open Democracy News Analysis - Why Tories should back a written constitution, OurKingdom - Comments

padav on "Why Tories should back a written constitution"

padav — Mon, 12 May 2008 13:30:46 +0100

Scott

What might also prove a novel, but nevertheless popular idea, would be to allow the British people to engage in this process in a meaningful fashion - i.e. nothing pre-determined from the outset and no taboo topics not on the agenda for discussion/change.

Rather than simply hold (closed to direct public input/influence) cross-party discussions within the relatively cloistered environs of Parliament, why not allow a Citizens Convention drawn at random from all sections of society, aided and abetted by wise counsel from various interested bodies, to inject both legitimacy and originality into the proceedings - their deliberations might also succeed in connecting the wider public with the outcome in a manner unheard of in recent times.

Anthony is correct in stating that there is no route back to the status quo; with the devolution genie was out of the bottle, that idea became a non-starter.

You never know, we might even witness the bizarre circumstance of a Conservative leader extolling the virtues of federalism as a framework for constructing an equitable UK constitutional settlement, whilst simultaneously berating the European Union as a nascent federalist super-state?

Peter Davidson, Alderley Edge, NW.England

Anthony Barnett on "Why Tories should back a written constitution"

Anthony Barnett — Mon, 12 May 2008 09:17:18 +0100

This is a very important argument coming from the party that has historically provided the base line of power over the British state and is now likely to form the next government. But it does not go far enough. The old constitution was never simply built on THE sovereignty of parliament in an institutional or technical way as academic experts often imply. This, of course, is now dead though not alas buried, not just by judges and the EU but also thanks to the parliaments in Scotland and Wales that has seen authority distributed not just to other sections of the elite but to the people of the small nations.

The 'sovereignty of parliament' included the Lords and the monarch in parliament' as well as the Commons and together they formed a way of rule that was not dictatorial even if it was imperial. It relied upon a strong informal code of behaviour and propriety. It had checks and balances, of a consciously constitutional kind, based on convention. These were if anything broken by Thatcherism before being cynically swept away by Blair.

Two things follow from this story. The first is that it should be a conservative approach to treat British government holistically. But no restoration of the old constitution is possible by writing it down - that is to say by formalising what was essentially informal. There is no way back to the past.

Why Tories should back a written constitution, OurKingdom

Guy Aitchison — Sun, 11 May 2008 11:24:47 +0100

Scott Kelly, a researcher for the Conservatives, explains why the party should back a written constitution.

Scott Kelly (Parliament): I recently joined my students from New York University at a lecture by Professor Vernon Bogdanor on the subject of the British and American Constitutions. The leaflet advertising the event stated that “many in Britain are calling for a Constitution”. The author of this leaflet may be surprised to learn that we already have one. What we lack is a written, or more correctly, codified constitution – most of our constitution is already written in one form or another although it has never been codified in a single document.

Although the leaflet may contain factual errors, it is true that the issue of a written constitution has moved up the political agenda. The terrorist attacks of last summer obscured the fact that constitutional reform was central to Gordon Brown’s “big idea”. The Green Paper issued during the first week of his premiership stated that "there is now a growing recognition of the need to clarify not just what it means to be British, but what it means to be the United Kingdom. This may lead to a concordat between the executive and Parliament or a written constitution." Read the rest of this post...