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Reviews
Why
do we still have a Bank of England?
Andrew
McDonald (editor), Reinventing Britain: Constitutional Change
under
New Labour, Politico’s Publishing, 2007, 288 pages, hardback ISBN
978-1842752081,
£19.99
Reinventing
Britain is the timely publication of a
series of essays investigating constitutional change under New Labour. No
sooner is this handy review of the range of constitutional changes brought in
under the Blair administration published than the incoming Prime Minister,
Gordon Brown, publishes a green paper entitled ‘The Governance of
Britain’, promising a debate on the possibility of a written British
constitution and Bill of Rights and granting Parliament the right to vote on
legislation arising from international agreements such as the recently agreed
European Union amending treaty.
In
terms of quantity, the legislative work pursued since 1997 amounted to 41
separate pieces of legislation, not including that pertaining to Northern
Ireland. Looking at this workload one is struck by the fact that it difficult
to view it as a discernible programme underpinned and steered by an overriding
idea of what should constitute a constitution for a 21st century nation state.
Three themes do appear: the decentralisation of power through, in the case of
Scotland and Wales, devolution; the rights of citizens combined with a more
open society; and, almost as an add-on, the reform of the judiciary.
The
lack of an overarching idea of the direction the reforms were to take taxes
Lord Falconer of Thoroton QC in the foreword where he explains that ‘it is
egalitarianism that that has shaped our approach to constitutional reform. It
is no longer acceptable that hereditary peers should dominate the House of
Lords’. Fine words as long as you leave your brain in idle and pass by the
thought that Lord Falconer owes his position to the pernicious system of
patronage, which has been ruthlessly exploited by his former school chum and
flatmate Tony Blair. In typical unabashed New Labour fashion he tells us that
‘Our ambition (Old Fetesians, I presume) was to leave behind the politics of
division and to nurture an egalitarian society’. What he didn’t explain
was that their way of doing this would be to dissolve the Labour Party as the
traditional champion of the class of the politically dispossessed.
Whilst
not disagreeing with the argument that society should be underpinned by a
commitment to human rights, New Labour’s love affair with this concept is,
I’m afraid, based on the neoconservative view of individual rights which,
happily for them, is designed to atomise any possibility of organising a
collective response to a social wrong.
Devolution
has provided us with an interesting case study. Who would have thought, even
one year ago, that Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland would be governed by
executives containing nationalists. The curse of Mr Blair’s sofa extended
far and wide such that his cosy behind-the-scenes dealing with the devolved
executives, when they were run by Labour, has brought into relief
imperfections in the constitutional settlement. A recent front page in the
Scottish newspaper The Herald illustrates the point with the headline
‘Warning to Labour MPs over “wrecking the Union”’. The strong words
from Jack Straw, Westminster’s Justice Secretary in charge of constitutional
matters, who warned his English parliamentary colleagues that they were on
‘very dangerous ground’, illustrate alarm that not only are David
Cameron’s Conservatives raising the socalled English Question early into a
Brown premiership, but so also are Labour MPs south of the border. What is
more, it is a devilishly difficult problem to solve. In England the problem is
perceived to be the unfairness of Scottish MPs voting on purely English
matters, which are now devolved. Plus there is the fact that the so-called
Barnett Formula, which divides tax revenues within the United Kingdom between
the devolved nations, is perceived to be unfair. In Scotland the SNP has
undoubtedly attracted the radicals on which Labour has historically relied for
its majorities simply because New Labour has been ignoring their demands in
order to woo the voters in England, who will now be the ones most likely to be
whipped up by the Daily Mail and Telegraph over what they
perceive as an unfair distribution of mainly English tax revenues.
Brown’s
response to this ‘Gordian’ knot is nothing more than a smoke screen.
Elements of his plan to deliver a new ‘constitutional settlement’ for
Britain have been designed to ensure that he cannot be accused of being a
Scottish prime minister influencing and controlling key parts of the English
establishment, ranging from the Church of England to senior positions in
England’s ancient seats of learning.
One
also has to question New Labour’s past record on openness and reform within
the Party. The Party’s Policy Forums are designed to be held behind closed
doors. No votes are taken, and the outcomes are invariably identical to the
executive paper on which they started the discussions. The so-called Warwick
agreement with the trade unions is a case in point. Agreed to get money from
the unions before the 2005 election, and buried without even a decent funeral
after the elections.
There
is no doubt that Reinventing Britain is a handy reference base for
locating the setting-off point for Brown’s grandly titled ‘The Governance
of Britain’, but closer examination of the latter document does not excite.
For instance, on sending troops into armed conflict the reality will be that
government whips will prevail. A pre-Queen’s Speech debate will most likely
mean the Government will still push its programme through. A written
constitution will follow the logic of the British position regarding the
European Union Charter of Rights with little for the labour movement to cheer
about. I could go on but it is important to note that a new web site has
appeared in Scotland under the banner ‘Constitutional Convention’.
Devolution has always been considered to be a process in Scotland, or North
Britain, as Gordon Brown may soon prefer to call it. But if he is so keen on
Britishness, why do we still have a Bank of England, and why are agreements
with Ireland always Anglo-Irish?
Henry
McCubbin
