Gordon Brown’s constitutional package just tinkers around the edges. Without electoral reform, there can be no renewal of trust in politics.
Gordon Brown’s constitutional package just tinkers around the edges. Without electoral reform, there can be no renewal of trust in politics.
No one should underestimate the cleverness of Gordon Brown, or his ability to think through his political strategy and tactics. Tony Blair had strong charm and presentational skills, but little capacity to properly consider and think through policy. Gordon Brown is a very different animal.
Thus, while he has been waiting for the handover of power, Gordon Brown has been developing his strategy aimed at restoring the popularity of the government and winning the next election. His reshuffle was carefully calculated to keep the parliamentary Labour party united but to feel like a new government. He has to remain publicly loyal to Blair’s record, and yet he emphasises on all possible occasions that everything must change.
His initiative for constitutional reform is part of this strategy. He is well aware that the British public have moved on from a healthy disrespect for politicians to a mood of pure contempt. He is also aware that, this time, it has gone beyond a loss of popularity for a particular government to a spirit of disdain for the whole political elite and for our political institutions. More and more people who care about the major issues of the day will outline their own views, but then make it clear that they know it does not matter what they think because nobody listens to people like them.
Gordon’s statement to the House of Commons on constitutional reform began with his saying that everyone had “a shared interest in building trust in our democracy”, and he went on to say that “we will meet the new challenges of security, of economic change and of communities under pressure – only by building a new relationship between citizens and government that ensures that government are a better servant of the people.”
I agree with his analysis very strongly. Our political institutions are broken. The House of Commons is a terribly weak and ineffective parliament and people are strongly convinced that however they express their views, no one is listening.
It was at a meeting at the Hay Festival on Trident replacement in 2006 that I committed the sin that led to my resignation of the Labour whip. The one-hour meeting was arranged by Greenpeace. There were two speakers, a retired admiral and myself; 850 people paid £8.50 to attend. The applause and questioning indicated an overwhelming majority against Trident replacement – both because it would encourage nuclear proliferation and because people wanted a reconsideration of the role of British foreign policy and less obsession with “the special relationship”.
But one man said, to great applause, that it did not matter what they thought, the decision had been taken and it would be implemented. In response, I said that I agreed, but that implementing the decision would take a long time. If the next election produced a hung parliament and a change in the voting system, then the decision could be re-opened.
A few weeks later, I received a letter from Jacqui Smith, the then chief whip, saying I must cease to say this because I was failing to call for everyone to vote Labour. Following a series of official reprimands, I decided that the best way to ensure that I could speak the truth as I understood it, in my remaining years in parliament was to resign the Labour whip.
This story, I think, encapsulates what is wrong with Gordon’s constitutional package. He has, after all, made clear by briefing the press, and without any debate, that he supports Trident replacement and 90 days’ detention for questioning. But the package contains many good things. The most important is the right of parliament to approve the declaration of war. But the detail is important. There was a vote on Iraq, but it was last minute, arms were twisted, lies were told and the prime minister even told some that he would resign if he didn’t get a majority of Labour votes.
Other proposals – on the dissolution of parliament, the ratification of treaties, the right of the prime minister to choose bishops, the attorney general’s role in individual prosecutions, who has power to decide to issue passports, parliamentary hearings on some public appointments and a bundle of other things – are all good reforms that undate some of the old-fashioned obfuscation of Britain’s constitutional arrangements. But apart from a promised review of the lessons of different electoral arrangements in the devolved administrations, there was no movement on the key issue of electoral reform.
And thus the package will fail to correct what is wrong. In 2005, a vote of 35.2% of those who voted, or 22% of those eligible to vote, produced a government with a majority of 60. Massive patronage power, strong whipping and all debates and bill scrutiny guillotined produces a massive concentration of power in the executive, a feeble House of Commons and MPs who owe their place to party and not people.
And so, I fear, the political elite will continue to separate from the people until the electoral system is made representative.
