I mentioned Cromwell's speech to the Rump parliament when dismissing it for good the other day, and that I did not agree with his solutions. It got me thinking about historical precedents and I came, perhaps unsurprisingly, to the Chartists. The 1838 Chartist demands were:
- Universal male suffrage
- Secret ballots
- Parliamentary elections every year
- Constituencies of equal size
- Paid MPs
- The end of the property qualification for MPs
Five of these six demands have been fulfilled: we do not have annual elections and most might think that a good thing. But we have gone further. We have:
- Universal suffrage
- The voting age has been reduced to 21
- Representative government in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland
And yet so much that we would recognise as problematic in the parliamentary system remains in place:
- First past the post
- A two party system
- Seats that never change hands
- Tens of millions without an MP who represents their views and no chance that they will get one
- The continuing use of the Royal prerogative
- An unelected House of Lords
- Devolved parliaments with limited powers
- The diminishment of local government
- A patchy mayoral system with conflicts with other authorities implicit in it
- A loss of faith in the processes of government and democracy as a result
So what do we do about it? Is this the time for The New Chartist Movement? The New Chartist demands night be:
- Proportional representation on the basis of regional constituencies
- Universal suffrage from 16
- A Senate to replace the House of Lords
- A written constitution covering individual rights and the responsibilities of each tier of government
- A constitutional requirement to continually reduce income, wealth, regional and international inequality and to increase the share of GDP that goes to labour
Thoughts?
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Why do so many people want to replace the HoL with a Senate rather than just scrap it altogether?
I personally can think of nothing worse than the kind of political gridlock that you see in the
US.
I feel that there is reason to believe that a senate in the UK elected by PR would have more problems than those in many other countries, mainly due to a FPTP Commons.
Generally the left is more fragmented than the right and so the Conservatives may well control the Commons whilst a Labour coalition led in the Lords.
Furthermore I feel that a PR senate would further delay the possibility of a PR commons which is a more important goal.
I would like to suggest a compromise for the House of Lords, which would retain some of its faded grandeur, but give a reasonable level of democracy.
1) ALL peers should be entitled to speak in debate in the House of Lords, but only a limited number (say 200) should be entitled to vote. The advantage would be that peers with specialist knowledge, but who were not full-time politicians would be able to make an informed contribution.
2) The 200 voting peers would be elected by countrywide proportional representation (e.g. single transferable vote). The advantage of a very large constituency would be to favour well-known maverick or independent candidates over party hacks.
3) Elected peers should serve for a reasonable period of time (say 9 years with one third elected every three years)
Interesting
The “three by three” option for elected peers is a straight lift of what was introduced in Jersey in 1948, albeit in the context of a single-chamber legislature.
@Angus: the fact that the Americans (in recent years) have not been able to make this work has more to do with political intransigence than basic design: other countries are quite capable of making a 2-chamber legislature work (just as for every Italy or Israel where coalition government is volatile, there is a Germany where it’s remarkably stable)
Ireland ticks most of those though the constitutional commitment to “cherish all the children of the nation equally” (as near as it gets to the last item) is not observed in practice, but measured by the GINI coefficient it’s a far more equal society.
Above all: Everybody’s vote counts, always.
The Electoral Reform Society campaigns for the first three:
http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/blog/next-four-years-reform-our-2020-strategy
I’d additionally call for a Watchdog for Integrity in Political Campaigns to ensure that factually incorrect or misleading statements made by campaigns are not left unchallenged.
An electoral commission that encourages fair debate rather than suppresses it?
Now tgat’shat’s an idea
It would be good to make it more independent of parliament, part of the Civil Legal System rather than the political institutions.
Democracy works best when we have well informed and open debate that is part of the public record.
Agree, absolutely
we used to have one. A free press, not one controlled by absentee tax avoiders, but with independently minded journalists.
Or maybe it was ever thus.
Richard, given my several, detailed, posts on essential and necessary constitutional reforms,you will hardly be surprised that I wholeheartedly endorse what you say, with the addition of two comments.
First, I had not thought of your final suggestion of a constitutional requirement to continually reduce inequality etc! Bravo, but perhaps only E.M. Forster’s “Two Cheers for Democracy”, if only because of the “law of unintended consequences”, and the concern that there might be occasions when even such a well intentioned fetter might, nonetheless, prove to be a fetter.
Secondly, on the question of the Senate, and its utility, even its advisability. I DO believe a Second Chamber is advisable, providing its remit and composition are sufficiently different, but complementary, to the House of Commons.
The problem with the American Senate is that neither remit nor composition are sufficiently different from the House of Representatives, the only key differences being a) term (Senators 6 years and Representatives 2 years), and numbers (EVERY State has 2 Senators, irrespective of size, where numbers of Representatives are defined by population).
The canting of terms DOES permit some differentiation between the two Chambers, but nowhere near enough, leading to unnecessary competition for ground between the two. This is because the only criterion of differentiation was that of population – giveing small States the same Senatorial clout as big ones – with no attention paid to other possible criteria.
However, as an “expert” Chamber, which our HoL most certainly is, a Senate could perform a truly useful role of scrutiny, and also, I would suggest, of constitutionality.
It is essential, then, that, however elected, this “expert Chamber” element is preserved in the Senate, in addition to the strong regionality you have proposed.
I would also argue that the Constitutional Court that I would like to see set up might also be drawn from the Senate, with power to strike down laws legislated by the Commons that it sees as “unconstitutional” (for me the “Bedroom Tax” would have been deemed unconstitutional for basic unfairness).
As an extra check, I would envisage a specialist “Constitutional Committee” of the Senate, whose rulings on an unconstitutional law would then need to be ratified by the whole Senate.
The only option then open to a PM and the Commons would be to take such a struck down law to the whole electorate via a referendum, with the referendum’s decision being conclusive, as is the case wirh Swiss referenda, and not merely advisory, as was the case in our EU referendum.
Thanks Andrew
This is o lay musing now but I like these suggestions
I’d add that the Senate’s capability to initiate legislation also leads to conflict with Congress. Although the situation in the USA is not as bad as in Italy, where the two chambers have almost equivalent powers leading to permanent deadlock.
There needs to be an asymmetry in both composition and purpose between the two chambers. I think an upper house that is deliberative and significantly smaller than the current HoL would be a big improvement on the current situation, even if it isn’t fully elected.
Andrew, I think the appointed Canadian Senate operates in that sort of way.
The Australian is 100% elected by STV
The framing of the last demand is seriously flawed, not least because it militates against achieving the very objective it purports to be aiming at, viz equality, by being blatantly partisan. Besides that, isn’t GDP highly suspect as a valid measure of – well, almost anything?
Otherwise I like your list, and I think a “New Chartist” movement would be a very good initiative, in principle. The original Chartist movement was highly estimable, in my estimation.
What is partisan in saying democracy aims to increase the returns to all in society and inot just a few?
Every other system does something else after all
Inequality can be difficult to measure but the Gini Index is one measure. In the 2015 report of the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/sites/default/files/ef_publication/field_ef_document/ef1510en.pdf the UK was found to be the most unequal country in the EU and more unequal than the US. This is profoundly worrying and a total disgrace. I’m not sure if your last aim is worded perfectly but it is a laudable aim.
I worry about the direction of travel in the UK. May’s first major domestic policy announcement is on the reintroduction of Grammar Schools. This is despite the fact that pretty much all the evidence and expert opinion shows that it increases, not decreases inequality. (Maybe the Tory party has had enough of experts?) I’m sure however it will appeal to the gut instincts of Brexit voters.
I was educated in the Irish system but my wife went to a Grammar School but my brother in law to a secondary modern. As an example this is hard to beat. My wife as mentioned previously is a consultant and leads Intensive Care in the UK. My brother in law is unemployed, unemployable and essentially gives the impression that he was thrown on the scrapheap at 11. He voted Brexit.
I’m not sure if I can offer much advice regarding wording as it is not my forte but you are certainty along the right lines
I am certain the wording of my last para could be improved
But it was quite early when I wrote it
Thanks
Richard
I think that your ideas should be incorporated into the design for a new parliament based near Birmingham or Sheffield.
Which may cost less than £4 billion
If you ‘continually’ do those things you end up with communism, don’t you?
No
You end up with a kore equal society
Which has nothing at all to do with communism
Why not go and learn something about what you are talking about?
Brilliant. Might we add something about generational equality, so that the real democracy envisaged is committed to preserving the physical habitat for future generations. This might be covered under responsibilities, but likely to be swept aside if it’s not explicitly spelt out
Good point Lesley
I’m for the abolition of the HoL and an extension of committees looking into the conduct of the HoP backed up by an independent judiciary process tasked with ensuring that proper and appropriate procedure and advice has been used. The committees needn’t be populated just by politicians either. Yes – I know others get called in as expert witnesses – but why cannot such people sit on the committees anyway (maybe they already do)?
Another option is to give more legal power to the regions so as to create more push and pull between the centre and the localities.
I am still not keen at all for local or even national politicians to get involved with public service delivery. All the politicians have to do is set the budget with the heads of service.
At the local level all the service managers have to do is to consult with local users about service levels and quality and then use that in the mix for setting policy and budgets at the national level.
I do realise that political ideologies do get mixed into service delivery which why I think we get the services we get now. But it needn’t be this way.
You assess need by listening to end users.
Not be getting a bunch of MPs or Councillors together to make a ‘judgement’ based on what they feel is right based on second hand information and their own prejudices.
What we have now is simply crap disguised as democracy. It has to change.
Voting age has been reduced to 21. Really?