Anthony Barnett (London, OK): It seems that the BBC has an advance copy of the speech Jack Straw is due to make at George Washington University. He will say:
Most people [in the UK] might struggle to put their finger on where their rights are. The next stage is to look at whether we need to articulate those rights which are scattered across a whole host of places. We can learn from the American example, particularly from the concept of civic duty. We want to elevate them in a new status in a constitutional document. It is much easier to perform your civic duty when you have a clear sense of what is expected of you
I missed his Today programme interview this morning. Probably a good thing as breakfast is one of the most important meals of the day. Absurd as it may seem, Jack does not support the idea of a new constitution being more powerful than parliament, nor does he support the creation of a supreme court that sits above parliament - the sovereignty of parliament is not to be challenged. Instead, it would, as I guessed in my short post below, codify existing constitutional arrangements... Of course it will also set out the "rights and responsibilities" that citizens have. Straw promised yet another Green paper on the topic and said it will take 10 or 20 years - and it would be for "another generation" - to get it all into written shape.
What a load of cobblers! The whole point of a democratic, written constitution is that it creates a constitutional democracy that belongs to the people. This cannot but replace parliamentary sovereignty. If you want to write down the latter all that is needed is one sentence: "The Crown in Parliament can do whatever it wants".
Jack's jealous talk about gaining an American sense of civic duty is revealing. What the government desires is to achieve the symptoms and benefits of a healthy democracy without having to undergo the surgery that is now essential.
While I think I agree with David Beetham that the term 'rights-based democracy' is the best description of what we want in the UK, David Marquand is spot on when he argues that the key issue politics has to address in the UK is sovereignty ("The biggest hole in the Green paper has to do with the ultimate political questions of where sovereignty lies and ought to lie"). The issue of sovereignty has three legs: replacing parliamentary sovereignty as we know it; facing up to national sovereignty Scottish, Welsh and especially English; resolving how we relate to European sovereignty.
These are great issues. Straw's approach threatens to become evasion of them and to entice progressives into a decades long fiddling whose aim is the preservation of the status quo.
Over at Unlock Democracy, in the spirit of Charter 88 which it has folded into its campaign, its Director Peter Facey says,
"We welcome this positive step, although we question the idea that it will take around 20 years to develop a written constitution Such a long process would almost certainly shudder to a halt before it was completed. No other country has taken so long to develop a constitution: what’s so different about the UK?
"Either way, it is important that the process is taken out of Whitehall and Westminster and that the public are given a central role in the process. Any constitution should reflect the public’s priorities, not the vested interests of politicians and civil servants. There is a growing range of international examples about how to do this, ranging from Canada to South Africa to Northern Ireland.
"The government could commit to such a process tomorrow by adopting the Citizen’s Convention Bill, which more than 100 MPs have leant their support for. This would commit the government to establishing an independent Citizen’s Convention and working with it to implement its recommendations."
Comments
Sorry this should go here really.
Simply writing down the mess that already exists would be a lost opportunity.
For a different take on this subject and for a response to the JUSTICE report on a British Bill of Rights follow this link: http://cornishstannaryparliament.co.uk//resources//article.php?story=2008020519573245
I also heard this piece on Radio 4 this morning. He was using guarded and equivocal terminology.
This process might take a long time. This process might end up with a bona fide written constitution or it might not.
On a positive note at least we seem to be moving on the right path but I remain deeply sceptical about the identity and motives of those controlling the pace and direction of this entire process.
A written British constitution provides a vehicle for lasting solutions to many of the ills currently bedevilling the UK’s democratic and political landscape. Used constructively it could form the basis of a meaninfgul engagement with the entire British public about how we (those residing in the UK) wish to be governed and the true nature of our rights and responsibilities as individual citizens.
Formally defining the nature of the relationship between citizen and state and limits of each party in that contract can only have a profoundly positive impact upon our governance.
This story is set to run and run……….
I heard Jack the Lad on Today this morning. I'm prepared to give him perhaps one cheer out of a possible three but having observed him closely at Westminster and interviewed him a few years ago when he was Home Secretary, I don't really trust him on constitutional matters. He does however probably have a better grasp of what's at stake than most people in the Labour leadership, having been around during the debates of the 1990s.
I'm not particularly perturbed by the mention of 10 or 20 years, as I have never bought into the 'Big Bang' theory of constitutional change. And I think the fact that he accepts the idea of a written constitution is a step forward.
What I have never liked about Straw's approach to rights is the unspoken assumption that they are conditional on good behaviour. He seems to believe the government's rights over the individual are paramount and the individual's rights can be withdrawn at any time for being irresponsible.
The more serious problem is the way he assumes a written constitution should merely codify what's there at the moment including that absurd hoary old myth about the sovereignty of parliament, FPTP etc etc. I'm looking forward to reading the fine print of what Slippery Jack had to say.
No new written constitution can be entrenched or dislodge Magna Carta and the Declaration and Bill of Rights 1688/1689. The Government's own Research Paper (96/82 dated 18th July 1996-available direct from parliament, page 36) makes that clear. A snippet here for you
"Again, the theory of sovereignty means that no Parliament can bind its successors, and this inability of Parliament to prevent any law from being later altered or repealed by a Parliament means that, in principle, no scheme of constitutional change-Bill of Rights, devolution, even, perhaps,a written constitution itself* - can be entrenched - made secure against any or easy amendment or repeal-in the legal order. The recent schemes by proponents of Scottish devolution and some form of a Bill of Rights demonstrate how difficult (perhaps impossible) it is to reconcile formal, legal entrenchment (as opposed to 'political-moral' entrenchment) with conventional sovereignty".
Talk of a written Constitution and a Bill of Rights is a lot of nonsense because, If the Lisbon treaty is ratified, Britain will have a 'written constitution' that will take precedence over anything the UK can produce. and it will have the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and the Convention on Human Rights, so, how many more rights do the people want. Perhaps just to be noticed and given a say on the Lisbon Treaty would be a start!
* or any statutory 'constitutional' guarantee, such as those for Northern Ireland.
Post new comment