One and a half cheers for Gordon’s reforms

I had intended to comment on Gordon Brown’s report on the Constitution when it was published in December, but I got distracted and didn’t finish the draft. Nevertheless I belatedly think it worth finishing the article and publishing it before it becomes irrelevant or is overtaken by events.

I can’t say that I was disappointed as my expectations were low. Possibly the report was constrained by Keir Starmer’s terms of reference (“Don’t mention the voting system”) – but the result is underwhelming. Many of the proposals are welcome as far as they go, while the key issue is simply ignored.  These are summarised and briefly discussed below.

Despite its policy flaws, the document is actually very well written, with some persuasive analysis backed up by authoritative references, most of which has been ignored by the commentaries that I have seen.  The report can be viewed and downloaded from this link.

Welcome reforms (with reservations)

Media reports have concentrated on the proposed abolition of the House of Lords, and of course this is welcome in principle and long overdue – especially the exclusion of the hereditaries, the bishops and the political placemen and placewomen. However, the report’s proposals for a replacement chamber are unconvincing. The proper question to ask should be: “Do we need a second chamber of the legislature, and if so, what should be its role, powers and composition?” 

What the report’s authors seem to have done is to assume the answer to the first question must be “Yes”, and they have then floundered to produce unconvincing and contradictory answers to the second question. For example, it should be a “revising chamber” (p.140) – although why we need it is not explained.  Again, it must not “undermine the pre-eminent position of the House of Commons”, yet “The new second chamber must have electoral legitimacy”. (If it has its own electoral mandate, how can it not rival the lower house – at least politically if not legally?)

  Another contradiction: The new chamber “should have no role in the forming or sustaining of governments” (p.138), but “Members of the new second chamber should of course be able to serve as Ministers” (p.143).

What is especially welcome in the report is the support it gives for “a constitutional requirement that the political, administrative and financial autonomy of local government should be respected by central government.”  This is accompanied by proposing new revenue sources and fiscal powers for local government together with “greater long-term financial certainty to enable [local government] to invest more confidently in their areas' futures” (p.11).  Amen to that, but one wonders what the Treasury would make of it.  It is worth noting that numerous such promises have been made in the past, but the actual result has been the progressive hollowing out of local government and ever greater concentration of power at Westminster.

Omissions

The precise terms of reference are not included in the report, but it is disappointing that it fails to deal with a number of other constitutional issues – for example, the Royal Prerogative powers to:

·         Prorogue and summon Parliament

·         Declare war and deploy the armed forces

·         Make various appointments such as ambassadors, judges, permanent secretaries of departments, the heads of the security services, members of the Defence Staff, Royal Commissions and members of public bodies

·         Approve Royal Charters (such as the BBC)

Also excluded is the power of the Government to control the agenda and timetable of the House of Commons (which is supposed to hold it to account).

Key issue ignored

I will refrain from using the cliché “elephant in the room” (actually I suppose I just have done), but the glaring omission from the report is the failure to deal with the voting system for Parliamentary elections.

On the heroic assumption that Labour will win the next election with an overall majority of MPs, the problem is that as long as we have the “first past the post” (FPTP) voting system, even if all of Gordon Brown’s ambitious reforms are duly enacted, it is possible that a future Conservative government, elected on a minority vote, will reverse or undo all these reforms – and we shall be back to square one.

(This is not just a theoretical scare. The current Conservative government have already taken the retrograde step of changing the voting system for directly elected mayors in London and elsewhere from Supplementary Vote back to FPTP – obviously expecting to exploit the division in the non-Conservative vote. See this link.)

What is particularly infuriating is that despite the overwhelming vote of the 2022 Labour Party Conference in favour of proportional representation, Sir Keir Starmer has indicated that a commitment to introduce proportional representation will not be included in the next election manifesto. So much for democracy in the Labour Party.

Why only “one and a half cheers”?

The phrase “Two cheers for ...” was first used by E.M.Forster in his collection of essays “Two cheers for democracy” published in 1951.  What he meant of course was that, while democracy is far better than any of the alternatives on offer, it nevertheless has its drawbacks. On this basis I have only awarded Gordon Brown’s report one and a half cheers because although many of its recommendations are welcome, its fatal flaw is that while First Past the Post persists, the possibility exists that a future minority government could reverse them.