Labour offers competent managerialism but is tying itself in knots with a fiscal straitjacket. Stability may well be a benefit of a new government, but the major issues are likely to be neglected. The priorities for sorting the mess in the UK, looked at from afar, ought to be:
- Tackling the climate crisis.
- Getting closer to Europe, since Brexit continues to create damage.
- Major political reform to prevent the mistakes of the past 40 years from ever occurring again.
- Fixing the immediate messes, notably poverty, poor public services, and inadequate infrastructure, which will require serious taxation of the ultra-wealthy.
Pussyfooting around the first two, ignoring the third, and offering little more than simplistic palliatives for the immediate messes, risks leading to five wasted years. The United Kingdom will continue to decline, perhaps not as fast as in the last few years, and a few faults may get fixed. Not good enough.
We urgently need major political reform
So, let’s consider the third issue. Barring a hung parliament, the elected government has absolute power to do as it likes. It can repeal any law and make any new law. The theory of the electoral mandate has been destroyed by the Safety of Rwanda Act. Not mentioned in the 2019 Tory manifesto, Labour were entitled to oppose it at second reading in the Lords. Labour policy is to scrap the whole scheme. So why did they allow it to pass without a vote?
The 2016 Brexit referendum created an ugly precedent. England can use its numerical superiority of people to overrule the other nations in the Union. The lack of a written constitution means that any UK government can make up the rules as it goes along. Nobody thought about requiring 50% of electors to vote in favour (a constitutional requirement in Italy) or of requiring a majority of the affected nations to vote in favour (five including Gibraltar). Switzerland requires a majority of cantons to vote in favour and a numerical majority of voters for a federal referendum to pass. It’s past time to put the arrogance of ‘we know best’ to rest and learn something from other democracies.
Absolute power always corrupts, so a written constitution is needed
Absolute power has led to the seven major policy mistakes of the past 40 years, made by both governing parties. In summary, they were: the failure of some infrastructure privatisations; the private finance initiative (still a cost until 30-year contracts all expire); undue influence of the oligarch class; political lies; austerity (mainly for the poor); the Brexit referendum; and taxation policy (failing to tax the ultra-wealthy). These resulted in the vast range of problems now to be resolved.
The UK desperately needs a written constitution to prevent such a mess from recurring. How can the disparate needs of the four nations – with sovereignty redefined as the people of each nation – plus the overseas territories be accommodated? Answer: with a federal parliament for the things that must be tackled collectively, notably defence and foreign affairs, plus national parliaments for the four nations.
How we can fix the problems
The aggressive nature of binary choices should be replaced by more cooperation, with a touch of competition. Instead of pouring millions into rebuilding Westminster (where normal laws do not apply because it’s a royal palace), let’s have a federal parliament outside London and four national parliaments, all using round or horseshoe-shaped chambers.
Further ideas include regional governments, integrating economic, education, transport, and work visa powers. Levelling up could be achieved by two-way transfer funding between levels of government to aim at nearly equal living standards, instead of local councils fighting across Whitehall desks for projects allocated to attract marginal votes.
A People’s Council
Many have called for Lords reform but few realise that the Privy Council is the beating heart of the autocratic state. It makes legislation – Orders in Council – without democratic consent. Let’s replace them both by a People’s Council, mainly elected but apolitical, with these powers:
- Establish whether state bodies are truly independent.
- Enforce truthfulness and standards: all political and government communications should be clear, fair, and not misleading.
- Receive requests for referendums and filter them, allowing the people to put issues on the agenda rather than long campaigns – women’s emancipation took a century. How long will it take to reverse the Brexit mess?
- Listen to the people and thereby identify concerns before they turn into scandals, see infected blood, Hillsborough, Post Office Horizon, PPE procurement, for a few examples.
- Grant the people’s assent to legislation, in place of the present farce of royal assent. Only national members would have a say in national, rather than federal, legislation.
- Supervise a comprehensive Ombudsperson service so that individual injustices can be righted quickly.
- Supervise a facts hub, based on National Statistics, so that citizens can find reliable data.
Such major reforms will take time and need democratic discussion and consent. Instead of elected governments enjoying the divine right of kings to do as they like, an autocratic state can be brought under control and the United Kingdom acquire political governance fit for the 21st century.
David Kauders is an author and investment manager. For information about his book Reinventing Democracy: Improving British political governance visit Sparkling Books.
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