Progressive Alliance

Writing on Open Unionism, Arthur Aughey reveals that he feared for the future of the UK in the aftermath of the general election.

The only moment that I felt the Union was in danger recently was when credence was given to the absurd proposal for a ‘progressive coalition’ which would have put the fate of the United Kingdom government into the hands of the nationalist parties and made the Union a bazaar – or bizarre – of Celtic bargains which would have outraged England and provoked disaster.

Arthur was right to be concerned, a progressive alliance which called upon non-English MPs to govern England would have provoked disaster, outraging England and driving English Conservatives into the arms of English nationalism. It didn't happen, but for a while watching millions believed that the anti-English alliance was on the cards.

The Conservative answer to the English Question is "English Votes on English Laws". But in actual fact that is an answer to the West Lothian Question rather than the English Question; English Votes on English Laws does not offer England the form of government of its choosing and neither does it assure England of the government it voted for. It merely prevents non-English MPs voting on England-only legislation once the multi-national UK Parliament, elected by the United Kingdom public, has decided who the government of England should be.

If a convention of English Votes on English Laws had been in place before the 2010 general election, the progressive alliance would still have been a possibility, it would just have been a lame duck government insofar as England was concerned, unable to command an English majority on English legislation. The temptation would have been to overturn the "English Votes on English Laws" convention or run the election again.

Psephologists inform us that majority governments will become less common in the future - hung parliaments more frequent - so the situation that we found ourselves in after 6th May, if combined with an ongoing absence of English government, is a phenomenon whose potential to destablise the Union is only just being realised.

Commenting upon Arthur's article O'Neill claims that the "2010 General Election was not a good one for the nationalist forces in the three devolved parts of the UK". It's way too early to draw that conclusion in my opinion, even if the separatist parties were disappointed by their share of the vote.

The four nations of the UK should not be viewed in isolation because our Union is a union in flux, it is a dynamic political construct undergoing revision, and whose future is dependent on public opinion in the four component parts and the interplay between those parts. However, let's briefly consider where we are in light of the general election result in each of those parts.

In England the majority party has backed down from its 10-year promise to introduce English Votes on English Laws in favour of a commission to consider the West Lothian Question. We do not yet know the details of this commission but if it is done properly and opened up to the public, instead of being a Westminster stitch-up, it could be the beginnings of a national conversation on England that paves the way to an English claim to popular sovereignty. Millions of English people were made aware of the anti-democratic influence of non-English MPs when the spectre of a 'progressive alliance' was raised, and millions too will watch with envious eyes as the Scots debate 'devolution-max' and the Welsh debate a referendum on a Welsh parliament. The Labour and Liberal Democrat parties are aware that they have no mandate for England, and the Conservatives are aware that their mandate for England is compromised by England's place in the Union. At the moment the three parties prefer to ignore England, rarely mentioning it by name, but this will change as pressure is brought to bear to force them to start speaking for and of England. A distinctive English polity and political language will certainly become a reality if Wales opts for its own parliament.

In Scotland the Scots now find themselves governed by a party that won a majority of seats in England but which remains deeply unpopular in Scotland. The 80s revival continues with cries of "No mandate". Scotland may be allowed to defer on its share of the £6bn public spending cuts until after next year's elections to the Scottish Parliament, allowing the Westminster coalition government time to progress with implementation of the Calman Commission recommendations with a view to limiting a Scottish backlash against the Scottish Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties in 2011. But the SNP will want to tie the Calman recommendations into a multi-option referendum that includes their preferred option of independence, which presents the Unionist parties with something of a public relations nightmare. The strategic question of 'what next for the Tories in Scotland?' may need to take a back seat to the more pressing tactical demand of pushing through the Calman proposals and absolving Westminster of as much responsibility for Scotland as possible.

In Wales the Tories do not know what they stand for: do they support further devolved powers or not? Conservative and Liberal Democrat Assembly Members generally side with the Welsh public in supporting a Welsh Parliament with primary legislative powers, but the Conservative Party at large will only commit to supporting a referendum on the issue, and even then they are non-commital. There is opportunity here to divide Conservative from Liberal Democrat and Welsh Conservative from Westminster Conservative. It is in Wales that the Barnett Formula comes under most pressure for reform, with all sides agreeing that it is unfair on Wales, and with most in agreement that a needs-based formula would be desirable. However, a needs-based formula would cost Scotland £4.5bn a year, and a formula that did not use English spending as a baseline for determining the block grants to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland would remove the only logical rationale that underpins the right of non-English MPs to vote on England-only legislation (non-English MPs have a right to vote on 'English legislation' because it determines the spend in England and, therefore, the consequential grants to the devolved nations). Reform of Barnett is not straightforward, it is an unfairness that has been a vital component of the Unionists' armoury for years.

In Northern Ireland David Cameron's attempt to make the Ulster Unionist Party a political force to bolster Tory England have backfired spectacularly, undermining their credentials as a party of the Union (credentials that Scotland already placed in some doubt). It will pain Arthur and O'Neill to read this, but so long as Northern Ireland remains relatively peaceful it is something of an irrelevance. The province is regarded as a special case and should not unduly influence the dynamic between England, Scotland and Wales in the minds of the British public. Among our Union of peoples it is the Northern Irish who are regarded as 'most foreign' by the others, something that Unionists in Ulster might bear in mind when demanding special treatment in regard to the funding cuts that are to come. David Trimble, who was instrumental behind the scenes in formulating David Cameron's rhetoric about Britishness and the Union, will hopefully be sidelined in light of Conservative failure in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

The general election has not solved any of the problems highlighted above, it has merely raised them anew and provoked a reinvigorated clamour for their resolution. One thing is for sure, the Status Quo is not an option, neither in regard to the territorial dimension of our governance or to our common governance by the thoroughly discredited Westminster parliament. O'Neill may be correct to say that the 2010 General Election was not a good one for the nationalist forces in the three devolved parts of the UK, but he might have made a more persuasive case in arguing that the 2010 general election was not a good one for British nationalists: Unionists.

There is much to play for and too many players to take anything for granted.

The best result that the Campaign for an English Parliament could have hoped for from this general election was a minority Labour Government, perhaps bolstered by coalition with the Scottish and Welsh nationalists, able to impose itself on an England only by virtue of MPs elected outside England's borders.

That result would have woken England up.

In the end England sensibly rejected Labour, confounded predictions by rejecting the Lib Dems too, and handed the Conservatives a majority of 62 seats. However, even though, as Mrs Rigby says, England does not look like a country that needs to be negotiating a power-sharing agreement, David Cameron is locked in a room with Nick Clegg cutting deals about government policy on England because he cannot command a majority across the UK.

Cameron only has himself to blame, he is on record as saying "I do not want to be the prime minister of England". And because he does not support the creation of an English parliament and government, Cameron can have few complaints about being prevented from governing the country that sustains his party, and nor should he protest too much about being prevented from creating his 'Big Society' in England when he cannot form a government for the nation that voted for it.

But although Cameron can have no complaint, the people of England can have just complaint.

According to David Cameron his "Unionism goes very deep" and he will "never do anything to put it [the Union] at risk". Defence of the Union is the first instinct of David Cameron and should be the first priority of his Conservative and Unionist government, as it was for Abraham Lincoln who regarded the preservation of the American Union as more important than measures against slavery, and defended it by bloody civil war.

My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. - Abraham Lincoln

This is not unthinking patriotism, but it is my country - The Union - right or wrong. Whatever, if anything, Cameron does about England, he will only do because he believes it helps him save the Union. It is therefore the job of the Campaign for an English Parliament to undermine the Union, to force Cameron into addressing the English Question for fear that to do otherwise would be to create a crescendo of English grievances about our anomalous constitutional position in the Union.

Ironically, given his Unionist passion, it is David Cameron himself who is the biggest threat to the Union; a Conservative government was always going to be the acid test of Labour's lop-sided devolution settlement, and given this election result and the economic conditions it most certainly will be. Devolution was supposed to buffer Scotland against the policies of Tory England. It was supposed reduce the democratic deficit and silence the cries of "No Mandate" that were heard under Thatcher and Major. But with only one Scottish MP and with a general perception in Scotland that the Tories are anti-Scottish (a perception helped in no small part by Scottish Labour's negative general election campaign) Cameron will find Scotland to be a surly, demonstrative and uncooperative member of his precious Union. A Tory government is a godsend for Scottish nationalists, and polls indicate that Scots will be more likely to support independence when confronted with a Tory Government.

The main thrust of the Campaign for an English Parliament's argument should be popular sovereignty for England and a 'national conversation' on England so that we can discuss and decide how we wish to be governed.

The United Kingdom is almost unique among the world's states (Canada is the other exception that springs to mind) in that it is based on the principle of consent and self-determination. The most obvious UK example and precedent for this principle is the legal status of Northern Ireland.

It is hereby declared that Northern Ireland remains part of Her Majesty's dominions and of the United Kingdom, and it is hereby affirmed that in no event will Northern Ireland or any part of it cease to be part of Her Majesty's dominions and of the United Kingdom without the consent of a majority of the people of Northern Ireland voting in a poll held for the purpose of this section and in accordance to Schedule 1 of this Act.

What applies to Northern Ireland must of course, logic dictates, apply equally in principle to the other nations of the UK.

The people of Scotland also have their own less formal popular sovereignty. It does not have legal status but it has been publicly upheld by numerous politicians from Donald Dewar to Alex Salmond and Gordon Brown to David
Cameron, most notably (for two of those) in the Scottish Claim of Right 1988.

If Wales wants to take a similar constitutional path to Scotland by creating its own parliament with primary legislative powers, then it too may be well served by asserting 'we the people'. Which would leave England in an anomalous position of being the only part of the UK which makes no claim to the principle of self-determination.

Such an affirmation of popular sovereignty need not be the death knell for the Union. What Unionists like David Cameron and Gordon Brown need to recognise is that 'we the people' can be an affirmation of the Union as much as it can be a call to separatism. Unfortunately due to the asymmetric nature of constitutional reform - holding referendums in different parts of the United Kingdom on separate occasions, on different questions, and in denial of England - the various reforms do not affirm the Union, they simply reinforce the impression that it is a union in flux and that piecemeal power grabs from the centre is the way forward (with each grab increasing England's democratic deficit).

That the Union is in flux is testified to by the fact that the Conservative Manifesto states that they will draw up their own white paper on Scottish devolution (as an alternative to Calman) and "will not stand in the way" of a referendum on a Welsh parliament, allowing the Scots and Welsh to consent to the Union whilst improving their powers of self-governance.

Logically the principle of consent also applies to England, it's just that Westminster prefers to ignore that inconvenient truth for the moment. But the Union is based on the principle of consent, and therefore any stable Union settlement must be based on actual consent (referendums) or implied consent (a lack of interest in changing the Status Quo).

At the moment their argument for England's place in the Union stands on the platform of implied consent - they say that there is no demand for an English parliament, even though there is plenty of evidence to suggest otherwise.

The CEP's argument must first be for English popular sovereignty, which we hope would include a referendum on an English parliament; and second, it should be an argument for a stable Union settlement - possibly federal - which we would argue is impossible without English consent. Unfortunately, given the intransigent Status Quo-ism of Westminster, we find ourselves in the unenviable position of needing to whip up English grievance to undermine the Union in order that they acede to the logic of England's right to decide how we wish to be governed within the Union. Or, alternatively, we encourage Scottish and Welsh nationalists efforts to further destabilise the Union.

The potential of English nationalism to upset the Union balance is one that Alex Salmond is all too aware of, hence his kind offer to Labour and the Lib Dems of a rainbow, anti-Tory (anti-England?), alliance.

Such a 'progressive alliance' of Labour, Lib Dem, SNP, Plaid Cymru, SDLP and Green would provide Gordon Brown with an overall majority of two MPs. It would be an incredibly weak government that could serve no useful purpose other than to drive the Conservatives into the embrace of English nationalists. That's fine by me and Alex but probably not something that Brown and Clegg would want a part in. Hilariously, idiots like the Guardian's Jackie Ashley have seized upon this coalition as a once in a lifetime chance to deliver electoral reform (and screw England into the bargain).

A Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition would have an overall majority of 37 MPs, 24 of which will have been elected outside England, thereby reducing the working majority to just 7 if a self-denying ordinance is observed on English matters as it has been (when it suits him) by David Mundell, still the loneliest man in Westminster. It is therefore not beyond the realms of possibility that an informal Tory-Lib Dem coalition would require the use of MPs elected outside England to be assured of getting England-only Government legislation through the House, especially now that the SNP have shrewdly indicated that they will ditch their observance of a self-denying ordinance in the event of a Tory government.

If the Cameron and Clegg talks fail, then instead of some sort of coalition we might yet end up with a Tory minority government, in which case I imagine that the Labour and Lib Dem parties will have to think long and hard about using the votes of non-English MPs on issues that should by rights be devolved to an English parliament.

It would probably be sensible for Labour and the Lib Dems non-English MPs to observe a self-denying ordinance on English issues rather than goad the Tories into pushing 'English Votes on English Laws' through Westminster, a move that might force Labour and the Lib Dems into using Scottish and Welsh MPs to prevent the Tories from implementing 'English Votes on English Laws'.

A Tory minority Government may find itself in the invidious position of deploying its one Scottish MP, its 8 Welsh MPs and 8 DUP MPs to vote on England-only legislation, thereby doing exactly what they accused Labour of doing over tuition fees and foundation hospitals.

Cameron's minority Government would inevitably invite attack from the SNP, who would ditch their policy of self-denying ordinance on English legislation in order to raise the West Lothian Question and whip up English resentment. The SNP will defend this action, quite justifiably, on the basis that they are protecting the Scottish budget from Tory cuts, and they may well be joined by Plaid Cymru and Ulster MPs unless Cameron can provide additional funding for the devolved nations at England's expense.

The non-English parts of the Union will extract their price for not bringing down a minority Tory Government.

It is for this reason that I think David Cameron will pull out all the stops in order to co-opt Nick Clegg's Lib Dems into coalition. Without the Lib Dems' numbers and Scottish MPs, Cameron's Government will be at the mercy of the West Lothian Question and vulnerable to extortion by groups from the devolved nations.

There is now a political consensus from all three party leaders for strengthening Parliament against the Executive. In delivering a hung parliament the British public have obliged by strengthening Parliament's hand and ensuring government by compromise, ignoring by doing so Cameron's plea that we needed the 'strong government' that only a Tory majority could deliver.

There is also a developing consensus for electoral reform, and many on the Left see this issue, rather than 'The English Question', as the real democratic unfairness.

If he goes for a minority Tory Government, David Cameron will be accused of putting Conservative (and perhaps English) interests before the interests of the country [the Union]. And he will be putting the Union at risk by doing so, setting Tory England against the others. He needs the Lib Dems on board to provide a Scottish mandate and to prevent the West Lothian Question provoking a constitutional crisis that could endanger the Union. For this reason he must offer the Lib Dems something on electoral reform, and the Lib Dems would be mad not to hold out for a cast iron guarantee on a referendum.

The proportional representation that the Lib Dems favour would end the rotating bipartisan elective dictatorship that has been enjoyed by the Conservative and Labour parties since the Thirties. It would greatly diminish the likelihood of the 'strong government' of the kind that Cameron favours, and it would also diminish the likelihood of future Conservative governments. It would however be fairer. And it would mitigate the West Lothian Question by providing a more representative parliament - providing the Tories with several Scottish MPs.

Proportional representation is the price that Cameron must pay in order to govern without putting the Union at risk. Failure to do the deal with Clegg makes a mockery of his claim that he will do nothing that endangers the Union. Proportional representation will not answer the West Lothian Question, much less the English Question, but it will lessen its potential to bring down minority governments and destablise the Union, and in the short-term the promise of a referendum will provide the strong-ish government that is so desperately required.

So it's either PR (which, as Guy Lodge says, will replace the Conservative's English power-base with fewer Conservative MPs more widely distributed) or it's an English parliament.

What's it to be Dave?

Cross-posted from English Parliament online.

Only Proportional Representation or an English Parliament will save the Union.

The best result that the Campaign for an English Parliament could have hoped for from this general election was a minority Labour Government, perhaps bolstered by coalition with the Scottish and Welsh nationalists, able to impose itself on an England only by virtue of MPs elected outside England's borders.

That result would have woken England up.

In the end England sensibly rejected Labour, confounded predictions by rejecting the Lib Dems too, and handed the Conservatives a majority of 62 seats. However, even though, as Mrs Rigby says, England does not look like a country that needs to be negotiating a power-sharing agreement, David Cameron is locked in a room with Nick Clegg cutting deals about government policy on England because he cannot command a majority across the UK.

Cameron only has himself to blame, he is on record as saying "I do not want to be the prime minister of England". And because he does not support the creation of an English parliament and government, Cameron can have few complaints about being prevented from governing the country that sustains his party, and nor should he protest too much about being prevented from creating his 'Big Society' in England when he cannot form a government for the nation that voted for it.

But although Cameron can have no complaint, the people of England can have just complaint.

According to David Cameron his "Unionism goes very deep" and he will "never do anything to put it [the Union] at risk". Defence of the Union is the first instinct of David Cameron and should be the first priority of his Conservative and Unionist government, as it was for Abraham Lincoln who regarded the preservation of the American Union as more important than measures against slavery, and defended it by bloody civil war.

My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. - Abraham Lincoln

This is not unthinking patriotism, but it is my country - The Union - right or wrong. Whatever, if anything, Cameron does about England, he will only do because he believes it helps him save the Union. It is therefore the job of the Campaign for an English Parliament to undermine the Union, to force Cameron into addressing the English Question for fear that to do otherwise would be to create a crescendo of English grievances about our anomalous constitutional position in the Union.

Ironically, given his Unionist passion, it is David Cameron himself who is the biggest threat to the Union; a Conservative government was always going to be the acid test of Labour's lop-sided devolution settlement, and given this election result and the economic conditions it most certainly will be. Devolution was supposed to buffer Scotland against the policies of Tory England. It was supposed reduce the democratic deficit and silence the cries of "No Mandate" that were heard under Thatcher and Major. But with only one Scottish MP and with a general perception in Scotland that the Tories are anti-Scottish (a perception helped in no small part by Scottish Labour's negative general election campaign) Cameron will find Scotland to be a surly, demonstrative and uncooperative member of his precious Union. A Tory government is a godsend for Scottish nationalists, and polls indicate that Scots will be more likely to support independence when confronted with a Tory Government.

The main thrust of the Campaign for an English Parliament's argument should be popular sovereignty for England and a 'national conversation' on England so that we can discuss and decide how we wish to be governed.

The United Kingdom is almost unique among the world's states (Canada is the other exception that springs to mind) in that it is based on the principle of consent and self-determination. The most obvious UK example and precedent for this principle is the legal status of Northern Ireland.

It is hereby declared that Northern Ireland remains part of Her Majesty's dominions and of the United Kingdom, and it is hereby affirmed that in no event will Northern Ireland or any part of it cease to be part of Her Majesty's dominions and of the United Kingdom without the consent of a majority of the people of Northern Ireland voting in a poll held for the purpose of this section and in accordance to Schedule 1 of this Act.

What applies to Northern Ireland must of course, logic dictates, apply equally in principle to the other nations of the UK.

The people of Scotland also have their own less formal popular sovereignty. It does not have legal status but it has been publicly upheld by numerous politicians from Donald Dewar to Alex Salmond and Gordon Brown to David
Cameron, most notably (for two of those) in the Scottish Claim of Right 1988.

If Wales wants to take a similar constitutional path to Scotland by creating its own parliament with primary legislative powers, then it too may be well served by asserting 'we the people'. Which would leave England in an anomalous position of being the only part of the UK which makes no claim to the principle of self-determination.

Such an affirmation of popular sovereignty need not be the death knell for the Union. What Unionists like David Cameron and Gordon Brown need to recognise is that 'we the people' can be an affirmation of the Union as much as it can be a call to separatism. Unfortunately due to the asymmetric nature of constitutional reform - holding referendums in different parts of the United Kingdom on separate occasions, on different questions, and in denial of England - the various reforms do not affirm the Union, they simply reinforce the impression that it is a union in flux and that piecemeal power grabs from the centre is the way forward (with each grab increasing England's democratic deficit).

That the Union is in flux is testified to by the fact that the Conservative Manifesto states that they will draw up their own white paper on Scottish devolution (as an alternative to Calman) and "will not stand in the way" of a referendum on a Welsh parliament, allowing the Scots and Welsh to consent to the Union whilst improving their powers of self-governance.

Logically the principle of consent also applies to England, it's just that Westminster prefers to ignore that inconvenient truth for the moment. But the Union is based on the principle of consent, and therefore any stable Union settlement must be based on actual consent (referendums) or implied consent (a lack of interest in changing the Status Quo).

At the moment their argument for England's place in the Union stands on the platform of implied consent - they say that there is no demand for an English parliament, even though there is plenty of evidence to suggest otherwise.

The CEP's argument must first be for English popular sovereignty, which we hope would include a referendum on an English parliament; and second, it should be an argument for a stable Union settlement - possibly federal - which we would argue is impossible without English consent. Unfortunately, given the intransigent Status Quo-ism of Westminster, we find ourselves in the unenviable position of needing to whip up English grievance to undermine the Union in order that they acede to the logic of England's right to decide how we wish to be governed within the Union. Or, alternatively, we encourage Scottish and Welsh nationalists efforts to further destabilise the Union.

The potential of English nationalism to upset the Union balance is one that Alex Salmond is all too aware of, hence his kind offer to Labour and the Lib Dems of a rainbow, anti-Tory (anti-England?), alliance.

Such a 'progressive alliance' of Labour, Lib Dem, SNP, Plaid Cymru, SDLP and Green would provide Gordon Brown with an overall majority of two MPs. It would be an incredibly weak government that could serve no useful purpose other than to drive the Conservatives into the embrace of English nationalists. That's fine by me and Alex but probably not something that Brown and Clegg would want a part in. Hilariously, idiots like the Guardian's Jackie Ashley have seized upon this coalition as a once in a lifetime chance to deliver electoral reform (and screw England into the bargain).

A Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition would have an overall majority of 37 MPs, 24 of which will have been elected outside England, thereby reducing the working majority to just 7 if a self-denying ordinance is observed on English matters as it has been (when it suits him) by David Mundell, still the loneliest man in Westminster. It is therefore not beyond the realms of possibility that an informal Tory-Lib Dem coalition would require the use of MPs elected outside England to be assured of getting England-only Government legislation through the House, especially now that the SNP have shrewdly indicated that they will ditch their observance of a self-denying ordinance in the event of a Tory government.

If the Cameron and Clegg talks fail, then instead of some sort of coalition we might yet end up with a Tory minority government, in which case I imagine that the Labour and Lib Dem parties will have to think long and hard about using the votes of non-English MPs on issues that should by rights be devolved to an English parliament.

It would probably be sensible for Labour and the Lib Dems non-English MPs to observe a self-denying ordinance on English issues rather than goad the Tories into pushing 'English Votes on English Laws' through Westminster, a move that might force Labour and the Lib Dems into using Scottish and Welsh MPs to prevent the Tories from implementing 'English Votes on English Laws'.

A Tory minority Government may find itself in the invidious position of deploying its one Scottish MP, its 8 Welsh MPs and 8 DUP MPs to vote on England-only legislation, thereby doing exactly what they accused Labour of doing over tuition fees and foundation hospitals.

Cameron's minority Government would inevitably invite attack from the SNP, who would ditch their policy of self-denying ordinance on English legislation in order to raise the West Lothian Question and whip up English resentment. The SNP will defend this action, quite justifiably, on the basis that they are protecting the Scottish budget from Tory cuts, and they may well be joined by Plaid Cymru and Ulster MPs unless Cameron can provide additional funding for the devolved nations at England's expense.

The non-English parts of the Union will extract their price for not bringing down a minority Tory Government.

It is for this reason that I think David Cameron will pull out all the stops in order to co-opt Nick Clegg's Lib Dems into coalition. Without the Lib Dems' numbers and Scottish MPs, Cameron's Government will be at the mercy of the West Lothian Question and vulnerable to extortion by groups from the devolved nations.

There is now a political consensus from all three party leaders for strengthening Parliament against the Executive. In delivering a hung parliament the British public have obliged by strengthening Parliament's hand and ensuring government by compromise, ignoring by doing so Cameron's plea that we needed the 'strong government' that only a Tory majority could deliver.

There is also a developing consensus for electoral reform, and many on the Left see this issue, rather than 'The English Question', as the real democratic unfairness.

If he goes for a minority Tory Government, David Cameron will be accused of putting Conservative (and perhaps English) interests before the interests of the country [the Union]. And he will be putting the Union at risk by doing so, setting Tory England against the others. He needs the Lib Dems on board to provide a Scottish mandate and to prevent the West Lothian Question provoking a constitutional crisis that could endanger the Union. For this reason he must offer the Lib Dems something on electoral reform, and the Lib Dems would be mad not to hold out for a cast iron guarantee on a referendum.

The proportional representation that the Lib Dems favour would end the rotating bipartisan elective dictatorship that has been enjoyed by the Conservative and Labour parties since the Thirties. It would greatly diminish the likelihood of the 'strong government' of the kind that Cameron favours, and it would also diminish the likelihood of future Conservative governments. It would however be fairer. And it would mitigate the West Lothian Question by providing a more representative parliament - providing the Tories with several Scottish MPs.

Proportional representation is the price that Cameron must pay in order to govern without putting the Union at risk. Failure to do the deal with Clegg makes a mockery of his claim that he will do nothing that endangers the Union. Proportional representation will not answer the West Lothian Question, much less the English Question, but it will lessen its potential to bring down minority governments and destablise the Union, and in the short-term the promise of a referendum will provide the strong-ish government that is so desperately required.

So it's either PR (which, as Guy Lodge says, will replace the Conservative's English power-base with fewer Conservative MPs more widely distributed) or it's an English parliament.

What's it to be Dave?