eurealist.co.uk

Scottish National MP Angus MacNeil writing in the Telegraph says;

“This week Labour, Tories and the Lib Dems have taken great delight in telling the Scots that they are subsidised by over £11 billion”

Although he argues that this figure is disputed by the independence movement in Scotland, he does not offer any evidence to support that contention,(I do know that it exists) but imidiatly swerves off on a tangent about this week’s report that independent Ireland will this year achieve a budget surplus of £3.97 billion while the London Chancellor has a £34.2 billion deficit. And asks if Ireland would flourish in such a dramatic way if still governed from London?

I always admire how the left in particular can put so many half-truths in such a short sentence; the independent Ireland of which he so lovingly speaks has been the recipient of massive EU handouts since it joined the Community, even this week a new batch of subsidies for Ireland have been announced, it is those handouts which have enable the Irish to prosper, but that prosperity has partially been bought with money donated by the British people as our government has been one of the major financial sponsors of EU funds, and of course the London Chancellor who apparently has made such a hash of the job, is in fact Scottish and is fully supported by the many other Scots in the British Cabinet. So McNeil is complaining about his own countrymen but because he places them in London he is suggesting they are not Scottish. Propaganda or what!

But the point of the McNeil letter is to question why as “Eleven billion would go a long way in England towards introducing free care for the elderly and removing student tuition fees. While telling the Scots they are being subsidised, Labour, particularly, but also the Tories and the Lib Dems are shy of telling the English they are being robbed.”

He is of course quite right that the information is not disseminated fully south of the border, but he is not putting his question in the context of next years the elections to the Scottish Parliament, which if the SNP are the winners will lead to a referendum in Scotland for the break up of the UK, in this debate the rest of us have no voice, and the question only becomes pertinent within the independence or the British constitutional debate.

From my personal perspective as a British taxpayer, the suggestion that Scotland might take more out of the joint purse than the Scottish people put in, has no more relevance than the proposition might also be true of Cornwall, Devon, Powys or Anglesey (begging their pardon) we are all British we are all one peoples and we all share in the national purse.

If it is a reality that Scotland needs more support that is simply a fact of life, might well be a fact of past government decisions, or that it has large rural areas which are sparsely populated, with only about one fourth of the land under cultivation, that fact that until very recently the extension of feudalism and the land enclosures of the 19th centaury has meant that the ownership of most land in Scotland was concentrated in relatively few hands, and with the decline of heavy industry and of the coal industry also contributing to the present (disputed) situation. But none of this means Scotland is a basket case that would be a continual drain on the British economy or that it could not survive independence.

To me the whole idea that England is being robbed by the Scots is nothing more than nationalistic manoeuvring it suits their purpose at this time to create antipathy between the peoples of the nation.

The real cost to Britain is membership of the EU and those costs dwarf any real or imagined Scottish costs. The government have not been prepared to do a cost benefit analysis, but there have been several other independent analysis. The Bruges Group estimates including British contributions, Payment to EU institutions, CAP, CFP, and EU regulation comes to 52.4 billion and that figure is set to grow as our contribution rise in the next few years. And I do not belive this figure includes the cost to the British exchequer of the recent ECJ decisions on Tax.

If eleven billion would go a long way in England towards introducing free care for the elderly and removing student tuition fees. Just imagine what 50 or even 30 Billion each and every year would buy. In the mean time the good folk of Luxembourg, Belgium, Ireland, Portugal, Greece Spain and the new eastern entrants are all in some way being supported by the British taxpayer.

Perhaps Mr McNeil, a better question would be; Labour, Tories Lib Dems and the SNP are shy of telling the British they are being robbed. I wonder why.

From Little Man in a Toque a letter to Sir Menzies Campbell who has only ever had one email on the West Lothian Question.

Who says

the English do not want their own parliament

that the English don’t want another layer of government

that an English parliament would put the English off politics

As the e-mal explains a recent poll show there is big demand for an English parliament, on the second point “An English parliament does not necessarily mean another layer of government. For starters we can get rid of the unwanted and undemocratic regional layer and replace it with an English layer. Secondly we could look at the feasibility of dual-mandate MPs. And thirdly we can look at the role of the House of Lords with the aim of turning that into a federal and revising chamber, leaving the Commons as the English Parliament.” and did a Scottish Parliament put the Scots off politics?

I know a lot of Scots would take issue with that headline but I will try to explain why I belive it to be true.

But first I would like to explore why some Scots are calling for the break up of the United Kingdom.

Brian Adam is the MSP for Aberdeen North

Independence is a state of mind.

We can seek to be totally independent and reject any responsibilities for others. We can aspire to share rights and responsibilities, to be co-dependent and participate in society with others. Or we can be dependent and leave the responsibility with others, reserving the right only to complain.

I also want Scotland to accept its responsibilities, as well as assert its rights, by recognising that we share this world with others with whom we are co-dependent. Hence I want us to engage directly with other countries through membership of the EU and organisations such as the UN.

Dr Ian McKee is the SNP candidate for Edinburgh Pentlands.

The most successful nations in Europe are not the largest. The advantages of economy of scale are more than offset by other factors. But when you look at the reasons for success of small to medium size countries, you may at first be confused. This country is rich in oil, that country has few natural resources. One successful country levels high taxes whilst yet another prospers by providing a low tax, business friendly environment. The consistent formula for success does not seem to exist.

Yet it does. Because what all these countries have in common is their independence. They can speedily make decisions regarding tax, investment or social policy that suit their own circumstances. Norway invests its oil revenues in a fund for future generations because that is what its citizens wish to happen. The Republic of Ireland has invested heavily in the education of its people so that it now attracts hi-tech investment from overseas.

Graeme McCormick is the founder and senior partner of Conveyancing Direct and the SNP candidate for Dumbarton.

‘In 1974 I was a student at Edinburgh University when Gordon Brown was University Rector. Then, Norway and Scotland had a similar standard of living. At the 1974 elections, Scotland was within an ace of voting for Independence. Today Norway is internationally recognised as having the highest standard of living in the world. Scotland is 21st.

There is only one significant thing which separates us from Norway and Ireland: That is Independence. They have it; we haven’t!

It seems the idea is that Scotland feels independence will allow it to become co-dependent and participate in society with others, through membership of the EU, but that is not independence.

The SNP says it is a strongly pro-European party, but wants national governments to retain control over many key issues like their countries’ taxation, spending, and constitutions.

They argue that with Independence, Scotland will at last be able to represent itself to the world on international bodies like the United Nations.

The problem is that the SNP is painting a picture of the EU which is very far from the truth; “There is no comparison between the centralist structures of the UK, and those of the EU, where member states co-operate but retain their sovereignty”.

The SNP are ignoring the EU Constitution, the EU claim to represent its members in international bodies like the United Nations, the WTO and Council of Europe. They are, by claiming that Scotland would have a greater voice in the EU, ignoring the fact that the EU is not about retaining the sovereignty of Nation States, everything it does takes it in the opposite direction towards a centralised structure.

The SNP claim that Scotland would have seven votes in the Council of Ministers and would be able to nominate a European Commissioner. Just exactly what power they think seven votes would give them they do not say, but with the increase of QMV within the EU councils seven is not a very big number and the Scots will find themselves outvoted on every occasion. Working together is all very fine but it only assists a nation if the working together is in the direction it wants to go, if not, then working together forces it to accept rules a and regulations that do not benefit the nation. Their Commissioner would of course have to swear allegiance to the EU so would not be representing Scotland, in any event in the EU Constitution there are plans to reduce the size of the Commision and Scotland like the rest of us would find they were only represented on a rotational basis.

The main problem with the SNP argument is that they are pointing to dissatisfaction of rule from the south, from the Westminster Parliament. Even ignoring the fact that for the last three parliaments the Scots have dominated Westminster with every major position of power in the British state being filled with Scotsmen and the majority of the British Cabinet being Scottish. Dissatisfaction with rule from Westminster is misplaced because most of the powers of Westminster has now been passed to the EU level, so if the Scots find themselves dissatisfied the way forward cannot be through the same institutions that have created that dissatisfaction. If they were calling for independence so that Scotland could take more power back from the EU it would make a great deal more sense than their present position. What exactly are they hoping to achieve by breaking apart the union.

The SNP points to two countries they see Scotland aspiring to emulate, Norway and Ireland, yet Norway is not a member of the EU, it has retained its independence and therefore its sovereignty, Ireland on the other hand has given away both its independence and its sovereignty, but has been and still is, the recipient of massive EU subsidies. The Scots might like to contemplate the fact that as Britain is a major contributed to EU funding they have contributed to Irelands success because it is their taxes that have been and are being spent in Ireland to make it the success it is.

Ireland is a dependant state of the EU, the Scots say they do not want to be dependant yet a recent calculation estimates that just 163,000 Scottish taxpayers, from a population of 5m, make any net contribution to the British exchequer. The rest receive more than they pay out in reliefs, subsidies and benefits.

Even Alex Salmond, the SNP leader, admits that Scotland has the highest unemployment, the highest proportion of income support claimants and the lowest business survival rate in Britain. Of course he blames the UK for Scotland’s poverty.

Scotland is not just dependent on the UK state; it is state-dependent full stop. A full 50% of Scottish GDP is spent by government. The state employs one Scot in four. To have any hope of creating the thriving independent economy of which they dream, an SNP government would have to impose economic policies Scotland has rejected at every election since 1945 and which the party dare not even propose, Scotland has not voted for a party prepared to cut taxes since 1955.

I would argue that Scotland far from wanting independence is prepared to become a minor actor within the United States of Europe, with less power than it presently has to determine its direction, and it will remain a dependant state within that union. None of the SNP arguments hold up to scrutiny because they are not addressing the real cause of their problems which are basically the same problems we all face and that is we can no longer determine who will be our rules who will make the laws and what direction the laws or our country should take, those decisions and that power has been transferred to the EU. If they really do want independence and really do not want to be dependant, they should address this real problem and then face up to the fact that without support for either the British Taxpayer or the EU Taxpayer Scotland and the Scottish people will have to make their own way in the world, and that will require doing a lot more than pumping oil out of the sea and waiting for the support cheque to arrive.

Just a few years ago the idea that Gordon Brown should not become Prime Minister of Britain would have not even been worth comment, no one except the most radical English Nationalist would have even questioned a Scotish or Welsh politicians’ right to become the first minister.

Unfortunately that is no longer the case; there are now very sound constitutional reasons why someone elected to a Scotish, or to a lesser degree Welsh constituency, is not a suitable candidate to hold this post.

Ironically, according to Mr Blair, this is the result of Gordon Brown’s own making, because Gordon Brown was the engine behind the devolution campaign which has created this constitutional impasse, “It’s Gordon’s passion, so we’re doing it” Tony Blair 1997.

Gordon’s “Passion” as it turns out was to create a separate Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly, this decentralisation of power was made with the intention of giving the people of Scotland and Wales more control over their own affairs within the United Kingdom. These two nations were revived to be given formal, constitutional and political recognition within the Union. England however was left out of it entirely. Unlike the Scots and the Welsh the distinct nationhood of the English people has received no political or constitutional recognition of any kind.

Scotland is now independent of the rest of the Union and has full self-government in most major areas of public policy: education, health, local government, social work, housing, training, agriculture, fisheries and forestry, sport and the arts, economic development including the administration of European Structural Funds, tourism, many aspects of transport, the legal system and law and order, most civil and criminal law, prisons and the fire services, and a variety of less significant matters.

Now Westminster MPs are excluded from any involvement in legislation for both countries in devolved areas of government; Westminster MPs for example can vote, can introduce legislation, on education and health in England; but have no say whatsoever in such matters in Scotland.

All well and good; that is what devolution is about, giving people a greater say in their government closer to home.

But that is also the problem, because the way it has turned out negates the most basic principle of parliamentary democracy; that MPs must be accountable to their electorate for how they vote. No MP representing a Scottish constituency can affect the policies of the people who vote them into office, however they can and do affect the policies of England where they have no representation and no accountability. It is power without responsibility, and power without accountability.

Prior to devolution 1998 ministries had responsibility for the United Kingdom as a whole. The Ministers were responsible for the whole of the UK, not just for a part of it. The 1998 legislation introduced a radical constitutional change. When Scotland, and in part Wales, got devolved powers, their UK counterparts such as Health found that their responsibilities were for England only. Yet they retained their places in the UK Cabinet. And the UK Prime Minister continued to appoint as the ministers who controlled and administered them MPs from UK constituencies whether or not they represented English constituencies.

MPs who do not represent English constituencies are being appointed to what are in effect English-only ministries. That means they are not accountable electorally to their electorate in their own constituency neither are they electorally accountable to a single voter in England for whom they are legislating.

This is a constitutional mayhem, it is unbalanced and unfair to the voters of England, who see laws passed in their parliament by Ministers and MPs they do not elect and who have no mandate to represent them.

So in short Mr Brown is not a suitable candidate to be Prime Minister for Britian because he cannot be held responsible for most of the polices that affect most of the people.

As this is a constitutional problem it should be addressed by the leading constitutional power in the land; unfortunately for the English that power at present resides in the person of the Lord Chancellor, who happens to be the unelected Lord Falconer, Scottish friend of Tony Blair and major campaigner for the Scottish parliament.

The Campaign for an English Parliament has just issued a full report on the devolution process, going by the title of

DEVOLUTION FOR ENGLAND

A CRITIQUE OF THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY POLICY

‘ENGLISH VOTES ON ENGLISH MATTERS’

The report details the devolution progress to date and explores some of the problems that have been created by the New Labour devolution process.

The report argues that The Government’s devolution programme had two fundamental guiding principles:

distribution of governmental power from the centre to constituent parts.

distribution on the basis of nationhood.

Importantly it says that England was completely left out of the devolution programme.

Which is perhaps not entirely surprising considering, according to Jim Naughtie who informs us time and again in his book The Rivals, Gordon Brown was the engine behind the whole devolution campaign. „It‟s Gordon‟s passion,‟ Naughtie quotes Tony Blair as saying in 1997. „So we‟re doing it”

Instead Scotland now enjoys the best of both worlds.

It remains firmly in the Union with its status and power within it enhanced, and with increased subsidies from the English taxpayer, yet it is independent of the rest of the Union and its government in areas of really major governance.

We are not talking about minor matters. Scotland now has full self-government in the most major areas of public policy:

education, health, local government, social work, housing,

training, agriculture, fisheries and forestry, sport and the arts,

economic development including the administration of

European Structural Funds, tourism, many aspects of transport,

the legal system and law and order, most civil and criminal

law, prisons and the fire services, and various lesser matters.

It is not just an astonishing degree of independence within a Union which is denied to its other constituent nations; it is also one in which one of those other nations, namely England,

subsidises most generously.

Of the £45.3 billion spent in Scotland in 2003-4 only £34 billion was recovered in taxation.

The £11.3 billion difference, which works out at £2200 per head of population in Scotland, was paid by the UK Parliament.

If tax revenue from North Sea oil is excluded, namely £4.3 billion, there still would have been a £7 billion gap, which equates to a £281 surcharge on every English taxpayer.

One has to hand it to Brown and co. They have pulled of the biggest and brightest coup in the Union’s 300 year history.

Not only is there the gross political and constitutional injustice of the English Question

and the West Lothian Question,

There are also the financial aspects.

As we have seen, Scotland does not pay its way. Only by reason of the immensity of the grant being paid by the Exchequer out of its UK revenue to the Scottish Parliament can it afford to provide

the educational, health and social benefits it now enjoys which are not being made available in England.

There are free eye tests for all regardless of age, free personal

and social care for the elderly, highly specialist cancer

treatments available across the whole of Scotland, free bus

travel throughout Scotland and free central heating installation

for pensioners, and free prescriptions for 19-25 year olds.

Scottish university students do not pay either tuition fees or

top-up fees which in England can be as much as £3000 a year.

They don‟t pay them even if they are at an English university.

No EU students (except the English, Welsh and Northern Irish)

pay them either. English students at Scottish universities

however must pay £3600 yearly in tuition fees for four-year

degrees while Scottish (and EU) students pay nothing in

advance and just £2000 after graduation. In addition there is

the -now notorious- Barnett Formula, brought in in 1978 to

check the rise of Scottish nationalism and the SNP

(interestingly the same argument used with UK MPs to sell the

devolution legislation of 1998). By reason of that Formula

alone, each Scottish person is in receipt of at least £1300 more

per head expenditure than English people (Public Expenditure

Statistical Analyses 2005). The Formula‟s advantages over

England enjoyed by Scotland are of course enjoyed by Wales

and Northern Ireland as well in varying ways, although

Scotland‟s devolution setlement outdoes both.

The Report then explains “The West Lothian Question” and “The English Question”

And “THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY POLICY” (EVoEM)

Before a critique of the policy “DEFECTS OF THE POLICY”

“EVoVM has two practical difficulties. The first is deciding which MPs will be entitled to vote on which bills.” The second practical difficulty is deciding which constituents will be affected by any particular bill.”

CEP argue that EVoEM will not adequately address either the West Lothian Question or the English Question but will in fact bring UK government into a state of confusion and ridicule and possible chaos. Neither can EVoEM ever be an adequate forum for the people of England or an effective champion of their concerns. Or give England its own representation within the European Union.

Instead of a way of holding the union together EVoEM contains the seeds of the break-up of the Union. It will introduce into the House of Commons an essentially divisive, indeed destructive, element which does not exist at present.

The Union Parliament is the Union Parliament. EVoEM would turn it into something else: a part time Union Parliament and a part time English Parliament,and will not provide England with its own Executive.

THE spin machine is playing the resignation of Hartlepool MP Iain Wright as a matter of principle. This might be true, but the principle has more to do with his political career than with the best interests of the people of Hartlepool.

Not a single Member of Parliament, including Mr Wright, has enough principles to speak up in defence of the British system of law, our police and court procedures.

On September 22, Home Secretary John Reid, (the same man who guaranteed the future of Hartlepool hospital during the 2004 by-election and whose word has evidently not been honoured (otherwise why did Mr Wright feel he has to resign?) will attend a meeting of European Union Justice Ministers to discuss abolition of the national veto on “Justice and Home Affairs”.

The EU would acquire the power to determine who shall be put in prison, what judicial process would be applied, impose changes to our laws and our police and court procedures, regardless of our wishes. The UK Government has just nine per cent of the votes on this particular committee and has already accepted the imposition of the European Arrest Warrant, under which British subjects may be arrested, shipped over to Europe, tried and imprisoned for something which might not even be a crime in the UK.

When will the people of this country say the enough is enough? Eight out of ten laws in the UK now originate in Brussels.

We’d be better off out.

- Stephen Allison, UKIP Councillor, Hartlepool Borough Council.

http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/letters/display.var.916862.0.september_12_2006.php

So Jack Straw and couple of Scotish MP`s think that the Tories proposal for English votes on English matters is” utterly disgraceful, anti-British, unpatriotic” and “would lead inexorably to the break up of the United Kingdom.”

One is tempted to wonder why it is that those same people do not see a problem with allowing Scottish Mps to vote on matters which do not relate to their own constituencies, that is also “utterly disgraceful, anti-British, unpatriotic” and “will lead inexorably to the break up of the United Kingdom”

Of course the EVoEM is an attempt to rectify the problem created by transferring powers away from Westminster to the Scotish parliament, if Jack Straw and co wish to prevent the break up of the UK perhaps they will consider taking back those powers so that all legislation passed in the UK parliament affects all of the people of the UK not just some of them.

Or they could set up an English Parliament.

Guardian

Until a few years ago I, like most English people, thought of myself as British. Being English was something we did in our spare time, and gave little thought to. How times have changed.

The Blair Government, devolution and the rule of a majority in Britain (the English) by a minority (the Scots) have all sharpened up the English mind and, with it, the desire for a sense of English national identity. This will be wonderfully apparent tomorrow, when we celebrate the Feast of St George. Again, 10 years ago, this was an event recognised, it was said, by only fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists. Today people whom even Dave would find unexceptional like to mark their English identity. In pubs from Cornwall to Cumberland, flags and banners of

St George will be proudly paraded. The red cross of our patron saint is found on the bumpers of countless cars. After centuries of being made, for alleged reasons of good taste, to submerge our national identity or even feel ashamed of it, it is out in the open.

What has always amazed me is why we should feel bad about it. I remain unclear as to what hideous crimes the English people have committed. If we have been so oppressive to the Scots, or the Irish, or even the Welsh, then why do so many of them choose to come to live and work in our country? Of course, what Labour affects to call “ordinary people” have very few hang-ups about being English, or, if they happen to have the misfortune to come from somewhere else, with the English. The whole sense of shame we are meant to feel about our identity has been manufactured by politicians, and, as usual, for their own sectarian ends.

Devolution is perhaps the greatest of the many lies perpetrated by this Government. Gordon Brown, who is keen on keeping a vestige of something called the United Kingdom so he can have something better than Scotland to be prime minister of, frequently claims devolution has strengthened the idea of Britishness. As with his economic claims, this is utter rubbish.

The main reason the English have been forced to recognise their own identity is that, from the moment this Government came to power, the proclamation of the identities of the Scottish and Welsh in particular were forced down our throats. Now, being a tolerant people, we English don’t mind that: but we expect, being a fair-minded people, to have the right to do the same ourselves.

Labour fears the English identity because it represents a challenge to the Scottish-dominated Government that has run this country since 1997. Since devolution, there is absolutely no justification for Scottish MPs to vote in divisions at Westminster on issues that, in their own country, are settled in the Scottish Parliament. Yet they do, and they do because, in an increasing number of instances, Labour would not win votes there on solely English matters without the entirely improper help of Scottish votes.

So far, the renaissance of our national identity has, I am happy to say, taken an entirely benign course. It is about cheering on our football and cricket teams, eating roast beef and drinking pints of real ale. I am deeply in favour of all those things. But I am also deeply in favour of the rise of an English national consciousness that dictates a fair political deal for England: and that is not happening.

Realising it was losing this argument, Labour tried to palm us off with regional assemblies. As an intelligent people, we did not fall for that. What we want, and deserve, is an English parliament at Westminster, where English matters are decided solely by representatives of the English people. And the jolly Feast of St George is the ideal day to make a resolution to ourselves, and to our rulers, that we shall not allow our swords to sleep in our hands until justice is done, and we are given equality with the Scots.

Telegraph

Home Office Minister Hazel Blears, has stated the following regarding the police mergers and EU-derived regional boundaries (Hansard, Nov 17, 2005: Column 1428W):

“We have made clear to the police service that the very strong starting presumption is that any new force areas should not cross Government office regional boundaries. It follows that very strong arguments would need to be submitted in support of any merger proposals which went contrary to this presumption.”

Hampshire police authority has been explicitly told by the Home Office to forget about any merger with Dorset/Dorset and Wiltshire:

Every police authority and force in England and Wales has been directed by the Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, to look at the creation of ‘strategic police forces’ in order to improve nationally the delivery of protective services.

This follows the publication of the Home Office report ‘Closing the Gap – A Review of the fitness for purpose of the current structure of policing in England and Wales’ which examined whether the present police structure is able to meet the challenges posed by the current and future policing needs.

Hampshire Police Authority and Hampshire Constabulary submitted a joint proposal to the Home Office on 28 October outlining the options it felt were most viable for the future of policing in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.

The three options recommended were

1. Hampshire to stand alone as a strategic force
2. Hampshire to merge with Dorset and Wiltshire
3. Hampshire to merge with Dorset

The Home Office feedback said that looking outside the South East region was not an option. The report back also said that currently the Home Office does not feel there was strong evidence that Hampshire could stand alone as a strategic force because it does not meet the criteria of 4,000 officers – even though it is one of the country’s largest forces with 3,803 officers and is looking to take on more than 500 new Police Community Support Officers over the next few years taking it over the 4,000 benchmark.

The Home Office has directed police authorities and forces in the South East to look further at five options:

1. Two strategic forces

1. Kent, Surrey and Sussex

2. Thames Valley and Hampshire

2. Three strategic forces

1. Kent

2. Thames Valley

3. Surrey, Sussex and Hampshire

3. Three strategic forces

1. Kent, Surrey and Sussex

2. Thames Valley

3. Hampshire (stand-alone)

4. Three strategic forces

1. Kent and Sussex

2. Thames Valley

3. Hampshire and Surrey

5. Four strategic forces

1. Kent

2. Thames Valley

3. Surrey and Sussex

4. Hampshire (stand-alone)

Hampshire Police Authority and Hampshire Constabulary were very disappointed with the Home Office options and have decided to focus on two options identified by the authority and constabulary as those that will best serve the people of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.

Preferred option - Hampshire standing alone as a strategic force (3.3/5.4)

If Hampshire has to merge - Hampshire merging with Dorset and Wiltshire.

Technorati Tags: devolution, eu’s-policies, police, police-reform, regional-assemblies

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I was wondering if the MSM would pick up on Charlie Falconer’s interview in the Telegraph last week-end. When he suggested that “The right position for the Lords is that it should amend legislation to give the Commons the opportunity to think again but… then it should give way.”

Simon Heffer has done so today again the Telegraph “We’re teetering on the brink of an elective dictatorship” I don’t know about teetering I would have thought that we already had and elected dictatorship.

Heffer ends his article with a plea to Labour MPs to stop this nonsense, and asks for a strait answer to a strait question: what is so wrong with our democracy that Labour wishes so ruthlessly to end it?

“In 1968, when the last serious attempt was made to reform the Lords, Labour and Tory backbenchers united to stop proposals that would have put the Lords under the control of the Commons’ whips. Parliament must think very carefully and urgently about mounting a similar mission to prevent Britain from sliding to dictatorship. So far, Labour backbenchers have been quiet about the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill. They must ask themselves: do they really want to hand to Mr Blair and his friends the power to make laws that have the status of despotic fiats? Would they be happy for a Conservative administration, if we ever have one again, to legislate in this way?

Would they be happy for the House of Lords to have an entirely ornamental function, whether or not its members are partially or wholly elected? Or do they trust a combination of their own loyalists and the Prime Minister himself to make laws that not only bypass the Lords, but can, if necessary, bypass the Commons, too?

I address this question to Labour backbenchers, because it will be they who have the power to stop such nonsense. The Lords wisely decided not to die in the last ditch in 1911: but they might as well die there now, in the cause not of partisan self-interest (as was the case 95 years ago), but of defending liberty and our constitution. Frankly, these plans are so absolutist that one could make a strong case that the Queen should abdicate rather than give her assent to either of them.

To obviate that horror she, Parliament and the British public must demand a straight answer to a straight and vital question: what is so wrong with our democracy that Labour wishes so ruthlessly to end it?”

Technorati Tags: House of Lords, british-constitution, british-democracy
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From Anne Palmer

Statutory Instruments. (Explanation)

There are two main types of statutory instruments, affirmative instruments, which Parliament must expressly approve: and negative instruments, which become law without a debate or vote – but may be opposed, or “prayed against”, by a member of either House. In both cases, Parliament’s room for manoeuvre is limited. Parliament can accept or (theoretically)_ reject an instrument but cannot amend it. In practise, time for debating statutory instruments is limited.

The first time I came across the Bill was the morning of the 10^th Feb 2006 when going through the Commons Hansard for the 9^th Feb. I nearly passed the debate by because the title Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill meant nothing to me at that time. However, I have trailed Parliament for so long now, I have found that the most innocent of titles can hide some of the most fierce despotic legislation. I decided to ‘have a look’. What I saw at a glance through trailing down, made me print off the whole debate to go through in greater and detail.

Here are some excerpts and although these alerted me at the time, they are mild to what comes in the Standing Committee’s 8 debates.

Booker

If the Commons were ‘monitored’ like local councils, it would soon be empty

The Standards Board for England last week apologised to five Islington councillors who, after three years, had been cleared of charges made against them by a political opponent. This was the longest-ever investigation by the board, which was set up by John Prescott to enforce new rules on the conduct of local councillors. It cost £1.1 million, including a legal bill of £350,000 incurred personally by the councillors in their bid to defend themselves.

Since I first reported on the workings of Mr Prescott’s new system which sets up a “monitoring officer” in each council to enforce his Code of Conduct, I have been bombarded by MPs and councillors with examples from all over the country of the havoc it is inflicting on local government.

When the leader of West Norfolk council, John Dobson, took legal advice which enabled him to reverse a Standards Board ruling in favour of a complaint made against him, also by a political opponent, this left him with a bill for more than £23,000. But politically or maliciously inspired complaints, which have to be investigated by the Standards Board’s highly-paid Ethical Standards Officers, are only part of the problem.

Causing just as much confusion and dismay are bizarre rulings by zealous monitoring officers that councillors cannot even be present during discussions of issues on which they are judged to have a “personal and prejudicial interest”, although these may be the very issues on which they were elected.

An English vote is of less value  Times Letters

Sir - After listening yesterday to Lord Falconer’s rationale for devolution, I can see why the Government is so frightened of restricting votes on English laws to English MPs. It realises that, without the support of Scottish- and Welsh-elected MPs, it cannot be sure of pushing through English legislation at Westminster.

Lord Falconer (a Scot to boot) rejects the notion of English votes in Parliament for English laws (the only fair, affordable way forward) on the grounds that it will create two tiers of MPs.

This Government has already created two tiers of voters: Welsh and Scottish ones with a vote on their own legislation and also a say in English laws, and English voters with a vote only within their own borders. The English voter, as Tam Dalyell acknowledged long ago, has a voting deficit and this is the way the Government wishes to keep things, despite the advice of select committees, and discontent of English voters.

Prof Jeremy Dibble, Durham University

Times
EU law and British legislation
Sir, There is a stream of proposals for constitutional reform, most of which are well overdue. The latest is the Power inquiry (Political briefing, Feb 28).

Peter Riddell is right in calling attention to the number of revolts by MPs as one example of the assertiveness of Parliament. However, he underestimates the power of the Government and the whips in driving through a vast increase in legislation often with little or no debate.

The Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill, reviewed by David Pannick, QC (Law, Feb 28; see also letters, March 1, etc), is a good new example of truncating the necessary parliamentary procedures for the proper consideration of legislation. He points out that legislation which emanates from the European Communities Act 1972 and the Human Rights Act 1998 confers powers on ministers to secure compliance with European-made law.

However, apart from a passing reference to the European scrutiny process, the Power inquiry does not tackle the root problem. This is that the existing European treaties and European law (let alone the currently suspended European constitution) have a deeply pervasive impact on multiple spheres of our domestic legislation and on our own parliamentary system of government. These include EU regulations, which burden British business but which it is claimed cannot be amended or repealed at Westminster.

Parliament must tackle this issue or become increasingly irrelevant. It must reassert the principle of parliamentary supremacy by reaffirming its right to legislate where necessary inconsistently with the European Communities Act 1972 and the Human Rights Act 1998 and override the Legislative and Regulatory Reform proposals which diminish proper parliamentary scrutiny.

It must, at the same time, require the judiciary to support parliamentary supremacy, for this is based on the power of Parliament and on the decisions of MPs who are democratically elected by the voters in general elections. It is imperative that Kenneth Clarke’s Conservative Democracy Commission endorses this principle as it is clear that neither the Labour Party nor the Liberal Democrats have any intention of doing so.

BILL CASH, MP
Shadow Attorney-General 2001-03
London SW1

Technorati Tags: Power inquiry, The Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill, European treaties, European law, EU regulations

Neil Herron has a post about the opening of the New Welsh Assembly Building by the Queen yesterday and a link to the photographs from Caernarfon Online of the thousands of people who did not turn up in Maes.

At the request of the Assembly the BBC mounted a publicity exercise by putting up a big TV screen in the centre of town.

There is clearly a feeling of apathy to both the Assembly and the Royal Family in Caernarfon.

Obviously for the people of Caernarfon “It was a mistake to use the referendum process, but when you make a mistake you can correct it.

Technorati Tags: Welsh Assembly, BBC, apathy, Royal Family, referendum process

Commenting on Reform of the House of Lords by Stuart Wonko`s World

But it was the fact that the Lords got their position by lottery of birth that made them an effective check on the power of the Commons.

British MP’s will sell their grandmothers if it means they might win an election. How many times has a leadership candidate or prospective parliamentary candidate abandoned their long held beliefs and principles and toed the party line for the furtherance of their career? I can give you a few examples in the last few month off the top of my head.

The Lords had no reliance on popularity with either the electorate or the party and, rather than turning them into raving dictators, it made them into effective opposition and overseers of the career politicians in the Commons who stand to lose if they lose support of their party.

Since the last “reform” of the House of Lords, the Labour Stazi has appointed itself a majority in the upper house where previously it had been a Conservative majority.

The proposed “reform” to make it an elected upper house is nothing to do with democracy or accountability but merely an attempt to legitimise the situation whereby the upper house is 99.99999% guaranteed to have the same party in control as the Commons.

If the people vote for a Labour government in the Commons, they sure as hell aren’t going to vote for a Conservative government in the Lords are they?

Once the same party has absolute control of both houses there is no opposition or oversight and the Lords becomes an expensive talking shop - this is what the Commons has been reduced to over the last few years.

Technorati Tags: British MP’s, The Lords, dictators, opposition, career politicians, reform

I have just noticed that Dr John Parkinson (a politics lecturer at the University of York) has a comment in the Guardian regarding the House of Lords reform, the government is revisiting this question. Earlier I appreciated the comments about the same thing by Nosemonkey at Europhobia.

Basically the argument is that it is not vital for democracy that members of the House of Lords be elected: Given that, one of the most important roles of democratic institutions is to scrutinise t