Guy Aitchison (London, OK): An assorted group of academics, politicians and journalists gathered on a damp but pleasant evening yesterday in Gordon Square Gardens for the Constitution Unit summer party. As well as a chance to get off work early and enjoy free wine, it was an opportunity for them to discuss, speculate and exchange rumours surrounding Brown's favourite catchphrase at the moment, a "new constitutional settlement". It is with the hope of influencing and shaping this debate that Robert Hazell and the Unit's researchers have released "Towards a New Constitutional Settlement: An Agenda for Gordon Brown's First 100 Days and Beyond" (opens in pdf). It takes the form of a 39 page briefing for Brown, laying out the various options available for delivering constitutional reform and the obstacles that will have to be overcome. Brown, they argue, will have to be clear what he means when he talks of a new settlement, make explicit the principles that will guide it and engage with the public as a way of promoting understanding and ownership of what are potentially radical reforms. For those who want a quick overview, the Agenda concludes with a table suggesting reforms that can be made in the First 100 Days, Next Two Years and the Next Parliament. It is an important and potentially influential (a few Brown advisors there) contribution to the debate.
Constitution Unit briefs Brown
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Comments
Having read Robert Hazell's excellent book on the English question, it was a disappointment that the 100-day agenda included only a small section on England and the most radical proposals were a revival of the Regional Affairs Committee and changing the Barnett Formula. He then follows Polly Toynbee in suggesting electoral reform would mitigate the English Question, but this would still leave the core of the problem – the mandate of non-English MPs to legislate for England - intact. As the status of England is one of the main constitutional issues Mr Brown must address surely it deserved a more prominent position in the briefing?
Mr Brown himself hinted on Friday's Newsnight that the status of England may be included in his Constitutional Review. He said the England's voice must be heard within the UK and that the state should be sensitive to the needs of the 85% of UK citizens resident in England. One must doubt, however, whether having assumed the Premiership he has so desperately coveted, Mr Brown will be willing to give up the majority of his powers and provide England with similar institutions to the other "partners in the Union". This may well be the acid test of whether Brown is any improvement on Blair when it comes to constitutional reform.
[...] Hat-tip Guy Aitchison [...]
The West Lothian Question (and the fact that Scots have no electoral mandate to vote on English matters) is a problem alright.
But the core of the problem is sovereignty. Scotland has it, England does not. A union of nations where one nation is a nation in a legal constitutional sense and the other is the last vassal nation of the British empire can never acheive any sort of harmony.
Britologists have to recognise that England does not = Great Britain. They have to do that for the sake of England as a nation and also if they want the Scots and Welsh and English to buy into the concept of Britain.
If it comes down to a fight for survival between England and Britain then the older of the two states will win hands down. There's no excuse for scrificing England at the alter of unionism; it is a self-defeating policy.
It's absolutely inexcusable that England has not been asked.
As Canon Kenyon Wright said:
it’s quite irrational for those who signed that Claim in Scotland, from different political parties, now to deny that same sovereign right to the people of England. It’s irrational. And therefore, could the Claim of Right for Scotland be followed by a Claim of Right for England?
I agree with Gareth, the issue sovereignty is even more central than the WLQ. I believe the way in which sovereign power operates in Britain at the moment (from the Crown in Parliament downwards) has resulted in the current crisis.
Power devolved is meant only to be power exercised by others on behalf on higher authority (God>Monarch>Prime Minister> UK Parliament>Scottish Parliament>Scottish Executive). But Scotland enjoys devolution underpinned by the popular sovereignty asserted in their Declaration of Right and confirmed in a referendum, and this assertion has upset the normal flow of power in the system. England finds itself in a difficult position largely because of our collective failure to address the issue of the location and direction of sovereignty before embarking on far-ranging constitutional experiments. If Britain were to become a loose federal republic founded on popular sovereignty and encompassing four strong national republics, the current problems of representation, power and sovereignty would be largely neutralised.
That's absolutely right. I heard Canon Wright make the exactly that point at a Power Inquiry evidence gathering session in Glasgow in November 2005. Unfortunately, it was largley ignored by Helena Kennedy and Ferdinand Mount just as it has been by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. The Power Inquiry report used 'Britain' and 'Britishness' in much the same way as any Smith Institute publication.
Then again, those politicians who do raise the English issue seem to do so without much conviction or understanding. Teresa May's suggestion on Newsnight that the Tories would still support 'English votes on English laws' in the UK Parliament is worrying. It shows that they've not learned the lessons of Lord Baker's failed Bill on the issue last year. It's as unworkable as regional assemblies as a solution to the WLQ and doesn't address the sovereignty issue one jot, other than to confuse and complicate our already impenetrable constitution. We shouldn't expect systemic and strategic thinking from Mr Cameron – that’s not really his party’s forte, but it will be interesting to see whether tomorrow's Cabinet meeting will produce any movement on the rights of citizenship in England. I doubt it very much!
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