Federalism

You may have noticed recently that the campaign for Cornish devolution has been revived by a show of pan-Celtic political unity. In other words a load of Welsh MPs have signed an EDM calling for Cornish 'Freedom'.

Whether or not you are a supporter of Cornish nationalism, it's hard to find fault with the words of one of the signatories to the EDM, Mr Jonathan Edwards MP (Plaid Cymru):

If I was a unionist what I would be putting forward would be a vision of a federal British state, with equal powers for each of the historic nations.

Such a view - albeit to the exclusion of Cornwall - was recently endorsed by David Melding, Deputy Presiding Officer of the National Assembly for Wales:

Declaring Britain a federal state is more important than writing a federal constitution. It would not be possible, anyway, to draft a federal constitution now because English political institutions need time to develop. However, whether or not an English parliament is established or merely an English legislative process within Westminster, what is crucial is that English sovereignty be recognised. Hence the political rights of England would gain parity with those of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Like Edwards, Melding is looking to acknowledge national identity and the democratic right of nations to determine their destiny.

Compare and contrast the enlightened approach of Edwards and Melding with this partisan, undemocratic and anti-English bile from Welsh Labour MP Owen Smith. Is he the bastard child of John Prescott by any chance?

Dr Andy Mycock, Britishness raconteur, has an interesting post on New Labour and the English Questions over at Our Kingdom. He highlights UKIP's policy on an 'English parliament'.

The only party with a truly UK-wide profile that explicitly argues for an English parliament is UKIP. They propose that an ‘English Westminster MPs would meet monthly to discuss English only issues in an English Parliament’, a partial solution that is unlikely to appease campaigners for an English Parliament and others seeking English independence. UKIP are also hindered by their limited appeal in domestic elections, a problem shared with other fringe parties who support the creation of an English parliament such as the BNP and English Democrats. This suggests it is unlikely that a sustained political party-based campaign for an English parliament will emerge in the immediate future.

Given Nigel Farrage's revelation that he supports an English parliament [actually a Grand Committee of UK MPs with English constituencies] within a 'federal' [federal in a very, very - extraordinarily - loose sense of the word] United Kingdom, it's worth posting a reminder of UKIP policy.

In his address to UKIP’s 2006 Party Conference, Vernon Coleman told the audience that "The English desperately needs a party to represent them" and that UKIP should "fight hard" for an English Parliament.

Look at the results of any election. UKIP gets very few votes in Scotland or Wales. Most don't fly union flags in Scotland. Many Scottish and Welsh nationalists genuinely believe that they are one step from independence. In reality, they are further from independence than they've ever been and if they had any sense they would be fighting against the EU with all their might.

We need to fight hard for an English Parliament, where Englishmen and women can decide the fate of Englishmen and women. It is outrageous that Scottish MPs can introduce legislation on health and education which don't affect their constituents. And it's equally absurd that anyone should consider foisting a Scottish Prime Minister on us.

The present UKIP position, evolved from David Campbell-Bannerman’s 2006 press release, advocates dual-mandate governance and a consistent UK-wide approach, in contrast to the present constitutional asymmetry.

The UKIP Solution

• The Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the Northern Ireland Assembly will be retained but MSPs and Assembly Members for Wales and Northern Ireland will be scrapped.
• An ‘English Parliament’ [a Grand Committee of UK MPs with English constituencies] will sit in the present House of Commons on ‘English Days’ to debate English affairs and English legislation.
• Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish Westminster MPs would sit as members of their respective national parliaments/assmblies (129 MSPs would therefore be reduced to 55 dual mandate Scottish MPs, the 60 Welsh Assembly members would be replaced by the 32 Welsh Westminster MPs and the 108 Members of the Northern Ireland Legislative Assembly will be replaced by 18 Westminster representatives).
• For some time in every month, assuming 1 week, the national bodies of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland would meet in plenary within their home nations, and conduct additional committee work during Westminster weeks or recesses, as necessary.
• The unicameral nature of the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish national chambers would be addressed by the House of Commons when it meets as the UK Parliament (the dual mandate chambers of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland would be scrutinised by Westminster MPs).
• England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will each have their own First Minister selected from among their Westminster MPs.
• Devolved powers would be amended to prevent any UK citizen being disadvantaged in another nation within the UK (for example it would not be possible for Scottish universities to charge English students for services that they provide for free to Scottish students and students from other EU nations).
• Dependent on function Whitehall will be reorganised into either UK-wide or English departments. For example, a UK Department of Health will specify common standards, frameworks and approaches for the NHS across the UK, but national bodies will hold the Northern Irish NHS, Scottish NHS, Welsh NHS and English NHS to account at the national level.
• UKIP would seek a fair and balanced new alternative to the Barnett Formula based on rural, suburban and urban criteria, and on need, not arbitrary measures.

[Source (pdf)]

UKIP’s proposals raise a number of interesting questions.

1. Would the UK parties still have (for example) both a Scottish manifesto and a UK manifesto, and; which of these manifestos is a Scottish politician being elected and held to account on?
2. Do dual mandate MPs suffer from a conflict of interest; does a chamber comprised of dual-mandate MPs have any power of independent thought and action; can they 'speak for England'?
3. Are UKIP's proposals actually achievable; do the Scots, Welsh and Irish actually want their national bodies, comprised of representatives with an explicity national mandate, replaced by dual-mandate British MPs, and; if they don’t, could a Westminster government realistically impose this compromise upon them?
4. Would the English vote for a dual-mandate ‘English Parliament’ or would the English prefer the real thing, and; should England be offered that choice?
5. What powers would a First Minister have, and; would he/she have a cabinet and could those cabinet ministers also be ministers in the UK cabinet? In addition, would there be enough MPs in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to form a cabinet and government from politicians of one party, or even all parties?
6. Would UKIP's proposals improve governance and scrutiny of legislation and post-legislative executive action.

UKIP 'solution' (and the Tory's 'English Votes on English Laws') should more correctly be termed answers to the British Question, rather than an answer to the English Question. Only the English people can answer the English Question. UKIP seeks a British solution to the asymmetry and unfairness of the multinational UK constitution, and the Tory solution simply aims to mitigate the unfairness in the House of Commons.

But whether you call UKIP's solution an answer to the English Question or an answer to the British Question, the fact is that it is a non-starter. In 2005 Conservative Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland, James Gray MP, suggested the same policy of dual-mandate governance as UKIP. So conscious were the Conservatives of Scottish public opinion on the matter that he was forced to resign shortly afterwards. It is almost impossible to imagine a scenario by which the Scots or Welsh will give up home rule, and equally impossible to imagine a scenario in which Westminster can impose dual-mandate MPs upon them.

Given that fact I'm afraid that UKIP have devised a policy that is superficially equitable but unachievable (because at least one of the English, Scottish, Welsh or Northen Irish public will not consent to it) and which, even if it could be implemented, is unworkable in practice. Not that this matters to UKIP because they haven't got a snowflake's hope in hell of forming a government.

If you want a real belly laugh, take a read of UKIP's 'Restoring Britishness' policy statement attached.

The Lib Dems respond to my email to Nick Clegg.

Many thanks for contacting Nick Clegg. I'm replying to letters and emails on his behalf.

Liberal Democrats believe that Britain needs a constitution which would set out fundamental rights and the power and nature of the key institutions of government, which would require a special procedure to change. We would therefore involve the British people in producing this written constitution. We would give people the power to determine this constitution (setting out individual rights and limiting the power of the state) in a convention made up of members of the public and parliamentarians of all parties and none.

We recognise that devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland poses difficult questions for the governance of England within the Union. I think it’s important to be honest about the fact that it is difficult to find an immediate solution. The idea of ‘English votes for English laws’ is extremely complicated to implement – particularly because many laws actually extend to England only in some parts, while covering other parts of the UK in other areas. Given the fact that changes in spending on English services which would be devolved in the rest of the UK directly affect the devolved administration’s budgets, it is also often the case that ‘English’ legislation actually will affect devolved issues outside of England.

We believe that we can only really deal with this question by looking at it as part of the wider political system. We need to do more, first of all, to give more power to people locally in England – so that they, too, have more control over their own affairs rather than being micromanaged from Whitehall. We want to give local communities real power over their health services and policing, through fairly elected local health boards and police authorities – as well as freeing the hands of local councils, removing power from Westminster and Whitehall. Ultimately, we want to move towards a federal United Kingdom – devolving power within England further and thus resolving this question.

Thank you once again for contacting us.

Best wishes,

Bess Mayhew
Office of Nick Clegg
Leader of the Liberal Democrats

I wonder why they won't agree to letting England decide how it wishes to be governed. Perhaps the answer lies here.

A party that was truly liberal and democratic would agree to an English constitutional convention and referendum.

John Osmond at the Institute of Welsh Affairs relates that the Speaker’s Conference of 1920 was able to agree on the areas in which devolved legislatures should be established:

On this last point the crucial agreement was that the principle of nationality should be fundamental and so the Conference decided that England should not be divided. In short, therefore, the Conference opted for a British federation , made up of England, Scotland, Ulster and Wales.

It seems that Speaker Lowther himself favoured what is today UKIP's solution: Dual Mandate MPs.

...another explanation why the Speaker’s Conference led nowhere, was that it failed to agree on whether the devolved legislatures should be directly elected. Suggesting that the territories should be represented by Grand Committees of their MPs meeting in Cardiff, Edinburgh, Belfast, and London Speaker Lowther explained:

“The more I considered the proposal of one supreme and four independent legislatures, the less I liked it. The confusions that might arise, the multiplicity of elections, the novelty of five prime Ministers and Cabinets of probably divergent views, the enormous expense of building four new sets of Parliamentary buildings and Government offices and providing all the paraphernalia of administrations, frightened by economical soul.”

It's the dual mandate MP solution to the West Lothian Question that these days gets certain Tories the sack. The Conservative Party being smart enough to understand what UKIP cannot: There is no going back; the Scots will not abolish their MSPs.

Read on and comment here.

On the always stimulating Our Kingdom website ("a conversation on the future of the United Kingdom", part of the City University’s OpenDemocracy network) there’s an interesting if somewhat academic debate in progress about the implications for the whole of the UK of a referendum in Scotland on Scottish independence (whatever its result), and the disintegration of the United Kingdom which Scottish independence would entail. This stems from a post by Gerry Hassan, "The long march to Scotland’s independence referendum". Gerry Hassan is a writer, researcher, policy analyst and associate at the think-tank Demos. What follows is based on my comments contributed to the debate at Our Kingdom.

For many of us the destruction by Scottish secession of the United Kingdom, or at any rate Britain, the country which for all its faults claims our loyalty and in my case, anyway, my affection, would be a tragedy for all the people of all its four constituent parts. I am English, of English, German Lutheran and Polish Jewish ancestry, but for me Scotland and Wales (and equally but in a different way Northern Ireland) are just as much part of my national heritage, ingredients in my national history and culture, as England is. Scots, Irish people and Welshmen simply aren’t foreigners in my book, and never can be, whatever constitutional changes might occur, any more than Queenslanders can be foreigners to the people of New South Wales when they are all Australians, any more than Californians can be foreigners to Vermont people when they are all Americans.

What this signifies to me is that it is now quite urgently necessary to consider possible alternatives to the break-up of the UK into its component nations, in ways that would meet most of the legitimate aspirations (and grievances) of the people of all four nations. It’s fairly clear that the distinctive identities of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, plus their common ownership of the United Kingdom, need to be translated into a new constitutional dispensation under which each of the four nations governs itself by democratic right (i.e. not by kind permission of some authority in Westminster, or anywhere else) in all their internal domestic affairs, from the criminal law to education to taxation, each – necessarily including England — with its own separate elected parliament and government (which three of the four of course already have). The four entrust to a single elected authority, comprising a separate central government and legislature, those things which they agree are best run collectively on behalf of all of them: mainly foreign affairs and defence, with collaborative arrangements for revenue allocation and some transfer of resources from the richer to the poorer areas of the kingdom. The division of powers between the four self-governing nations and the upwardly-devolved centre would be defined in a written constitution administered by a central supreme court. The dominance of England as by far the biggest and richest of the four nations, now almost unfettered except by convention, would need to be formally limited, probably by turning the House of Lords as the second chamber of the all-UK parliament into an elected ‘house of the nations’ — call it a Senate — in which all four nations have equal representation, so that English representatives on their own can never out-vote those of the other three nations.

We could call this novel arrangement "a federation". The Australians, Germans, Americans, Canadians, Swiss and several other nationals of functioning democracies might even agree to offer us some useful tips on how to make our federation work, if we asked them nicely. It would, by the way, give Scotland virtually all the advantages of full independence with none of the disadvantages; it would answer the West Lothian question, although not in quite the way that Tam Dalyell, its distinguished author, would approve; it would cure the whole of the UK of its congenital over-centralism; it would complete the half-finished process of devolution while reversing its top-down power trajectory, and remove its present inchoate[1] anomalies. It would take at least 20 years to complete the transformation. It would be a bumpy but exhilarating ride. It would be worth the wait and the effort.

It’s hard to be sure about the reasons for the extreme reluctance of the political and media establishments even to discuss the possibility of moving to a fully federal system, despite the fact that it would solve so many problems and that the availability of a better alternative to the disintegration of our country is daily becoming more urgent. With devolution we are half-way into a federation already, and most of the serious anomalies that have resulted (encapsulated in the West Lothian question) are due to our failure to complete the process.

I suspect that a large part of the resistance to the idea of federation stems from dislike of the idea of England having its own elected parliament and government, separate from the existing Westminster parliament and government. These would automatically become the new federal institutions, much smaller and with greatly reduced powers (mainly over foreign affairs and defence). A separate English government would inevitably wield more real power, although only in England, than the downsized federal government at Westminster, not an attractive proposition for current Westminster politicians with their romantic fantasy of a Westminster parliament and executive with unlimited ’sovereign’ powers. Persuading politicians to give up some of their powers and status is always going to be an uphill task. They should, though, take heart from the reality that the federal governments and legislatures of existing democratic federations, such as the President and Congress of the United States, enjoy far more international and even national prestige, despite their limited powers, than those of the component states that comprise their federations.

I surmise that there are at least four other major obstacles to the required all-party consensus in favour of movement to an eventual federation: (1) It’s too radical for our timid politicos; (2) It would take at least a couple of decades to complete the process, and our political leaders’ congenital short-termism prevents them from looking that far ahead; (3) There’s a cosmic ignorance in the Westminster village and among its attendant media clowns of other democratic countries’ constitutional arrangements, and a deeply ingrained reluctance to learn from them, so every problem that crops up in the course of change requires us laboriously to re-invent the wheel; and (4) The federal idea requires a capacity for a vision of a different way for the nations of the UK to govern themselves — moreover in a new and unfamiliar democratic relationship with each other; and our politicians (with a few rare exceptions) don’t do vision.

Time to wake up before it’s too late.

[1] Inchoate: "Recently started but not fully formed yet; just begun; only elementary or immature." Unconnected with 'incoherent' or 'chaotic', except in (frequent) error.

Note: This is a re-post of a piece on the writer's own blog, at http://www.barder.com/2066. It has also been posted on the LabourList website as http://bit.ly/4a3rr9. Brian would like to emphasise that his support for a parliament and government for England is entirely in the context of the case for a federation of the four UK nations, designed to strengthen and democratise the bonds that unite them, and that it in no way implies his support for the separation of England or any of the other UK nations from the Union.