feet
unable to speak until Foreign Secretary Grey intervened (7).
My great grandfather,
Alderman William Llewellyn, Liberal leader of Glamorgan County Council was also
Chairman of his Liberal and Labour Association. They made 'seat deals' for the
1906 Liberal victory and I have no hesitation in saying that Labour will have
to become more open-minded on individual seat deals with any parties who wish
within a truly progressive alliance if they are to stand a chance of becoming
the government in 2020.
Pacts or deals do not
involve merging of parties or the loss of their identity, but they can be the
means to legislate for a constitutional accord. Such an accord might be one
where the parties that want to separate agree to stay in the UK, to participate
in a federal union and have proportional representation across the UK. To help
achieve all that it is surely worth persuading some constituencies to stand
down, particularly where two seats are contiguous and they can have a better
chance of victory in the other.
This is radical politics
such as we have not seen for many years, but it is cross party, not one party; inclusive,
not exclusive. This is not hard left, nor Trotskyist but socially responsible
and capable of uniting the UK.
1. House of Lords Hansard, 2 July 2015. Column 2167 (Lord
Dunlop)
2. Anthony Seldon & Peter Snowden, Cameron at 10. The
Inside Story 2010-2015 (William Collins, 2015), p. 118.
3. Report of the
Commission on the Consequences of Devolution for the House of Commons, March
2013.
4. Greg Rosen, Old
Labour to New Labour (Politico's, 2005) p. 32.
5. David Owen, The
Health of the Nation. NHS in Peril (Methuen, 2014).
7. David Owen, The
Hidden Perspective. The Military Conversations 1906-1914 (Haus, 2014) p. 131.