Brown’s constitutional package

Gordon Brown has today made a statement to the House of Commons on his plans for constitutional change – and overall, I have to say it’s a mixed but overall reasonably good package. It’s not as ambitious or radical as a lot of people would have liked, as has been trailed, or as I suspect it will be reported – but fortunately that means it’s nowhere near as bad as we might have feared. It’s serious in the sense of taking a cautious, piecemeal approach rather than going for a mad, grand Baron Haussman plan – tinkering, if you like, but in a good way. I rather approve of tinkering, in fact. Serious, too, in the sense of aiming at reforms that are likely to get broad support, rather than being partisan. I note that Ken Clarke, who chaired the recent Conservative task force on democracy, has broadly welcomed the statement and said he for one will work constructively in the process of debate Brown has launched.

The details, now, or at least the ones that interest me.

First, Brown is proposing that Parliament should approve any military action, and that the government should no longer be able to Cheap NFL Jerseys act unilaterally under prerogative powers. Good; but the political spin aspect of this cannot be ignored. Once Tony Blair (yes, it was he) introduced the innovation of subjecting military action to Parliamentary vote, it’s been politically unthinkable to revert to the traditional practice. So this change looks much more dramatic than it is, and gives Brown credit for something Tony Blair did in fact.

Second – he’s also proposing Parliament should approve its own dissolution, so removing the PM’s sole ability in effect to call an election. Well. Hm. It sounds good, and I’m content with it, but it makes very little difference. Given that the PM leads a majority in the Commons, why would Parliament reject a dissolution if he or she wants one? And why would it call one he opposed? Only in a minority or near-minority government situation would this matter at all. And in fact, I worry (being long-sighted about constitutional matters) whether one day this change might actually help a nasty, populist PM from abusing democracy by calling an election no one but his own party wants (say, solely on a rabble-rousing public issue such as “kick all muslims out” at a time of high tension). At the moment, the Queen could, technically, refuse a dissolution; she’d find that more difficult if Parliament had voted on the matter. In effect, therefore, arguably this reform intensifies the power of politicians at the expense of a very ancient, almost defunct, but possibly one day much-missed last-resort constitutional check.

He says the Commons should hold pre-appointment hearings into certain key public appointments: excellent! This is just the kind of reform we really do need, one which genuinely ought to reduce cronyism and focus senior officials on accountability to Parliament, not ministers.

The Attorney General’s role is to be changed in http://www.magliettedacalcioit.com some as yet unspecified way – this is a hopeless thing to have said. I suspect Brown simply of pandering to chattering opinion on this, and having no real idea why or how this should change. Rubbish! If he will remove the need for the Attorney’s consent prior to some criminal prosecutions, then I predict a future government will reverse that change.

There’ll be a civil service bill – excellent, again, but not radical or new. We’d have had one by now, had the government allowed time for the opposition’s bill a couple of years ago.

Brown has, predictably, rejected “English votes on English issues” in the House of Commons – but it’s surely a matter of time before this comes in, if not under him then under the next non-Labour PM.

Brown seems to be suggesting some sort of mechanism for petitions to be debated in the Commons – ugh. Where I’d be okay with this, and reluctantly accept the case made by the redoubtable (and really quite sexy) Saira Khan and the people at Our Say, is if some kind of citizen democracy is applied to local government, which is another thing he’s suggesting. Fine – local government could do with a shot in the arm. I think it’s just a gimmick, if applied to Westminster.

Brown as raised the prospect of possibly moving to votes at 16 – fine. I’m in favour of that., and it certainly won’t unbalance the electorate – who are actually getting older, of course.

He’s dangling electoral reform in front of the LibDems again – as Tony Blair did – but that’s long-grass stuff, I expect. More politics than substance.

Finally, a few bits of nonsense. Brown has suggested a possible move to weekend elections, on the basis that it might help electoral turnout. I’m afraid I think this is just rubbish, born of the idea (well known to lawyers) that the French way of doing things is mysteriously better than ours. In fact of course the recent high turnout in France’s presidential election (it was lower in the parliamentary vote) was because of political factors – nothing to do with the ease of voting. At the next election, there’ll be a high Maglie Calcio turnout if people think the result matters; there’s really no need to deprive little kiddies of a Thursday off school. It’s pure spin and gimmickry, this.

Brown spoke of letting the “youth parliament” (?) sit in the House of Commons one day a year. Gosh. Pure gimmickry again, I fear.

Finally, he’s going to consult on a possible British Bill of Rights, and even the possibility of a written constitution. Well, who knows what to make of this dangerous nonsense? I mean dangerous in more ways than one. Dangerous for Brown, politically, for one thing – isn’t it only six months since the government was pooh-poohing David Cameron’s idea for a British Bill of Rights, saying it was muddled nonsense and couldn’t mean anything? I seem to remember the new Solicitor General saying exactly that in debate. The only way I can think any “Bill of Rights” would be worth the paper it was written on would be if it amended the Human Rights Act to add new rights, consistent with those in the , or to glass the ECHR rights to change their domestic impact slightly. Even that’s a bit dubious – a new right to jury trial, say, wouldn’t give any more protection that the current law; and any gloss would risk being in effect struck down by Strasbourg. But anything else is just confused nonsense, and even that will be very difficult to sell once Conservatives dig out the old quotes about Cameron’s plans. I suspect we’ll end up with some vague, non-binding declaration.

Finally – I sincerely hope any consultation about a written constitution goes nowhere, slowly and imperceptibly. We need one like we need a powerful gun lobby and commuted sentences for old political cronies.