Constitutional reform is the fantasy football of politics. Its appeal grows the further you are from the real action. An added attraction to opposition parties is the chance to look radical at little cost to the Treasury.
But reform, or as Labour prefers to style it, “democratic renewal”, is gathering momentum, boosted by Boris Johnson’s transgressions against established political conventions. A system where a government can suspend an inconvenient parliament and then take power from the judges who declared it unlawful is clearly deficient.
Nor is debate limited to Labour. The Conservatives want to offer more powers to elected mayors as part of the levelling-up agenda. Senior ministers like Jeremy Hunt and Michael Gove are even inching towards offering the right to raise extra revenue, perhaps with hotel charges or land value taxes.
The pressure is further fuelled by the promise that Brexit would restore powers to parliament and, through it, to the people. The reality instead has been a land grab by the executive with ministers undermining checks on their authority and taking powers to legislate by near-fiat. Since England dominates the Commons, this has emphasised its power within the Union.
Next week, Labour outlines plans for reform in a report by former prime minister, Gordon Brown. Powered by the need to blunt Scottish separatism, it has been delayed and tweaked by Sir Keir Starmer’s office — the party leader worried its promotion of regional power might look like a bid to woo Scots by weakening England. Starmer has already accepted a proposal to abolish the Lords and replace it with an elected chamber. Brown wants to see that chamber offer greater representation to the UK’s regions and nations and also backs more powers for regional mayors.
These ideas have merit but Starmer is right to be cautious, as he is on changing the voting system for general elections. English decentralisation has broad support but wider upheaval has the potential to be the next Brexit: a high-level political plan endorsed with no real planning, and which opens dangerous new divides.
He will recall the impact of an earlier Brown-backed plan meant to solve a political problem. Devolution for Scotland was designed to kill nationalism and cement Labour’s hegemony. Within 15 years, the Labour vote had collapsed and support for independence surged.
Even before Brexit, the UK had already been through two decades of major but piecemeal reform. The past 25 years have seen the creation of Scottish and Welsh parliaments and revived the Northern Ireland assembly, the expansion of directly elected mayors and partial reform of the House of Lords. Proportional representation was rolled out for mayoral and European elections (boosting Nigel Farage as a political figure), the European Convention on Human Rights was incorporated into British law.
Lords reform offers another warning. Tony Blair removed most hereditary peers early on but left the upper house as a huge unelected body, powered by political patronage — leaders still appoint party donors and cronies to the UK legislature. David Cameron, too, failed to win support for an elected chamber. Few dispute the case for change but efforts at reform founder once focus switches from current shortcomings to practical alternatives.
The Lords fulfils a vital revising role and cannot indefinitely defy MPs. An elected chamber would demand more power, threatening legislative blockages. But Starmer is clear the reformed Lords must stay subordinate to the Commons.
From this springs the true issue — the unfettered supremacy of the Commons and a majority government. Scotland and Wales already enjoy meaningful devolution. Further reform has to lead to a weaker Commons and by extension a weaker executive and a less politically dominant England. That is a hard sell to England, which generates 86 per cent of UK GDP and houses 85 per cent of the population. England’s size is the real bar to a more equal relationship. Surrendering some power may be the price of that Union but Starmer should be wary of inflaming English nationalism.
Yet a consequential chamber of regions and nations will need to be more than a mouthpiece. It needs legislative teeth as well as a voice. Scots, who saw their call for a softer Brexit ignored, will demand blocking powers.
No parliament can bind its successors. A simple majority can undo any change, as shown by the repeal of fixed-term parliaments and PR for mayoral elections. Brown’s paper offers options on how to entrench reform including an idea, also mooted by the Institute for Government, of requiring a two-thirds Commons majority for constitutional change, though even this could be overturned. Starmer’s allies stress that no options prevent a Commons override.
So the choice is unsensational incremental change or sweeping reforms which could unravel more of the constitutional cloth than they patch up. The warnings from Brexit are clear. Lasting change must be more than a headline. It requires detail and a true sense of the consequences.
None of this is to argue against change. Decentralisation and Lords reform are long overdue. But there is a dangerous gap between concept and execution which is why premiers so quickly discover other priorities. And weakening the executive never seems as appealing once a party wins power. Fantasy football is no substitute for the real thing.
