The Cynic’s Guide To Devolution

Here’s how I see the asymmetric devolution settlement brought in by New Labour in 1998. This may not be terribly original; but it could serve as a useful guide to the cynical politics that has brought us to our present pass.

Scotland-side, there’s the view that devolution, rather than being merely a nationalistic movement for greater political autonomy, if not full independence, was a reaction to the experience of the Thatcher years, when an essentially English-elected Tory government rode rough-shod over the social consensus in Scottish politics, and isolated Scotland economically and politically from the rest of the UK and, indeed, the EU.

All of which may well be true. From the party-political perspective, however, the manner in which New Labour implemented devolution was a self-serving dirty trick. By separating off the governance of Scotland and Wales with respect to traditional public-sector areas such as education, health, social care and transport, Labour thought it could pretty well guarantee that it would remain in power in Scotland and Wales in perpetuity. No more unpopular English Conservative government driving through Tory social policies against the will of the Scottish and Welsh people meant permanent Labour power, or so the thinking went. The Barnett Formula – the fiscal mechanism that ensures that per-capita public expenditure is significantly higher in Scotland and Wales than in England – was the means by which Labour could ensure that its puppet regimes in Holyrood and Cardiff Bay would always have a margin of latitude to pursue more traditional, Old Labour, public expenditure-dependent social policies regardless of the political hue of the Westminster government.

I say that this is regardless of the party in power in Westminster because, at the same time as seeking to perpetuate its grip on power in the Celtic nations through devolution, New Labour was intent on consolidating its ultimate power base – England – by pursuing neo-Thatcherite market reforms of the economy and the public sector, which it believed to be necessary to ensure it continued to enjoy the support of the more Conservative-inclined English electorate. Indeed, it had been vital that a sufficiently large minority of the English electorate should swing from the Tories to New Labour in order for it to secure its landslide election victory of 1997; and a failure to hold on to that support could leave the party vulnerable to being swept away by a large minority vote in favour of the Tories in subsequent elections.

But just to make sure that the government’s real, English power base was doubly protected, New Labour fixed the devolution settlement in such a way that MPs elected from Scottish and Welsh constituencies could still vote on matters which, for their constituencies, had been devolved from Westminster. These were now, therefore, by definition England-only issues. This meant that the government’s majority in England – or, in theoretical future parliaments where Labour did not secure a majority among English MPs, its plurality – could be bolstered by Labour’s Scottish and Welsh MPs. This was effectively a form of gerrymandering: MPs elected in Scotland and Wales, who were not therefore accountable to English voters, could vote on matters affecting England only, thereby unfairly increasing the likelihood that Labour would secure a parliamentary majority over English matters, even if this was not based on a majority of English MPs.

Ironically, the assistance of the Scottish and Welsh Labour MPs to prop up the government’s majority was called upon on only two occasions, when – had the decision been left to English-elected MPs only – the government’s market-orientated reforms for England would have been defeated: the votes on Foundation Hospitals and university tuition fees. It’s this sort of injustice that has infuriated so many English observers: Scottish and Welsh MPs, electoral support for whom was reliant on Labour regimes in their countries pursuing Old Labour policies, helping to foist New Labour policies on England against the wishes of English-elected MPs, including their own Labour colleagues.

The fact that the Labour-controlled or Labour-coalition administrations elected during the first two terms of the Scottish and Welsh Assembly Governments were somewhat slow in rolling out Old Labour-style, social-democratic policies could be attributed to two factors, among others:

1. The devolved administrations were in fact still subject to the centralised politburo-style control of the national (British) Labour Party, which was determined that Labour should not be seen to be reverting to its old habits of high public expenditure and ideological commitment to the public sector. This was especially the case during New Labour’s first term in office, when it had committed itself to adhering to the Tories’ previously announced spending plans
2. It is paradoxically in Labour’s interest, or perceived interest, that the areas that are its traditional power bases should remain relatively deprived, socially and economically. The poor vote Labour. So long as decisions affecting Labour’s core supporters in Scotland and Wales were taken by a geographically remote, predominantly English political elite, Labour could portray itself as the defender of the Scottish and Welsh working classes, battling against the odds – and against the English – to get a better deal for them. But if you get self-confident, politically autonomous governments in Scotland and Wales committed to really tackling the social and economic problems of their countries, and creating opportunity and wealth that is not dependent on Westminster patronage, then it is the parties that drive this sort of change that will win the support of voters.

This is now what has begun to happen during the third governments in Scotland and Wales; and it is the nationalists, who are in minority and coalition government in those countries respectively, that are in the driving seat. Inevitably so, because the interests of the Scottish and Welsh people as they see them are at the heart of their policies; unlike Labour, whose power base in Scotland and Wales was reliant on the relative impoverishment of the people and their dependency on Westminster hand-outs, as I have said.

So devolution has really back-fired on New Labour: hoist by their own petard, so to speak. The Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) and Plaid Cymru (the Welsh Nationalists) are taking on the mantle of parties carrying out Old Labour-style social-democratic policies; and, in so doing, they are ironically taking advantage of the higher per-capita spending allowance afforded them by the Barnett Formula that was intended to provide extra leverage for Labour administrations in Scotland and Wales to pursue traditional Labour policies, even if a Tory government was in charge at Westminster. Meanwhile, the really considerable extra benefits that people are enjoying in Scotland and Wales as a result of the Barnett Formula (and good luck to them) – such as free university tuition and cancer drugs in Scotland, and no prescription charges in Wales, among others – have naturally provoked growing envy and outrage on the part of many English people. Apart from these inequalities violating basic principles of fairness (along with the democratic deficit described above), the resentment people feel about these benefits being provided to their Scottish and Welsh brethren but denied to them, merely on the basis of their postcode, could be said to reveal that the English are maybe not quite as enamoured with the Market as New Labour has always thought, and that they feel the public sector should be providing more than it is.

In other words, market-orientated, Conservative England is rejecting New Labour not so much because it has failed to deliver on the promise of economic prosperity that was made, but because people feel that they should have been given some of the fruits of that prosperity while it lasted, in terms of a generous public sector giving back to them some of their hard-earned taxes – which, instead, they feel are being siphoned off to Scotland and Wales. So ‘Conservative England’ may be moving back over to support for the Conservative Party not because people favour market-orientated economic and social policies traditionally espoused by the Tories, but out of rejection of those same policies, which New Labour has applied so unequally across the different countries of the UK for purely self-serving, political reasons. This is, incidentally, perhaps the real reason for the general impression at the moment that support for the Tories is based more on rejection of Labour, not endorsement of traditional Conservative policies.

In view of which, the Tories might do well to position themselves as so-called ‘one-nation’ Conservatives: liberal Tories who accept there is an important role for a well but prudently funded public sector. But, thanks to New Labour, that one nation can now be only England. Labour has created autonomous centres of political power in Scotland and Wales which, like the monster Frankenstein, have turned on their creator and former master. In this sense, the Scottish and Welsh governments may have outgrown the party-political objectives that New Labour had in mind when it devised them. But they have answered to the original inspiration behind devolution: the Scottish and Welsh people will now no longer have to bear the full brunt of an unpopular English conservative government – whether that government is Labour or Tory. If a Cameron-led Conservative Westminster government does try to rein in the Scottish and Welsh administrations and limit their room for manoeuvre by, for instance, reducing or eliminating altogether the Barnett differentials, this will only stir up the same sort of rebellious sentiment that inspired devolution in the first place; and the pressure for full independence may then become irresistible.

In that way, Scotland and Wales could opt out of an unpopular Conservative, or indeed Labour, government that was inimical to them. Good for them, I say. But what of England? Would even an independent England – after the secession of Scotland and Wales from the Union – still have to put up with minority-elected Labour or Tory governments commanding the full sovereign power of absolute parliamentary majorities? Where do we the English go to get away from unrepresentative governments that pursue their own ideological and party-political agendas with scant respect or concern for the English people? We can’t exactly get devolution or independence from ourselves!

The ultimate dirty trick of the Westminster political class could then be to perpetuate its own unrepresentative system of power even after the break up of the UK: same old first-past-the-post voting system, disproportionate majorities, and executive elected dictatorship. Which is why all people who are concerned about democratic fairness for England, and who seek fundamental constitutional reform, need to think ahead about the kind of England they want to create after the imbalanced post-devolution house of cards finally implodes. Let’s start pushing, campaigning and thinking about our democratic future; and not mortgage it to the political bets of self-serving parties. After all, New Labour has already tried and failed to gamble English money and goodwill in order to keep winning in Scotland and Wales. What price will the big parties not pay, at our expense, to hold on to the only real power base they have left: England?

The Tory Answer To the West Lothian Question: Compromise And Fudge

Yesterday, the Tories finally published the recommendations of their Democracy Task Force on how to ‘resolve’ the West Lothian Question. Their report contained no surprises, as it was virtually as leaked two weeks ago. There was, however, one clarification. In the leaked account of the Tories’ proposals, it was stated that: “At the third and final reading, all MPs could once again vote [non-English MPs having been excluded from the Committee Stage of England-only bills' second reading], but a new parliamentary undertaking would prevent any party using Scottish votes to block amendments made by English MPs”.

In yesterday’s published proposals, it was spelt out what this would mean. In answer to a possible objection that it would be unfair to exclude Scottish and Welsh MPs from voting on England-only matters that had financial implications for their countries (via the block grant regulated by the Barnett Formula), it is stated: “In any case, the Third Reading provision of our proposal would give some safeguard to the governing party and to non-English MPs”. In other words, Scottish and Welsh MPs could reject amendments made to bills by English MPs at the Committee Stage, although this would mean the bills would no longer be carried - i.e. they could not overturn the decisions made at the Committee Stage. In the same way, if there were a Tory majority or no overall control among England’s MPs, a Labour UK government relying on Scottish and Welsh MPs for its majority could also reject amendments made by English MPs at the Second Reading - with the same result: failed legislation.

For a critique of the Tories’ proposals, see my post on the previously leaked version. It’s a pretty tawdry compromise and an exercise in obfuscation, as you’ll see for yourself if you take the trouble to try and wade through the document published by the Tories yesterday (see above link). It’s hard to see how such a technical, procedural fix could seriously address English objections to the asymmetrical devolution settlement, especially as they leave its main imbalances and injustices in place.

In fact, in their statement yesterday, the Tories virtually admit to the fact that their proposals do nothing to fundamentally rectify these imbalances but are merely an attempt to live with them and mitigate their worst possible effect: England-only legislation opposed by English MPs that gets carried through the votes of Scottish and Welsh MPs. In its conclusion, the Conservatives’ report states: “The United Kingdom was traditionally a unitary state without a formal executive-legislative separation of powers. By modifying this structure without moving to full federalism, the devolution reforms of 1997-99 introduced significant anomalies, and any change that seeks to resolve these will continue to have some inconsistencies”. That is, any change that seeks to resolve some of the worst anomalies of the present devolution settlement while leaving it basically in place will continue to be inconsistent. QED. This is a striking admission that only a federal system would provide a consistent, balanced solution: if you’re going to devolve or transfer certain powers to some of the UK countries but not others, the resultant unfairness can be resolved only by each of the countries, including England, having the same powers as each other.

The federal option is ruled out of court earlier in the Tories’ report, where it raises objections to alternative proposals to its own:

“An English Parliament. ‘Devolution for England’ has an obvious and appealing symmetry. However, it would need to be accompanied by an English executive, leaving the UK Parliament and government with an attenuated role limited largely to foreign and defence affairs. We do not believe that this position would be sustainable, especially given the overwhelming preponderance of England within the Union. The result would be the effective – and probably in time, formal – break-up of the United Kingdom.”

Well, this is the kind of quality (or lack of it) of thinking and argument we’re dealing with in this report: an English parliament / devolution would ‘inevitably’ lead to the break up of the Union - as if their solution would do anything else! Of course, devolution-only for England probably wouldn’t work: it would require a new federal system and constitution. So yes, the end of the unitary Union but the possibility of a new federal union. In any case, as I’ve just indicated above, the Tories themselves admit that only a federal system would be truly balanced and that the devolution settlement broke up the old unitary arrangements.

The same ‘quality’ of argumentation is present where the report casually dismisses a proportional voting system for UK elections. Just after the report asserts that where the party majority among English MPs differed from that in the UK parliament as a whole, its proposals would require co-operation and deals between the parties to get legislation through (analogous to coalition government in systems where they have PR), it states: “The analogy is not exact. The separation of powers is part of normal US political life, as is coalition-forming in countries with PR voting systems. We do not favour either practice in the UK as British political culture would take a very long time to adapt to either practice”.

The Tories don’t favour PR for UK elections because ‘British political culture’ would take a long time to adapt to it! So something that’s intrinsically right and fair is rejected because we (or rather, the Westminster political class) might find it difficult for a while. What he really means is, PR isn’t right for England, because I don’t think it’s been too painful a learning curve for members of the Scottish Parliament or Welsh Assembly to adapt to PR; and the last time I checked, these countries were still part of the UK. And PR is what England would get under an English Parliament, unlike under the Tories’ proposals which preserve the ludicrous disproportionality of First Past the Post (FPTP).

In fact, I’d go so far as to say that the primary purpose of the Tories’ proposals as a whole is to preserve the FPTP system for UK and English elections on which the Westminster system relies. The reason I say this is that, on one level, the whole West Lothian Question and the inconsistencies of the Tories’ answer to it is the thorny issue that it is only if you preserve FPTP. This is because it’s FPTP that creates the possibility of the ‘majorities’ in England and in the UK as a whole being different. That is, it’s only majorities among MPs that are being addressed not majority opinion and choices by the actual electorate. Under PR, it would be virtually impossible for there to be a majority for any party in either the UK parliament as a whole or among English MPs alone. Taking the last election as an example, if you had a perfectly proportional system, then 36% of UK MPs would be Labour, 32% Tory and 23% Lib Dem; in England, the percentages would be 35%, 36% and, I think, 22% respectively. So you’d have had to have a coalition government for the UK - say a Labour / Lib Dem government - which would also command a clear majority among English MPs. End of problem - if all you’re considering is its parliamentary dimensions, which is the not whole picture, as my previous post made clear. Even taking a possible election result where the Tories won 45% of the vote UK-wide (exceptional by the standards of recent elections), they would still have to form a coalition with, or at least rely on the co-operation of, one of the other major parties to govern both UK-wide and in relation to England-only bills.

Why do the Tories reject this simplest of all the answers to the West Lothian Question within the current imbalanced constitutional settlement? Because, as the report goes on to make clear, they want to hold on to the present system - made possible by FPTP - where there is the possibility of an absolute majority for one party across the UK as a whole: “Our proposal would retain the overall parliamentary majority of the UK Government for all policy and daily business. The English MPs would only have reserved to them the detailed scrutiny and amendment of legislation exclusively affecting their constituents, the residents of England. However, by its ability to reject any legislation which contained unacceptable amendments passed at the Committee and Report stages, the UK government would be able to protect its interests by something very similar to a presidential veto”.

Of course, this statement neatly glosses over the problem of a hung UK parliament: let’s say, no overall control UK-wide, but a Tory ‘majority’ (of MPs only, that is) in England. Then you would have to have ‘continental-style’ coalition government or cross-party co-operation in any case. But this is not the point, which is that the Tories basically want to preserve the present status quo (for all its inconsistencies, which they themselves admit to) because they want to maintain the possibility of their gaining an absolute parliamentary majority across the UK, which in reality would be provided to them only by voters in England, and then only on the basis of First Past the Post.

What they don’t want to acknowledge is that a Tory UK government with hardly any - if any - Scottish MPs would create a far more serious imbalance and would stoke up resentment towards Westminster in Scotland; and it’s this, more than the resentment of English people that Westminster politicians routinely ignore (and which the Tories’ report also fails to address), that is the most likely way in which the Union will be broken up. In other words, it’s the Tories’ lust for power across the UK - including in Scotland, where they have so little support - that is the greatest threat to the Union.

Their ‘answer’ to the West Lothian Question contains no response to this greater threat. And this is precisely because it is an attempt to justify it and enable it to come about.

Update on the .eng domain question

No, don’t get excited: I haven’t heard back from ICANN on what would be required to set up a .eng domain. However, I’ve done some research about it, and apparently, the aim of the .eng campaign is to collect around 10,000 signatures on the petition before submitting an application to ICANN. Currently, I think they’re nowhere near that total, and they seem to be having a few problems with recording the signatures on their website; but give it a try - we need to get a strong level of support behind it before ICANN will even give it a sniff.

Apparently, the organisations behind the bids for Welsh, Breton and Galician domains were campaigning at the recent ICANN meeting that decided to open up the whole Top Level Domain (TLD) system. There are also of course movements in favour of .sco, for Scotland, and .ker or .cor for Cornwall.

The article on the Welsh, Breton and Galician campaigns (see above link) indicates: “While there are other European stateless nations seeking their own domain names, these three are the ones most likely to succeed because of the considerable backing for the proposals from their respective communities”. Well, if these ’stateless nations’ are likely to elicit a favourable hearing - and are basing their arguments on the success of the .cat domain for Catalonia: another ’stateless nation’, I suppose - then England’s case should be pretty much in the bag, shouldn’t it, as we are the ultimate stateless nation? Err, but there’s a catch, as the article goes on to say: “Although the campaigns have been voluntary the applications will not succeed if there is opposition from governments [my emphasis]. In Wales all parties in the National Assembly support ‘.cym’, and the London government’s Department of Trade and Industry has stated that they ‘do not see any reason for opposing the application’ so long as steps are taken to prevent cybersquatting - the malicious practice of setting up web names that are similar to those of well known companies or brands”.

Oh well, that pretty much rules out a .eng domain while Gordon Brown is in No. 10 then! Or even until we get an English parliament that would be proud to see England gain international recognition of this sort alongside Wales and Scotland. After all, this is the government that chooses to ignore all petitions and campaigns with massive public support that it doesn’t agree with - like support for an English parliament, for instance! Well, at least if we all sign up to the .eng petition, we won’t give them the satisfaction of saying there wasn’t public demand for it.

Possibility of a .eng domain draws nearer

ICANN - the body responsible for administering the Internet’s domain system (the domains being the endings of web addresses, such as .com and .co.uk) - yesterday agreed to a major reform of the system, which will allow thousands of new domains, including dedicated domains for sub-national geographical areas such as cities (e.g. .ldn for London).

This should in theory enable a proposed new domain for England - .eng - to get the go ahead. Irritatingly, in the BBC website’s report on the decision, Marcus Eggensperger, of Lycos Webhosting, was quoted as follows: “The most likely new TLDs [top-level domains] to be pushed into the Icann process are those that have been under development for some time now - the geo-TLDs such as .cym for Wales, .sco for Scotland, .ldn for London, .nyc for New York and so on” - but no mention of any domain for England.

I wrote to the press contact on the ICANN website to ask whether there would now be any objection to a .eng domain and what would be involved in applying for it. I’ll update you if I get any reply: my previous email to ICANN putting the case for a domain for England met with no response. It’ll probably turn out that it has to be the government of a country that applies for major new domains relating to it. This will doubtless be the explanation why no application has been received from the British government for an English domain; while the Scottish and Welsh governments will already have eagerly put in their applications for Scotland and Wales!

Call me a cynic realist!

Meanwhile, if you want to sign a petition for a .eng domain, you can do so here.

EU: Where Next?

Ireland’s ‘no’ vote to the Lisbon Treaty (aka the EU constitution) is a victory for democracy over the political class and the supporters of ever-greater integration of the EU member states. It’s also a victory for Britain, and for England, which was unjustly denied the referendum it had been promised by an arrogant and unrepresentative parliament that thinks it knows best - and did in fact know full well that the Treaty would have been rejected had it been subjected to the popular vote.

Doubtless, the Eurocrats will come up with a ‘fix’ that will enable the constitutional project to go ahead anyway, albeit with a different name or via a different route (and certainly, without asking the people to give their consent); and the British government will go along with this regardless of what the British, and English, people might think.

It’s funny how supporters of the Treaty, in Ireland and the UK, have been running around trying to blame the ‘no’ vote on ignorance and indifference, on a reaction to specifically Irish (mis)apprehensions and political issues, and even on the working class - whereas the nice middle class appears to have been much more in favour. The point is, the people just don’t trust the politicians, whether national or EU; and they - rightly, in my view - suspect that the EU is taking on more and more of the powers and status of a sovereign state in its own right. This was very apparent in the Treaty: an elected Commission President; a greater role for an EU standing army; an effective EU Foreign Secretary and co-ordinated foreign policy; EU control over labour law and social security; and powers in many other areas transferred from nation states to EU institutions that people just don’t feel are accountable or accessible.

Ultimately, the goal of the integrationists is a federal EU super-state in all but name. The constitution / Treaty represented a significant step in this direction, and it also provided a mechanism whereby future integrationist measures could be implemented without a veto by individual nations and parliaments. It is an attempt to create the constitution of a new state, incrementally and by stealth.

If they were going to be perfectly honest with the people of the EU, and at the same time really attempt to enshrine principles of democratic accountability and transparency into their constitutional architecture, the Eurocrats should have stated up front that the constitution established the framework of a new state, and that - in this context - the rights of the member nations could best be protected by giving them the status of federal states like those of the USA - with a large degree of legal and political autonomy within an agreed overall federal structure protecting democratic liberties. What the EU constitution amounted to was the overall federal structure without adequate protection of, and accountability to, the member nations, because the politicians didn’t want to admit to the fact that they were creating a supra-national federal framework in the first place.

In terms of Britain’s, and England’s, position, there is no doubt - as I stated above - that New Labour will seek to drag the UK into whatever undemocratic fix the Eurocrats come up with next, allowing them to ignore the latest ‘wrong’ result in a referendum. This adds extra impetus to the demand that the wishes of England should be consulted in any future constitutional referendum(s) on the future of the UK. If Scotland is allowed to vote to leave the UK without a corresponding referendum in which the English people are permitted to express their wishes for their nation’s future, then can there be any doubt that the Westminster politicians will seek to impose any existing UK treaty commitments towards the EU on the rump-UK (England, Wales and N. Ireland) that remained?

Only if England is allowed to express its sovereign right to determine its future as a nation can its relationship with the EU also be truly subject to the will of the people.

English pauses for English clauses begs more questions than it answers

Yesterday, the Daily Telegraph leaked news about the Conservatives’ supposed answer to the West Lothian Question: the fact that Scottish- (and Welsh- and Northern Irish-) elected MPs can vote on legislation affecting England only whereas MPs for English constituencies can no longer do the same for much of the corresponding legislation for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, which is now dealt with by devolved parliamentary bodies in those countries.

The Tory ’solution’, according to the report, is what Gareth Young has dubbed ‘English pauses for English clauses’: Scottish MPs can vote on English legislation at the initial second-reading stage of parliamentary scrutiny; but only English MPs would get to vote during the detailed committee stage of the legislative process, where changes can be effected. At the third and final reading, all MPs could once again vote, but a new parliamentary undertaking would prevent any party using Scottish votes to block amendments made by English MPs.

This is a watered-down version of what was already a compromise: the so-called ‘English votes on English matters’ option, which would have prevented Scottish MPs from voting on English bills at any stage of their passage through Parliament. It’s basically the Tories trying to have their English cake and sell it to Scotland: preventing Scottish MPs from having a real say on English bills while appearing not to, so as to try and convince Scottish voters that there is any point in continuing to send MPs to Westminster rather than running Scotland entirely from Holyrood as an independent country.

It’s a completely nonsensical and unworkable solution, and there are many questions that the Tories’ answer to the West Lothian Question begs, such as:

1) Would it actually prevent Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs having an undue influence over English bills? The fact that MPs from those countries couldn’t effect changes to bills at the committee stage does not prevent them from influencing those bills or, indeed, determining their whole content. After all, we have a Scottish PM and several senior Scottish ministers, who are the real movers and shakers. The Tory proposal does nothing to prevent them from making laws for England with no accountability to English voters.

2) Is it even possible to separate out ‘English clauses’ from clauses relating to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland? In an analysis elsewhere of the government’s recent statement on its Draft Legislation Programme for the parliamentary session beginning in autumn of this year, I point out that there is sometimes a bewildering complexity about which UK countries different parts of the same bills relate to. On occasions, indeed, it could be the case that the ‘territorial extent’ (as it’s called) of bills would vary on a clause-by-clause basis.

How would a Tory, or indeed any, UK government resolve this so that it was clear which bills or parts of bills related to England only? Now if the answer to that question was to make a much clearer distinction - consistent across all of the countries of the UK - between devolved and reserved areas of governance, then it would make it much more obvious to the public that England was the only UK country without its own parliament to deal with exclusively English matters. This might be a good, if unintended, consequence of the Tories’ proposal. But in reality, they’re far more likely to continue to obfuscate about which bits of governance are English and which bits are British (or part-British) as the Labour government has done. In which case, in order to prevent parliamentary procedure on such variable-country bills collapsing into near-paralysis, they’re going to end up having to involve Scottish MPs at the committee stage, given that UK-government bills are meant to be a coherent whole whose impact on the whole of the UK needs to be considered, even if only part of them directly affect Scottish MPs’ constituents. And do the Tories really think that continuing with such a dishonest, messy fudge is going to satisfy English voters? Or, conversely, if a more rigid exclusion of Scottish MPs from ‘England-only’ deliberations were enforced, do the Tories think this will endear Westminster to the Scottish electorate?

3) Is ‘English votes on English matters’ actually about MPs at all? The Tory proposals constitute a new insult to English voters by implying that, so long as English-elected MPs can determine the shape of English legislation, this addresses the democratic deficit for England. It doesn’t. The reason: it continues to deny English people a vote on England-only matters, while Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish voters are able to vote on policies specifically for their countries. What is more, voters in these countries also effectively get a vote - in general elections - on policies for England, while English voters have no such influence on corresponding policy in the devolved nations. Consequently, voters in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have a greater democratic say than those in England over laws and political decisions that affect them, while having an undemocratic influence over laws that affect English people.

Now if any of the major parties conceded this point, they’d have to agree that a proper, separately elected English parliament was the only answer to the West Lothian Question. But this would create a federal UK where voters in each country elected parliaments dealing with nation-specific issues, while separate elections were held for a UK-wide parliament dealing with issues on which the UK nations pooled their interests and sovereignty.

As this is the only fair solution to the English democratic deficit, but none of the parties want to admit to it, just wait till the general election and let’s see if any of them offer a set of policies in their manifestoes that is for England alone - even in areas of governance where the Westminster Parliament’s competence is limited to England. Of course, they won’t, because then the total illogicality and injustice of Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish voters electing MPs on an English policy agenda (alongside policies relating to the whole of the UK) would be blown apart.

Let’s not have two elections and two parliaments in one. The English people deserve a parliament that - in Gareth Young’s words - will answer the question of “who speaks for England, and on whose behalf”. If the Tories’ proposals do turn out to be the same as those leaked by the Telegraph, then at least we know that the answer to that question is not the Conservative Party.

Campaign For a National Referendum (4): Frank Field again on the record in favour of a referendum

The Sunday Times reported yesterday that Frank Field has urged Gordon Brown to hold an immediate UK-wide referendum on the future of the Union. The Labour MP is quoted as saying, “Unless Gordon Brown wrongfoots [Alex Salmond] by addressing the English question and by holding a UK-wide referendum before he has the chance to build up a head of steam, then the break of Britain, and indeed of the Labour party, looks certain”.

Anyone might think Frank Field has been reading this blog. In the first post in this Campaign For a National Referendum series, ten days ago, I wrote: “perhaps GB [Gordon Brown, that is] could demonstrate that he really is a visionary leader by seizing the initiative from Bendy Wendy and Alex Salmond, and saying that we will resolve this issue once and for all before the end of his term in office, in 2010. This is perhaps the real constitutional re-examination and debate about Britishness that we should have been having all along. Seriously - and I hope some Labour Party strategists are reading (some hope!) - this could be the way for New Labour to completely outflank both the nationalists and the Tories. GB could argue passionately for his vision of a united Britain, and he’d be bound to regain a lot of support in England for doing so, so long as this Britishness was advocated as one that was in the interests of, and was fair to, all the nations of the UK, and didn’t suppress the very existence of England as his Britishness crusade has attempted to do up till now”.

I do, however, differ from Frank Field’s position in two key respects. In the Sunday Times article, he is quoted as saying, “it is Westminster MPs, not the Scottish parliament, who must stage the referendum and decide on the key referendum issues”. I disagree that it should be Parliament alone that should work out which issue(s) should be put to the people. This should emerge from a constitutional convention involving people from all walks of life; and the convention should be mandated to consider the views of the people of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as they emerge from general debate (including over the Internet) and opinion polls. It’s down to the people to decide, not a Parliament that is so unrepresentative of popular opinion.

Secondly, Frank Field is reported as arguing that if the Scots voted for independence while the English voted against (presumably meaning ‘against independence for Scotland’, not for England), then the prime minister should not negotiate the demise of the Union with the first minister. Well, firstly, the prime minister shouldn’t negotiate the ‘demise’ of the Union with the first minister in any event, as he has clear conflicts of interest, such as wanting to preserve some role for Scottish people like himself in English public life while, at the same time (as a Scot) not being impartial with respect to getting the best deal for England - and we know just how discriminatory towards the English his government has been. Secondly, the English should not have a veto on Scottish independence. Certainly, it would be hypocritical if Gordon Brown were to act as if such a veto were legitimate, given that he is a signatory of the 1988 Scottish Claim of Right, which asserted that, “We, gathered as the Scottish Constitutional Convention, do hereby acknowledge the sovereign right of the Scottish people to determine the form of Government best suited to their needs”.

Logically, if the UK-wide referendum were on a single new constitutional settlement for all the countries presently included in the UK, then if one country votes ‘yes’ while the others vote ‘no’, you just have to renegotiate the settlement in order to get a deal that everyone can be happy with - not pretend that the problem will just go away, which it certainly won’t if the Scots feel they are being denied their sovereign right to be independent should they wish to be. On the analogy of a marriage, if one spouse is seeking a divorce, then the other spouse can’t really prevent them no matter how much they might wish to remain married - the issue is about getting the best deal in a divorce settlement; and if the remaining UK (or its unrepresentative government) refused to grant a divorce, the deal will end up being far worse for England, and a whole lot of unnecessary acrimony will be generated in the process.

Face up to it, Frank, if the Scots want out, then we’ll just have to let them go. You’re still thinking with your Labour politician’s hat on there, I feel!

Campaign For a National Referendum (3): Frank Field backs a UK-wide referendum

In his speech to the University of Hertfordshire on Tuesday of this week, Labour MP Frank Field made out a strong case for the right of all UK citizens, not just Scottish voters, to determine the future shape of the UK: “Wendy Alexander . . . recently called for an early referendum on independence. Yet her plea was couched as though it was an exclusively Scottish matter. For reasons I am about to detail any referendum needs to be UK wide. The English, Welsh and citizens of Northern Ireland have as much interest and as much a right to be consulted over the break up of the Kingdom, and on what terms, as do the Scots themselves”. This is exactly the position of A National Conversation For England, and Frank Field is to be commended for taking up the cause within the parliamentary Labour Party.

Frank Field also argued that Gordon Brown should seize the initiative on the English Question, which could secure him substantial electoral advantage in England and enable him to mould the terms of the debate, even though the eventual shape of the new constitutional settlement should be open-ended at this stage and would ultimately be down to the British people to determine. This is exactly the position taken by this blog: addressing the English Question now may be the only way the Scottish First Minister for England could save his premiership and prevent New Labour from being obliterated in England at the next general election; indeed, it may be the only way to prevent the UK from drifting into a break up the outline of which is determined solely by Alex Salmond.

The rest of Frank Field’s speech is a textbook presentation of the injustices to England of the present asymmetric devolution settlement. The MP makes it clear that an English parliament will eventually happen, as part of a new federal set up, he thinks. The real political question for him is who will be in power to steer it through and secure party-political advantage from it: Brown or Cameron.

It’s good to see someone like Frank Field, respected for his common sense and concern for Labour’s core working-class vote, seeing and speaking sense on this issue. Personally, I’m not too bothered about Labour taking a hammering at the next election, which they thoroughly deserve for their persistent discrimination against the English as a whole, neglect of the English working class and contempt for Middle England. But if enough senior Labour politicians wake up to the English Question, and a process begins that could lead to a fair UK-wide referendum on a comprehensive national constitutional settlement, this can only be a good thing.

Campaign For a National Referendum (2): Downing Street Referendum Petition

Just signed the Downing Street petition for a referendum on English independence I came across today. This actually calls for a referendum on English independence irrespective of whether the Scots are offered a referendum on independence for Scotland, or if they go ahead and have one anyway whether the British government, or the Scottish First Minister for England, grants them one or not.

Of course, there’s absolutely no prospect of this referendum taking place; certainly not on its own and very unlikely even in tandem with a Scottish vote. And I question whether, tactically, it makes much sense to call for a referendum without considering the context in which it could and should take place. For example, if a referendum on English independence were held today - as the opinion pollsters phrase things - I’m pretty convinced the majority would vote no. The best opportunity in the foreseeable future for a favourable vote on a federal or totally independent England would be the occasion of a Scottish referendum: not just because if they vote ‘yes’ to independence, we’d be left with a de facto independent England anyway; but also because then we could put the argument that England deserves a say in its future, and that of the UK, just as much as Scotland does. In such a situation, support for independence in both Scotland and England could be mutually reinforcing: wavering Scots might think to themselves, ‘what’s the point of voting to stay in the UK if even the English are steadily giving up on the Union’; while previously unionist English voters might think ‘to hell with the Scots if they want to quit the Union’, and vote for separation themselves.

Even then, I’d say it’s doubtful that the English would vote for independence; and it might be better to have some negotiated solution such as a federal UK, with national parliaments with real powers, on which all the people of the UK could vote. This could be an option that, temporarily, would satisfy both sides of the argument in England: people who want to preserve the Union and those who just want semi-autonomous or independent self-rule for England. Things might then stabilise at that point and, who knows, a federal UK could bumble on for many more decades or even centuries. More likely, this wouldn’t stop the momentum for independence in Scotland. But then at least, when Scotland left, we’d have a much more satisfactory situation of governance in England, with English institutions and an English parliament dealing with English political, legislative and cultural matters. Whether we stayed united to Wales and Northern Ireland in a federal set up or went totally independent at that point would be academic.

So why did I put my name to the Downing Street petition? Because the call for a referendum for England on these national questions needs to be heard. Any referendum, even if it were just on a devolved parliament like that in Scotland, would be better than none. And actually, if the Scots go it alone with a referendum in 2010 without the constitutional arrangements for the remaining UK having been worked out and put to the electorate beforehand, then we’d be morally entitled to a referendum on English independence: why should the Scots have their ’sovereign right’ to determine their own governance recognised while that of the English is ignored?

Campaign For a National Referendum (1): A Lifeline For Gordon Brown

This is the first of a new mini-series in which I’ll be putting the argument for a referendum on new constitutional arrangements between the nations of the UK, which should be offered to all those nations not just one or two (e.g. Scotland and Wales).

Below is a copy of a comment I made the other day in a debate around a post on OurKingdom. The full context can be found there:

“When the Union breaks Wales will remain a province of England as it was before the Union”. Try saying that to the Welsh! Actually, an interesting point, though: there may be some parts of Wales - e.g. the more anglophile and anglophone South Wales - that would wish to remain part of the same (British) state as England; while other parts (e.g. rural North and West Wales) might wish to be separate.

“If I was a clever Englishman I’d try and palm NI off on Scotland but if there is uncertainty about who gets it then the population in NI should decide”. I agree with Anthony, here: a bit of a contemptuous way to talk about Northern Ireland; plus rather ironic for a Scottish Nationalist to suggest that the people of that province should decide which state they wish to be affiliated to only if two larger neighbours can’t agree whether they want it or not. Shouldn’t the people automatically be the ones to decide?

Doug’s comments do illustrate a slightly cavalier attitude on the part of some Scots nationalists: ‘it’s our right to decide our own future, and the rest of you can just sort out the resultant mess’. Well, it may be the Scots’ right to decide their national future but not to do so in a way that deprives the rest of the UK of a say in its future after the end of the Union with Scotland. If Scotland gets a referendum in 2010, so should the other British nations: not on whether Scotland leaves - which is Scotland’s decision - but on a comprehensive new constitutional settlement for a post-Scotland ‘Britain’. This should be negotiated between all the UK countries and put to a referendum in each country, whether it involves a continuing UK with devolved parliaments in England, Wales and Northern Ireland; a federal ‘rump UK’ with the power mainly exercised by each nation; or full independence for each country.

A single question should then be put to the electorate in all four (or five, including Cornwall) countries in a referendum. For instance, if what was agreed in the pre-referendum negotiations was a continuing UK of three (or four, including Cornwall) nations each with devolved parliaments but with a strong centralised UK state and government, then the question for the electorate in all the nations, including Scotland, could be, “Do you agree with the proposed new constitutional settlement for the countries that are currently part of the UK: independence for Scotland and a continuing union of England, Wales and Northern Ireland with devolved parliaments in each country?” Apart from anything else - and it’s in the interests of the Scots nationalists to note this - it’s actually fairer that the Scottish people should have a say in the post-independence future of the state they’re leaving, because it could be highly material to the import and outcome of an independence referendum whether Scotland had to contend with a continuing UK as its neighbour after independence rather than separate English, Welsh and (Northern) Irish nation-states.

Precisely how the negotiations between the different countries of the UK should happen is unclear, to say the least. But here’s an intriguing scenario: perhaps GB [Gordon Brown, that is] could demonstrate that he really is a visionary leader by seizing the initiative from Bendy Wendy and Alex Salmond, and saying that we will resolve this issue once and for all before the end of his term in office, in 2010. This is perhaps the real constitutional re-examination and debate about Britishness that we should have been having all along. Seriously - and I hope some Labour Party strategists are reading (some hope!) - this could be the way for New Labour to completely outflank both the nationalists and the Tories. GB could argue passionately for his vision of a united Britain, and he’d be bound to regain a lot of support in England for doing so, so long as this Britishness was advocated as one that was in the interests of, and was fair to, all the nations of the UK, and didn’t suppress the very existence of England as his Britishness crusade has attempted to do up till now. The actual constitutional option to be voted on in a referendum would have to be genuinely open and not imposed by the executive. But then, if GB got the result he wanted, he could position himself as a sort of Churchillian saviour of the UK and would surely win a resounding victory in the general election of the continuing, resurgent UK in 2010. Worth a thought, isn’t it, all you Labour guys? Let’s have a bloody good fight about it, and winner takes all!

This comment represents a slight change in my position compared with the post ‘Should England have a referendum on independence?’, where I suggested that if Scotland were going to have an independence referendum in 2010 regardless, then it was only fair for the other nations of the UK to be asked the same question. The only difference here is that the question to be put in a referendum would be the result of negotiation between the four / five UK countries: it would be based on a comprehensive constitutional settlement, probably including the option of Scottish separation but possibly not: it could also involve a redrawing of the devolution deal to include an English parliament or a federal UK.

This sort of scenario is the only chance for Gordon Brown and unionists in general to seize the initiative prior to a Cameron victory in 2010 and the massive boost to the Scottish-independence cause that would provide. Rather than putting their heads ostrich-like in the sand and pretending that Scottish secession will never happen, they should confront the danger head on, have the argument out in the open and let the people decide. The present constitutional arrangements are clearly inequitable, imbalanced and therefore untenable, and they’re contributing to a build up of pressure for more autonomy from the UK in England and not just Scotland. So the issue has got to be resolved sooner or later; and the sooner it is dealt with, the better are the prospects for those who wish to preserve the Union, albeit in a modified form.

Of course, it’s quite possible that the referendum question I suggested as an example would be rejected by one or more of the UK nations - in which case, it would be back to the negotiating table to come up with a deal that was acceptable to all four / five countries. But what can hardly be disputed is that some sort of new deal is needed; and in justice, it should be all the nations that vote on it not just one, i.e. Scotland.

What do you think?