Heathrow Third Runway

Six English councils, Greenpeace and the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England have overturned plans for a third runway at Heathrow Airport, which Gordon Brown had tried to impose on England using the votes of Scottish and Northern Irish MPs.

Labour MP John McDonnell commented, "This judgment is a victory. It means that whichever party is in government they will not now be able to force through Heathrow expansion."

John, I think you'll find that it was only the Labour Party that was trying to force it through, with a little help from the DUP, who were bribed.

Lord Adonis:

Speaking exclusively to The Herald, [Adonis] predicted a steady erosion in the more than 100 weekday flights that currently exist between London and Scotland over the next decade in the event of a Conservative election victory.

“If the Tories were to win and Heathrow did not expand, then this would seriously disadvantage Scotland,” he said.

“It would create more pressure on landing slots at Heathrow and there is a real danger that airlines would divert those slots to larger, long-distance planes that give them greater revenue.”

By strange coincidence it was Scottish MPs who helped win the third runway vote for Gordon Brown. English MPs voted against it (see: Heathrow third runway: Flying in the face of English democracy & Heathrow Third Runway: How they voted).

Shouldn't we be aiming to reduce internal flights anyway?

Today the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England takes the Government to court to prevent the the village of Sipson (from the Anglo-Saxon Sibbwines tūn = “Sibbwine’s farmstead”) and vast tracts of English green belt being wiped off the map as a result of Gordon Brown's anti-democratic mobilisation of Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs.

From the CPRE's website:

The coalition’s lawyers will be claiming in court that the consultation process was fundamentally flawed and that the decision to expand Heathrow is at odds with the UK’s overall climate change targets. If they win, the Government’s decision to proceed with the runway will be overturned.

Shaun Spiers, CPRE's Chief Executive said:

"Proceeding with the third runway would destroy not just a village and a large swathe of Green Belt but also tranquillity over a much wider area. Countryside, parks and gardens in and beyond north and west London would fall under the shadow of new flight paths and the din of thousands of extra flights."

See the CEP press release.

The latest CEP Press Release quotes me:

The Campaign for an English Parliament has noted that last Wednesday's vote on a third runway at Heathrow Airport was won for the Government by MPs elected outside England. English constituency MPs rejected the third runway by a margin of 20 votes but a phalanx of Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs trooped through the lobby to win the day for the Government, overturning, in the process, the democratic will of England.

According to one Labour rebel a “tearful and dewy eyed” Prime Minister had called wavering Labour MPs into his office to tell them that losing this vote would “de-stabilise the Government and de-stabilise the markets”. In the event 52% of English MPs voted against the Government, 48% with the Government. But MPs elected outside England were a different matter altogether, of these MPs only 29% voted against the Government, with a whopping 71% supporting the building of a new £13bn runway on top of the ancient English village of Sipson.

Across the country the general public opposed the third runway by a margin of 13% (YouGov), so English MPs appear to be better reflecting public opinion than non-English MPs who fly in the face of it. So why the disparity? The Constitution Unit at University College London may have the answer. Between May 2005 and June 2007 CU researchers analysed data from almost 500 votes in the House of Commons. It revealed that Scottish Labour backbenchers rebelled in an average of 1.8% of votes, compared to an average of 3.4% for their English counterparts and 1.9% among Welsh MPs.

According to the Constitution Unit the “most significant factor” in explaining this phenomenon is that Scots MPs vote through unpopular Government measures that do not apply north of the Border because they face no external pressure from their constituents or local party.

“It would be wrong to suggest that Scottish electors do not care about the issues surrounding the Heathrow debate”, said Gareth Young, in a message to CEP members, “but we have to recognise that they elect a Minister to the Scottish Parliament to represent them on Transport, Planning and the Environment (planning is a devolved matter); so a Scottish Westminster MP looking to advance his career by voting with the Government can be reasonably sure that his constituents will disregard his voting record on these matters.

“There is the small matter of the Barnett consequentials too, Scotland stands to rake in up to £130 million from this, to spend on whatever they want without the interference of English MPs.

“The presence of non-English MPs in the parliament that governs England not only allows them to foist unpopular measures on England, but also helps to stabilise an unpopular and unwanted government; compromising England's right to pick the government of its choosing, and lessening our chances of kicking out a government that we don’t want.”

Jon Craig describes how a tearful and dewy-eyed prime minister rallied his troops to help him concrete over England:

Gordon Brown came close to crashing to defeat on a Tory motion calling for a rethink on plans for a third runway at Heathrow.

The arithmetic looks like this: the Government won by 297 votes to 278, its majority of around 60 slashed to just 19. But the story behind the vote is more dramatic and colourful. First, Labour MPs claim a "tearful and dewy eyed" Prime Minister called the Labour waverers into his Commons office one by one and pleaded with them to back the Government. "If we lose this vote it will de-stabilise the Government and de-stabilise the markets," said the embattled Prime Minister, according to one MP who voted with the Tories despite the emotional appeal.

My quick calculations tell me that of the non-English MPs that voted, 72 voted 'No' with the Government and 29 voted 'Aye' against the Government. Basically Gordon Brown mobilised his Scottish and Welsh chums against England, and chucked in the DUP for good measure.

...just hours after a Democratic Unionist MP received a sympathetic response from Gordon Brown at PMQs to a plea to jettison controversial plans to compensate families of terrorists in Northern Ireland as well as their victims, five of the nine DUP MPs voted with the Government. You'll recall that the DUP rescued the PM from defeat in the Commons vote on 42-day detention for terror suspects last year. This time, without those five votes - leader Peter Robinson, ex-leader Ian Paisley, Willie McCrea, David Simpson and Sammy Wilson - the Government's majority would have been in single figures.

And if only English MPs had voted the Government would have lost by 40-odd votes.

UPDATE:

Having now had time to look at the figures.

If only English MPs had voted the Government would have lost by 250 to 230 votes, a margin of 20 votes.

Taking just the votes of non-English constituency MPs, 28 voted with the Government and 67 against.

Therefore 52% of English MPs voted against the Government and 48% voted with the Government.

And 29% of non-English MPs voted against the Government and 71% voted with the Government.

Across the country the general public are opposed to a third runway by a margin of 13%, so English constituency MPs appear to be better reflecting public opinion while non-English constituency MPs are flying in the face of public opinion. Why the disparity? The Constitution Unit at University College London may have the answer. Between May 2005 and June 2007 CU researchers analysed data from almost 500 votes in the House of Commons. It revealed that Scottish Labour backbenchers rebelled in an average of 1.8% of votes, compared to an average of 3.4% for their English counterparts and 1.9% among Welsh MPs.

According to the Constitution Unit the "most significant factor" in explaining this phenomenon is that Scots MPs vote through unpopular Government measures that do not apply north of the Border because they face no external pressure from their constituents or local party.

It would be wrong to suggest that Scottish electors do not care about the issues surrounding the Heathrow debate, but the fact is that they elect an MSP to the Scottish Parliament to represent them on Transport, Planning and the Environment. Therefore, a Scottish MP looking to advance his career by voting with the Government can be reasonably sure that his constituents will disregard his voting record on matters that have no direct effect upon Scotland.

Perhaps the most famous case of Scottish MPs overturning the legitimate democratic wishes of England was the controversial 2004 top-up fees vote which the Government won by five votes. What really rankled was not the fact that Scottish MPs had overturned the wishes of English MPs on a matter that concerned England, nor even that New Labour had reneged on their 2001 Manifesto pledge: “We will not introduce 'top-up' fees and have legislated to prevent them”. No, what really rankled was the rank hypocrisy of the Scottish Labour Party which opposed top-up fees in Scotland yet voted for them in England.

The Leader of the Labour Group in Scotland is Iain Gray MSP. However, thanks to a quirk of the Labour Party constitution, the Leader of the Labour Party in Scotland is Gordon Brown, who also happens to be the Leader of the UK Party. The interesting thing about Gordon Brown's leadership of both the Scottish and UK Labour parties is that he might well pursue polar opposite social policies for Scotland and England. It's very likely that Gordon Brown will be defeated in a general election, or ousted from power by his own party, before another vote as contentious as the top-up fees vote comes along, but if not he could find himself in the invidious position of proposing progressive policies for Scotland and punitive measures for England.

The rationale for this behaviour is that Scotland should be allowed to pursue policy choices that are different from England, that are right for Scotland, and which command popular support in Scotland. Few people can have any argument with that. But surely England too should be allowed to decide for itself, to decide what is right for England in accordance with our democratic wishes. So why then do Scottish MPs vote on our legislation? No one in Scotland votes for Gordon Brown to represent them in areas like Health and Education because those are matters for MSPs in the Scottish Parliament, and no one in England votes for him to represent their interests on those policy areas either. So by what right does he govern and vote on Health and Education in England?

Anyone?

There are those that believe that too much is made of this so-called 'West Lothian Question'. The English can live with the odd piece of legislation going against their democratic wishes every now and then – for the sake of the Union. And perhaps they are right, perhaps we can tolerate it.

But it's not just the odd bit of unwanted legislation that is foisted upon England, it's an entire government. Non-English MPs prop up an unpopular and unwanted government that governs England in its entirety. Votes like top-up fees, foundation hospitals, 42-days detention and the third runway at Heathrow were only won with the aid of non-English MPs. Losing votes like these is what breaks governments. And when you consider that the Conservatives won the plurality of the English vote at the last general election, you begin to see how very undemocratic our system is. Not only is England denied the government of its choosing, the chances of us kicking out the government that we don't want is compromised by the very presence of non-English MPs in the parliament that governs us.

Do we just ban non-English MPs from voting on English legislation, or do we also ban them from the electoral college that selects and sustains our government; English votes, or an English parliament?

Should Scottish MPs be permitted in Cabinet, to govern England now that Scotland has a government of its own; or should there be separate English and UK executives?

And should we also bar Northern Irish MPs on the same basis, and the Welsh too if the Assembly gets legislative power?

These are the stark choices that the national conversation must tackle and I'm sure we all look forward to hearing Ed Milliband's thoughts on the matter. He's tipped as a future leader you know!

First there was the resignation of David Davis, then the arrest of Damian Green. Now, step forward John McDonnell in "Mace protest":

I sit in the chamber watching a little drama unfold. It illustrates quite how monumentally useless our Parliament has become.

The government announces there will be a third runway at Heathrow. But there's to be no decision by those we elect. It'll be decided by the quangos.

A Labour MP, the chap for Hayes and Harlington, gets angry at the total inability to hold the decision-makers to account. As his anger grows, I see a man who seems to finally understand that he and the chamber in which he sits hold no purpose.

He snaps. He walks down, picks up the Mace and puts it aside. His dignity intact

The BBC has a video of McDonnell snapping. Great to see English MPs from both sides of the House realising the futility of parliament under the authoritarian Scottish Raj.

John McDonnell, and EnoughsEnough, might like to consider the fact that the lives of Gordon Brown's own constituents are not blighted by the same planning laws that New Labour created in order to concrete over England.

"Gordon Brown has introduced a Bill specifically designed to circumvent current planning law and force a third runway through" - Susan Kramer MP

The village of Sipson (from the Anglo-Saxon Sibbwines tūn = "Sibbwine's farmstead") will be wiped off the map by Gordon Brown's runway.