eurealist.co.uk

Although I am an atheist and do not normally concern myself with religion, I was looking for another blog link to keep company with Cranmer when I found this quote for a post about Halloween on a Witness blog.

 Thank God! I finally woke up to see that Halloween is such a great opportunity for evangelism. What other time of year do people actually flock to my door?

 The Wimpy Witness Christian Evangelism Blog

No only Joking!
Italy appeals to EU over merger and argues that Europe is dead

The French merger of Suez SA and Gaz de France is said to be causing consternation in Italy. An editorial in the WSJ argues that the French “head-on challenge to the single market calls into question the raison d’etre behind the European Union far more than the constitutional crisis of last year did.” Commission Vice-President Franco Frattini “What has happened in Paris risks dealing a blow to the European spirit of the single market.”

However In France they have a different perspective:

It was an act of “economic patriotism” (Dominique de Villepin)

Economic patriotism is not the same thing as protectionism (Clara Gaymard from Invest in France)

“everything which strengthens French industry strengthens the whole of Europe.” (French foreign ministry) Good one that, I wonder if it would work should our Tone be tempted to try it?

Thanks to Dennis Cooper for these two funny letters.

This refers to an article by Bill Jamieson last week: “UK policy chasm: official numbers and the real world”: Link

“Few now believe that the CPI inflation measure bears much relation to the cost of living. Indeed, how could it when the CPI does not include housing or mortgage costs, taxes, national insurance, or council tax?”

Link

26 February 2006

Sir – I want to share a formula I have for beating the winter blues. It is one the provenance of which bears the hallmark of intellectual and financial integrity of the highest order. Put simply, I choose to believe the conclusions of those august members of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) who assert that the economy is picking up and everything in the garden is rosy. How comforting it is to know that irritating little outgoings such as mortgage payments, income tax, national insurance contributions and council tax do not form part of their thinking. I reason that if not part of theirs then why should they be part of mine?

I stopped worrying, went on a celebratory spending spree and got some terrific bargains at a number of High Street closing down sales. My bank manager, although at first seeming a little put out, not so much agreed as actually insisted that all my direct debits should be immediately stopped. It just goes to show what clever gentlemen those MPC members are.

Pauline Roberts, Cardiff -

Link

What inflation?

26 February 2006

Sir – With reference to your articles on the difference between the “cost of living” and the UK Consumer Price Index (CPI), I remember my times studying monetary economics at the London School of Economics in the mid 1980s.

One of my teachers used to say that if he was ever in control of monetary policy, the best policy would be to keep interest rates as low as possible whilst always denying the existence of any inflation. I wonder if his instincts have changed now that he is in control of monetary policy.

William Butler -

Letters to the Editor

The Times February 23, 2006

Legislative reform Bill grants powers too great for government
Sir, Francis Bennion is right to draw attention in his letter to the failure — of successive governments — to bring forward legislation to implement sensible law reforms recommended by the Law Commission. What needs to be recognised, however, is that the “difficulty in obtaining a place in the legislative programme for its reform Bills” is largely due to to the preference of governments (especially the present one) to introduce “popular” measures, frequently under the mantra of “modernisation” but which do little to effect real change.

It is not only the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill (Comment, Feb 21; letters, Feb 16 and 20) that demonstrates an arrogance on the part of government to bypass or railroad Parliament. Tony Blair sought to justify, in Prime Minister’s Questions last week, restoring an offence of “glorifying terrorism” to the Terrorism Bill on the basis that “if we remove any reference to glorification from the Bill, people outside will infer that we have decided to dilute our law at the very moment when we should strengthen it” and that “by weakening our law on terrorism at this time from what was proposed, we would send the wrong signal to the whole of the outside world”.

Does this mean that if the Government proposes a new law, however ill-judged or authoritarian, it is the moral duty of Parliament to support it for fear of the “wrong signal” it would send to do otherwise? Thankfully, the proposed 90-day detention law was struck down, but there is a continuing need for our MPs to remember that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

DAVID J. LAMMING
Groton, Suffolk

Sir, The Government has assured us that the very wide powers to be given to ministers by the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill to legislate by means of statutory instrument will not be used for controversial matters.

It is worth remembering that when the European Communities Act was passed, the then Solicitor-General told Parliament on July 13, 1972, that the similar powers in section 2(2) of that Act would be used for “consequential amendments of a small, minor and insignificant kind”. However, those powers are used to make fundamental changes in our law, involving important policy choices, without recourse to an Act of Parliament. A recent example is the intended implementation by regulation of the EC directive on age discrimination. Despite that this directive leaves a wide discretion to member states, the exercise of which will affect society at large and millions of people personally, the directive is being implemented by regulation.

What the use of section 2(2) of the European Communities Act shows is that any government, faced with the difficulty of finding enough Parliamentary time to get its legislation through, will inevitably choose other quicker routes when they are available. As Lord Justice Jacob said in the recent case of Oakley v Animal, no one can seriously suggest that the scrutiny Parliament gives to statutory instruments is as profound as that given to an Act of Parliament.

Whatever the Government’s good intentions, therefore, it is difficult to have much confidence that the powers the Government now wants to take will not be used to make fundamental changes that should be properly debated in Parliament.

SIR JEREMY LEVER, QC
GEORGE PERETZ
London WC1

This from Neil Herron

Burnley Council … formal letter incorporating the Bill of Rights, Magna Carta and the Human Rights Act

As we now begin to introduce the Human Rights perspective NPAS and DPE is looking very vulnerable indeed.

Legal Department
Burnley Borough Council
Town Hall
Burnley
BB11 1JA

Dear Sir/Madam

I am writing with regard concerning a Final Demand from Drakes Bailiffs, dated 14/2/06 (copy enclosed) for 2 unpaid parking penalty notices dated 1/2/05 and 19/5/05. The penalty notices are: BE******** and BE********. I can confirm that I wrote to Parkwise on the 11th July last year and contested the validity of these tickets as no individual company has the right to demand money from me for an alleged offence which has not been proven in a Court of Law.

As stated in the Bill of Rights Act 1689 enacted and formally entered into Statute following the Declaration of Rights 1689:

That all grants and promises of fines and forfeitures of particular persons before conviction are illegal and void.

As stated by Parkwise they do not issue fines but Penalty Charge Notices. However according to Burnley Borough Councils official website (Burnley.gov.uk), they do issue fines and is quite clearly listed in the A-Z of Council Services (copy enclosed). Therefore, it would appear that Burnley Borough Council and its agents (Parkwise) have no lawful authority to demand money for an alleged infringement that has not been dealt with by a Court of Law.

Of the Bill of Rights, I feel I must point out that the text of the Bill of Rights states clearly enough that no fines or forfeitures may be imposed before the process of judgment and conviction, and this text clearly indicates that a Court of Law is required to resolve disputes of any kind, either Civil or Criminal.

Because judgments are involved in the preamble to the Bill of Rights, as well as convictions. It is quite clear that only HM Courts have the legal authority to impose lawful judgments &/or convictions. Furthermore with the precise words of the Bill of Rights very much in mind, I must record with you that the provisions of the Bill of Rights cannot be satisfied by any process of appeal to anywhere other than HM Courts of Law!.
In a word The Declaration of Rights provides that if Burnley Borough Council wishes to proceed against me, they will have to refer this matter to Her Majesty’s Courts Service where the issues must be resolved in a lawful manner. Otherwise, the forfeit demanded of me is illegal and void.

In addition to the provisions of the Declaration and Bill of Rights, and in support of my own assertion that this process is not constituted in accordance with our laws, I must ask you to recognise the Great Charter of Our Liberties that is now incorporated into Statute Law under the name of the Magna Carta. I draw your particular attention to the provisions made at Articles 39 & 40 of the Statute, which states as follows:-

39. No free man shall be arrested, or imprisoned, or deprived of his property, or outlawed, or exiled, or in any way destroyed, nor shall we go against him or send against him, unless by legal judgement of his peers, or by the law of the land.

40. To no one will we sell, to no one will we refuse or delay, right or justice.

There can be no doubt that I am a free man and that Articles 39 & 40 apply to me. It is clear & very well recorded that the entire purpose of Magna Carta was to reduce the power of the king and not to increase this power and in consequence of the very obvious, it is clear that the option of trial by the judgment of my peers OR by the law of the land is an option that is secured to me in all circumstances such as this, and not an option that may be exercised by or at the behest of the Crown, or by any authority that claims to hold an authority under the Crown.

E.g. the Local Authority with which I find myself in dispute.

In addition to the provisions of the Declaration and Bill of Rights, and the Magna Carta. I would like to draw your attention to the Human Rights Act 1998, and in particular to Article 6 (Right To A Fair Trail), and the provisions made in paragraph 1:-

1. In the determination of his civil rights and obligations or of any criminal charge against him, everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial tribunal established by law. Judgment shall be pronounced publicly but the press and public may be excluded from all or part of the trial in the interest of morals, public order or national security in a democratic society, where the interests of juveniles or the protection of the private life of the parties so require, or to the extent strictly necessary in the opinion of the court in special circumstances where publicity would prejudice the interests of justice.

I have not as yet appealed to the National Parking Adjudication Service. The Independent Tribunal that receives 60p from every Penalty Notice issued, and is funded by the local authority collecting the PCN. The evidence of the now-recorded and public admissions of the National Parking and Adjudication Service now serves to reveal that the process of this tribunal system is being funded in part from the resources of my opponent, and this admission leads to the inevitable conclusion that any such hearing is not established in a manner that is independent from the interests of my opponent.

I am therefore requesting that Burnley Borough Council suspend the warrant from Drakes Bailiffs, as I intend to file a Late Statutory Declaration with the Traffic Enforcement Centre.

It is my intention to defend my case through the law courts of HM the Queen, as The Declaration of Rights 1689, the Magna Carta 1215, and the Human Rights Act 1998 provides I have an inalienable right to require that all and any legal actions undertaken against me, whether Civil or Criminal be heard and resolved by a Court of Law that operates in the name and for the purposes of the Queen.
That is why the Royal Coat of Arms is displayed in every Courtroom.

I look forward to hearing from you in this matter.

Yours Faithfully.

Neil Corless.

Who wants the Abolition of Parliament Bill?
David Howarth

Hardly anyone has noticed, but British democracy is sleepwalking into a sinister world of ministerial power.

LAST WEEK all eyes were on the House of Commons as it debated identity cards, smoking and terrorism. The media reported both what MPs said and how they voted. For one week at least, the Commons mattered.

All the more peculiar then that the previous Thursday, in an almost deserted chamber, the Government proposed an extraordinary Bill that will drastically reduce parliamentary discussion of future laws, a Bill some constitutional experts are already calling “the Abolition of Parliament Bill”.

A couple of journalists noticed, including Daniel Finkelstein of The Times, and a couple more pricked up their ears last week when I highlighted some biting academic criticism of the Bill on the letters page of this paper. But beyond those rarefied circles, that we are sleepwalking into a new and sinister world of ministerial power seems barely to have registered.

The boring title of the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill hides an astonishing proposal. It gives ministers power to alter any law passed by Parliament. The only limitations are that new crimes cannot be created if the penalty is greater than two years in prison and that it cannot increase taxation. But any other law can be changed, no matter how important. All ministers will have to do is propose an order, wait a few weeks and, voilà, the law is changed.

For ministers the advantages are obvious: no more tedious debates in which they have to answer awkward questions. Instead of a full day’s debate on the principle of the proposal, detailed line-by-line examination in committee, a second chance at specific amendment in the Commons and a final debate and vote, ministers will have to face at most a short debate in a committee and a one-and-a-half hour debate on the floor.

Frequently the Government will face less than that. No amendments will be allowed. The legislative process will be reduced to a game of take-it-or-leave-it.
The Bill replaces an existing law that allows ministers to relieve regulatory burdens. Business was enthusiastic about that principle and the Government seems to have convinced the business lobby that the latest Bill is just a new, improved version. What makes the new law different, however, is not only that it allows the Government to create extra regulation, including new crimes, but also that it allows ministers to change the structure of government itself. There might be business people so attached to the notion of efficiency and so ignorant or scornful of the principles of democracy that they find such a proposition attractive. Ordinary citizens should find it alarming.

Any body created by statute, including local authorities, the courts and even companies, might find themselves reorganised or even abolished. Since the powers of the House of Lords are defined in Acts of Parliament, even they are subject to the Bill.

Looking back at last week’s business in the Commons, the Bill makes a mockery of the decisions MPs took. Carrying ID cards could be made compulsory, smoking in one’s own home could be outlawed and the definition of terrorism altered to make ordinary political protest punishable by life imprisonment. Nor will the Human Rights Act save us since the Bill makes no exception for it.

The Bill, bizarrely, even applies to itself, so that ministers could propose orders to remove the limitations about two-year sentences and taxation. It also includes a few desultory questions (along the lines of “am I satisfied that I am doing the right thing?”) that ministers have to ask themselves before proceeding, all drafted subjectively so that court challenges will fail, no matter how preposterous the minister’s answer. Even these questions can be removed using the Bill’s own procedure. Indeed, at its most extreme, in a manoeuvre akin to a legislative Indian rope trick, ministers could use it to transfer all legislative power permanently to themselves.

The Bill raises fundamental questions about the role of Parliament. Ministers, egged on, some suspect, by the Civil Service, treat Parliament as a voting machine. Its job, in their view, is merely to give legal cover to whatever ministers want to do. They treat debate and deliberation as mere chatter before the all-important vote. They see no great difference between full parliamentary procedure and a truncated procedure for statutory instruments because, for them, the result either way is the same, that ministers receive legal authority for their plans. Just as a perfect criminal statute for ministers appears to be one in which everything is illegal so that prosecutors have discretion to put anyone in front of a court, a perfect authorising statute is one that makes lawful any ministerial act or policy.

Some of us have a different view. We think that deliberation and debate matter, that they are part of what makes parliamentary democracy work and make the new laws we pass legitimate. Deliberation improves legislation but more importantly, it forces governments to give reasons for their proposals that go beyond their narrow self-interest. In private meetings of the governing party, or in the Cabinet, or above all in telephone calls between ministers and special advisers, purely partisan reasons can hold sway. But in public, especially where there is real debate, ministers have to offer reasons that might persuade others. If they cannot think of any such reasons, their embarrassment constrains them. As the political scientist Jon Elster says, even hypocrisy can have a civilising effect.

The Government claims that there is nothing to worry about. The powers in the Bill, it says, will not be used for
“controversial” matters. But there is nothing in the Bill that restricts its use to “uncontroversial” issues. The minister is asking us to trust him, and, worse, to trust all his colleagues and all their successors. No one should be trusted with such power.

As James Madison gave warning in The Federalist Papers, we should remember when handing out political power that “enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm”. This Bill should make one doubt whether they are at the helm now.

David Howarth is Liberal Democrat MP for Cambridge and Reader in Law at Cambridge University

On Saturday I checked into Eurealist and found that the blog had become corrupted, no problem I hear you both cry, just reload your back up copy of the template and you will up and running in no time, A wat! Oh yes, I did back up the template some months ago whoops! So I have been mucking about with the template, eventually I have got it sort of sorted, I hope. I took the opportunity to re-assess my blog listings, some no longer worked, others had ceased to be updated, also there were a few new ones, I have added.

Not Little England full name Great Britain not Little England is one such, I do not know why I have not put a link in before, well I do actually, it is the same reason that prevented me creating a backup of the template, my wife calls it laziness Hu!

I really do not know what she’s on about, I mean I was working on the template in my nice warm office with a glass of wine beside me yesterday evening, whist she was enjoying herself, scrambling about under the Mahonia? bush in the freezing cold rodding the drains (the Ladies lo had become clogged again).

Anyway MatGB at not Little England has recently started a Blog movement, to oust this government, a coalition of the willing to remove our dangerously authoritarian government. I am happy to support this laudable endeavour, but would caution that removeing this government will not in itself cause a reversal of the authoritarian policies of the TB GB mob. No we need to be very specific that we the people of Great Britian have had just about enough authoritarianism to last for quite a while, we need to make that very clear to those who would stand in Blair’s shoes and we must not allow ourselves to be fobbed off with sweet words from honed tongues.

Another one of the blog list additions is Gav`s Politics, Gav`s take on the Coalition of the willing is worth copying because he put into words some of that which has been rolling around in my head for the past few weeks, that I do not seem to be able to get a handle on:

“MatGB seems to have set a Indiana Jones-type ball rolling… First I agreed, tentatively, to support a coalition of the willing to remove our dangerously authoritarian government, and now we have a British Constitution effort.

My response is this:

An important aspect that must not be forgotten if we’re to look at this at a UK level is the inequity caused by devolution and especially the Scottish Raj.
As Bishop Hill said (though not in these words) yesterday we must be very careful about creating a Constitution that enshrines a partisan political view. The EU Constitution, IMHO, made that mistake.”

A Comment on my deconstruction of Professor Hazels report on The English Question suggests that there is no linkage between the devolution and EU Regionalisation.

I must agree that this is a much argued contention by those who oddly are recipients of EU largess, who œincidentally also support and promote the devolution process, including the break up of England into 9 separate political regions.

Basically The English Question is to address the problems left by Tony Blair`s unfinished destruction of Britain as a political unit. From Hazell`s point of view there is only one answer to The English Question, and that is to destroy England, that without doubt would be one way of addressing the problems but as Hazell makes clear;

“Regionalism Is Not a Complete Answer Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland have powers to make laws in their devolved assemblies and substantial executive powers over major public services such as health, education, and local government. English regional assemblies would have had no lawmaking power and no executive powers to speak of.”

However back to the suggestion that the EU is not relevant to the devolution process, we do not have to search far to find overwhelming evidence in official and academic reports, that give the lie to this suggestion.

Regions in the European Union
By Michael Keating *

“European integration has been a powerful stimulus to territorial mobilisation in Western Europe, but at the same time it has provided new mechanisms to manage the consequences. The erosion of state sovereignty and the sharing of power that it imposes allow a more flexible constitutional order in which questions of jurisdiction do not become absolutes but can be negotiated. In multinational states like Spain, Belgium and the United Kingdom, this has permitted a programme of decentralisation and a degree of recognition of the special needs of particular areas, within the overall framework of Europe.”

Martin Burch, Ricardo Gomez, Simon Bulmer (University of Manchester),
Patricia Hogwood (University of Glasgow), Caitriona Carter and Andrew
Scott (University of Edinburgh)
The English Regions and the European Union

Paper No. 2
Devolution and European Union Policy Making Series
May 14, 2003

“Sub-national involvement in EU policies and politics is an established feature of the
European integration process. Over the course of several decades, interaction between
different levels of government within and beyond the nation state has become a defining characteristic of the EU.”

But in what way has the EU influenced and driven the policy of devolution?

Firstly we must define “the EU effect”. That is change that would not have happened or would not have happened in the way it has, if it were not for the existence of the EU or arrangements and interaction resulting from the creation and growth of the EU.

How has the EU exerted its influence on these developments; for an official answer to that question we need only turn to the Final Report to the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) December 2003

“The Structural Funds are the primary instrument for implementing EU regional policy across the Member States. They were initially designed and have subsequently evolved to reflect key EU policy priorities,
The Structural Funds have a specific remit to complement Member State regional
development policies but there are differences in emphasis and some scope for
European monies to influence national spending priorities:

The European Commission’s role as a partner in the implementation of the
Structural Funds means that its perspective on the barriers to development in a
particular programme area, and the necessary solutions, can influence the nature
of strategies that are adopted.”

So the answer to the question is money or the availability of funding directly from the EU (of course this is our money in the first place, which the EU then returns to us with strings attached in order to facilitate EU objectives,)

This is not quite the end of the matter however as the report continues;

“The requirement to use domestic funding sources to match-fund or co-finance
Structural Fund programmes, and the desire on the part of regional and other
actors to maximise the ‘draw-down’ from the Structural Funds, has the potential to
influence how domestic funding streams are deployed.”

So not only does EU funding influence regional policy it influence our own government spending.

Michael Keating
“The European Commission considers that the ability of the Structural Funds to influence policy development in Member States to reflect EU policy goals and to act as stimulus for increased integration of policy across the EU is one of the principal areas where community added value can be identified.”

Back to the The English Regions and the European Union, paper and a question of relative meanings:

The Emergence of “New English Regionalism”: 1991-97
“Prior to 1997, regional involvement in European Union policy making was very much a
‘bottom up’ development. In some regions key actors began to organise themselves to
respond to the challenges of economic regeneration and in particular to the opportunities presented by European funding programmes.”

The writers are claiming here that there was a bottom up movement for devolution, but say that it was driven “in particular by the European funding programmes”. Which they seem to have missed was a top down movement and therefore the driver for the later bottom up movement.

Back to Keating, who says:

“The whole policy was to be guided by the principle of subsidiarity, with the greatest possible involvement of regional and local interests and the social partners in the world of business, labour and voluntary groups. The Commission, in line with contemporary thinking on development policy, also sought to move from infrastructure to human capital, productive investment and endogenous development, giving opportunities for a more active and participatory role for regional actors of various sorts.

This should have encouraged greater regional involvement in policy making and stronger direct links between the Commission and regional interests, and to some extent this has happened. States without regional structures have had to create them, or a least some substitute for them, in order to be eligible for funds—for example in Greece, Ireland and Sweden. The new funds have stimulated a great deal of political mobilisation (Hooghe 1996) even in places like England, without a developed regionalism (Burch and Holliday 1993). There has been an explosion of regional lobbying and offices in Brussels. Regional actors have been brought into contact with Commission officials and its thinking on development policy has been diffused through the mechanism of partnership”

So we can see it was the EU decision to only offer funding to regions and not to nation states, which drove the devolution process from the very beginning, in order for the regions to receive funding there had to be a political mechanism in place, first to apply for and then to distribute funding.

This fact is confirmed in the paper The English Regions and the European Union,

it is important to acknowledge the significance of the structural funds in encouraging the emergence of sub-national governance in England.”

“Two principles introduced in the 1988 and 1993 reforms to the European Regional Development Fund – partnership and programming – highlight this point. The partnership concept, incorporated in the 1988 Framework Regulation, codified a Commission commitment to the inclusion of sub-national actors that had existed since the foundation of EU regional policy in the 1970s. It required tripartite consultation between the Commission, Member States and designated sub-national authorities in the formulation of development plans, the implementation of programmes and the monitoring and evaluation process. Power to designate and to take key decisions about the programmes rested with central governments. But the partnership principle clearly encouraged sub-national participation and assisted the creation of new, regionally focused, policy communities (Bache 1998: 103). The programming concept complemented partnership by setting out a procedural map for the negotiation of multi-annual plans and there were, in particular, two aspects of this which encouraged the emergence of regional players and structures. Firstly, implementing authorities had to be consulted by the Commission and member
governments during this complex and lengthy process. Secondly, the 5-year time frame of the plans ensured continuity and stability for the participants in the funding process. The series of reforms to the ERDF between 1988 and 1993 thus provided one of the significant drivers for regional engagement, albeit with varying outcomes across the English regions partly depending on the scale of the funds allocated.”

Elsewhere in the report;

“Regional differences in receipts of Structural Funds have clearly been a factor in accounting for the way organisational structures have developed.”

And

Conclusion
There was considerable variation in the way that English regions became engaged on the European issue in the pre-1997 ‘phase’. This variation in part reflected differences in the pattern of regional emergence across the nine. A pragmatic ‘new English regionalism’emerged in some areas. This emphasised economic concerns, was confined to core elites and reflected the specific characteristics of each region. It developed in tandem with the creation of integrated Government Offices in the regions. However, the timing, scope and impact of change in English regional governance was significantly driven by the Structural Funds and thus by the European Union.

Much of the substantive change over the period originated at the regulative level
with the new obligations imposed on central government and regional authorities by the Structural Funds regulations of 1988 and 1993. Important changes in processes and
organisations within the regions were a direct result of ERDF decision-making
requirements. The programming concept helped to both develop and consolidate the
regional tier by creating a clear focus for the activities of regional players. Formal requirements to operate on the basis of partnership also exerted a powerful regionalising effect by forcing those actors involved in delivering Structural Funds programmes to devise new ways of working with sub-national interests.

This I think and hope puts an end to the suggestion that the EU has nothing to do with the devolution process or the break up of England into 9 separate political regions, it is patently was and still is an EU driven movement towards an EU of the regions. Which in its most radical understanding, implies the dissolution of the nation-state as most of the central government functions are started to be carried out by the EU and regional and local authorities.

How I woke up to a nightmare plot to steal centuries of law and liberty

From the Times
By
Daniel Finkelstein

THE POINT IS, I don’t want to seem like a nutter. It’s a very common human emotion, that — not wanting to stand out for thinking something hardly anyone else thinks. Best keep your head down and say nothing. In 1978, in Jonestown, Guyana, more than 900 people voluntarily drank strawberry-coloured poison and died, each one following his neighbour, eager not to refuse the drink and have his neighbour think that he was a nutter. Perhaps the worst part of the tragedy is that the rest of us look back at them and think — what a bunch of nutters.
So I’m nervous about admitting that I’ve been having a paranoid nightmare, one that very few other people seem to share. But I have been, so you may as well know about it.

In my nightmare, Tony Blair finally decides that he is fed-up with putting Bills before Parliament. He has so much to do and so little time. Don’t you realise how busy he is? He’s had enough of close shaves and of having to cut short trips abroad. He decides to put a Bill to End All Bills before the Commons, one that gives him and his ministers power to introduce and amend any legislation in future without going through all those boring stages in Parliament.

That’s not the end of my feverish fantasy. The new law is proposed and hardly anyone notices. John Redwood complains, of course, and a couple of Liberal Democrats, but by and large it is ignored. The Labour rebels are nowhere to be seen. The business lobby announces that it is about time all those politicians streamlined things, cutting out time-wasting debates. In a half empty Commons chamber, a junior minister puts down any objections with a few partisan wisecracks. Then the Bill to End All Bills is nodded through the Houses of Parliament, taking with it a few hundred years of Parliamentary democracy.

I wake up, sweating.

Only one thing persuades me that I’m not cracking up. When I have my nightmares about the Bill to End All Bills, I am not dreaming about dastardly legislation that I fear a cartoon Tony Blair, with an evil cackle, will introduce in some terrible future. I am tossing and turning about a government Bill that was given its second reading in the House of Commons last week and is heading into committee.

Now I know what I am about to tell you is difficult to believe (Why isn’t this on the front pages? Where’s the big political row?) but I promise you that it is true. The extraordinary Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill, currently before the House, gives ministers power to amend, repeal or replace any legislation simply by making an order and without having to bring a Bill before Parliament. The House of Lords Constitution Committee says the Bill is “of first-class constitutional significance” and fears that it could “markedly alter the respective and long standing roles of minister and Parliament in the legislative process”.

There are a few restrictions — orders can’t be used to introduce new taxes, for instance — but most of the limitations on their use are fuzzy and subjective. One of the “safeguards” in the Bill is that an order can impose a burden only “proportionate to the benefit expected to be gained”. And who gets to judge whether it is proportionate? Why, the minister of course. The early signs are not good. Having undertaken initially not to use orders for controversial laws, the Government has already started talking about abstaining from their use when the matter at hand is “highly” controversial.

Now, I am not an extreme libertarian. I don’t spend my weekends in conferences discussing the abolition of traffic lights and the privatisation of MI5. But I have to admit that the legislation being debated in the Commons this week — the new ID cards, the smoking ban, the measure on the glorification of terror — has tempted me to take up smoking and start attending lectures about Hayek organised by earnest men with pamphlets in carrier bags.

Yet the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill has made me realise that I may be missing the point — the biggest danger to civil liberties posed by these new laws is not the nature of them, but merely their quantity.

Let me explain my thinking.

The Government claims that it has no malign intention in introducing the reform to parliamentary procedures. It is just that it has such ambitious plans for deregulation — or “better regulation” as it rather suspiciously calls it — that Parliament won’t be able to cope. The previous Regulatory Reform Act, passed in 2001, was so hedged around with conditions and safeguards that it took longer to produce a regulatory reform order than it did to produce a Bill. So this time, the Government wants more sweeping powers.

During future detailed Commons consideration of the Bill, restrictions on the terms of the new orders will be resisted using the argument that business wants deregulation and government has to get on with it.

What does this argument, used often by the minister during last week’s debate, amount to? An admission that we are now passing so many new laws, so quickly, and so many of them are sloppy, that we don’t have time to debate them properly or reform them when they go wrong. Parliament is drowning in a sea of legislation. Instead of calling a halt to this, the Government is seeking a way of moving ever faster, adding yet more laws, this time with even less debate.

The problem with ID cards, smoking bans and new terror laws is not just the standard liberal one. It isn’t even that they are entirely unecessary, since you can fashion an argument for each measure. It is that we should be reforming and enforcing the laws we have, rather than adding new complicated, poorly thought through laws to the stack that already exists. The Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill isn’t just a dangerous proposal. It is a flashing red light.
Our legislative activism is endangering our parliamentary democracy and we must stop before it’s too late.

Or am I a nutter?

And from the house of Commons.

David Howarth (Cambridge) (LD)Col 1094) I confine my remarks to the constitutional aspects of the Bill. This seems to me to be extraordinary legislation. It proposes changes to the legislative process that in any other country in Europe, and perhaps in the world, would require a constitutional amendment. That is one of the reasons that part 1 has to be taken on the Floor of the House.

One aspect of the Bill that seems quite disturbing is that it allows not just the addition of new crimes, with up to two years imprisonment or a level 5 fine, but it allows the Government to use the procedure to undertake structural change. Often, legislation does not regulate or add crimes, but sets up bodies and gives them powers. Among those bodies are, of course, local authorities. It strikes me that under the Bill as presently drafted, structural and functional reform of local government could be achieved without proper legislative scrutiny. Therefore, simply through using that mechanism, the balance of the constitution itself between local and central Government could be changed.

The Government will say, “Would that not be controversial?” That comes back to the point about the weakness of that test. Even the structure of the courts could be changed because they are no longer a matter of common law; they are a matter of statute. Any creature of statute, which technically includes any company, could be changed by these provisions……….

………The Minister has dealt with questions about changes to the Terrorism Bill, bringing back the 90 days detention without trial and the rights of defendants being changed. He says that, obviously, those are highly controversial, and they are, but the questions remain not just about fundamental rights, but about the structure of the constitution itself, which the Bill appears to allow to be changed.

Mr. Douglas Carswell (Harwich) (Con): (Col 1097) Part 1 enables Ministers to reform legislation or implement recommendations of the Law Commission by order. Law would, in effect, be made without reference to democratically elected parliamentarians. There would be a further extension of the power of a remote Executive and unaccountable national regulators. Merging regulators does not lead to less regulation. It was Max Weber who said as early as the 19th century that bureaucracy has an inherent tendency to expand. Bureaucracy tries to assume new powers, and to aggrandise itself. A merging of regulators could simply create new super-regulators, hungry for yet more power and more prone to regulate. I am concerned that part 1 will be a further step away from proper parliamentary scrutiny. It appears to empower the Executive, but in reality it will empower senior civil servants and those bureaucrats and regulators already beyond meaningful parliamentary accountability.

In the past 30 years, we have seen a steady erosion of representative parliamentary government. Behind the fac”ade of a functioning parliamentary democracy is an increasingly post-representative system of government. In almost every sphere—financial service regulation, food standards, environmental protection—it is remote quangos, not parliamentarians, that increasingly call the shots. Remote elites make the decisions; local people take the rap; no one is accountable; no one gets sacked: this is how we are governed today. I fear that this Bill is not so much anti-regulation as anti-democratic.

Speaking as someone who could be characterised as slightly sceptical about the European project, part 3 of the Bill leaves me somewhat suspicious. Not for the first time, measures are being introduced in the name of streamlining, but I fear that they may turn out to be a power-grab. European law is currently introduced into this country through regulation. This Bill could enable Brussels diktats to be brought in through schemes and rules. What does that mean? Yesterday in this House, one Member spoke about the European Union achieving the so-called Lisbon agenda. Remember that? It was about deregulating in order to make Europe competitive. Reference was made at the time to making Europe the most competitive economy in the world. That may seem absurd now. Easing EU institutions’ ability to make our laws for us will only exacerbate the Euro-sclerosis afflicting that tired old continent. Easing such ability will only tie us closer to those worn-out EU economies; it will only place us more firmly in Europe’s economic sarcophagus.

I welcome the Regulatory Reform Committee’s acknowledgement that, far from being about deregulation and tidying up, this Bill
“has the potential to be the most constitutionally significant Bill that has been brought before Parliament for some years.”

I welcome the recognition that the driving force behind it is the Cabinet Office and, perhaps, senior civil servants. It could become a bureaucrats’ charter: it could allow them to avoid the messy and unpredictable business of having their measures scrutinised by the people’s elected representatives. Yes, Minister, this Bill could be Sir Humphrey’s dream come true. The Minister would be able to amend, repeal and replace primary and secondary legislation without reference to this House.

It was Walter Bagehot who said in the 19th century that the Crown had ceased to be part of what he called the efficient part of the constitution and had become the dignified part. By that, he meant that it had the trappings of power, but not the reality. My fear is that although this democratically elected Parliament has the trappings of power here in our ornate Chamber, real power is increasingly moving elsewhere. This Bill will only exacerbate that process.

Mr Djanolgy: (Col 1100). The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome said that part 1 is unacceptable as it stands, and we agree.

Part 3 of the Bill relates to legislation emanating from the EU. We have said that we support the idea of making it easier for UK institutions to deal with EU legislation, but—as my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham and my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich asked—how will that actually work? As my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire asked, what are the rules and schemes for EU law referred to in the Bill? We need to know.

The Bill has a striking resemblance to parts of other Bills before this House and the other place. Those need to be looked at in context to highlight the growing constitutional trend away from primary legislation. The Company Law Reform Bill and the Government of Wales Bill both include a similar means of introducing orders through forms of delegated legislation

From the letters page in the Times some voices of concern.

This ID card infringes fundamental freedoms

Sir, Most unusually, you have allowed yourself to be misled by the Government’s spin and misrepresentations concerning the ID Card Bill — principally by swallowing its contention that the privacy concerns of many people in the UK are “in contemporary, card-carrying Britain, entirely irrelevant”. (leading article, Feb 13, and letter, Feb 14).

Those concerns are not in relation to the simple carrying of a card, which is merely the physical expression of the system the Government proposes to impose upon us. My deep anxiety, shared by many others, is the national identity register (NIR) — the database behind the cards — which has been too little debated and which appears to be widely misunderstood.

Leave aside for the moment the questions of overall cost, of the level of charge to be paid by the citizen, of the reliability of the biometric technology to be used, of the burden placed on those whose iris or facial scans do not readily “fit” (such as people with some disabilities and from certain ethnic groups) or of the Government’s abysmal record in implementing any project involving computer technology on time and within budget.

My principal objection is that the Government cannot make up its mind what the ID card and NIR are supposed to accomplish and cannot produce convincing evidence that any of its aims will be achieved by the scheme as outlined in the Bill. We have been told at various times that ID cards and the NIR will help to reduce benefit fraud, cut illegal immigration, combat identity theft, become a vital tool in the war on terror or be a major aid to the police in fighting crime. Yet each of these supposed benefits has been challenged, often by those best able to judge.

I remain deeply sceptical that ID cards and the NIR will achieve any of their stated aims. Against this, I balance the fundamental shift in the relationship between individual and State, the scope for error and maladministration, the horrendous costs of setting up and running the scheme and have come to the inescapable conclusion that the whole concept is flawed and must be resisted by every legal means.
JON MILES
Newton Abbot, Devon

Sir, I feel that I am sensible enough to look after my own identity and take necessary measures to that effect, which is my responsibility.
Now I am being forced to put my identity, along with various measurements of parts of my body, on to a national database where I have little control over the access, use or security of my identity.
MATTHEW HALL
Newcastle upon Tyne

Sir, The decision taken by members of parliament shows them to be as unworthy as representatives of the people as were their predecessors whom Cromwell was compelled to remove in the 17th century.

Is it not obvious that the growing certainty of compulsory ID cards and its associated database, together with the surveillance state represented by more CCTV cameras than are used by Communist China, has placed us well down the road to the nightmare world of 1984? Who can doubt that the distortion of language embodied in political correctness is a precursor to the imposition of a form of Newspeak.

It beggars belief that the British people, at the behest of the lobby fodder within the Commons, are to be forced to submit their fingerprints and iris patterns for inclusion in a state-run archive and to become accountable to those who for so many centuries have been accountable to us.

What foreign dictators have failed to do we are now doing to ourselves.
COLIN BULLEN
Tonbridge, Kent

Sir, It was William Pitt the Younger who said: “Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.”

What Britons never, never shall be, they have become. A fundamental freedom was lost when compulsory ID cards were voted for.
DÓNAL THOMPSON
Madrid

Slaves we are certainly becoming, this Statewatch report shows that at an EU level this is being driven by the British government, directly from Tony Blair`s sofa cabinet. Even the EUites are concerned about “the legal bases for such action”
According to Statewatch

“At the end of January the Commission published its 128-page work programme for 200
6: European Commission work programme for 2006: Justice and home affairs issues. Hidden in the detail is the following:

“Adoption par la Commission d’une décision établissant des normes pour les éléments de sécurité à intégrer dans les cartes d’identité (Comité Article 6)”

That is to adopt a Commission Decision to establish standards for security in ID cards. The “Brief description” attached is more explicit:

“Brief Description: According to The Hague Action Plan, travel documents both for third country nationals and EU citizens should be better secured in particular via the integration of biometric identifiers. Also Identity Cards have been explicitly mentioned even if there are doubts about the legal bases for such an action. This proposal responds to this request and will harmonise the security features for ID cards issued by Member States” (emphasis added)

There is, of course, a big difference between simply “harmonising” security features in national ID cards and “the integration of biometric identifiers” (see, below for objections to this approach).

Two other aspects are extraordinary about this proposal. First, the open admission that there are doubts about: “the legal bases for such action”. Not surprising as Article 18.3 TEC (Nice) expressly excludes provisions on national ID cards.

Second, because the Commission does not appear to be intending to draft a proposal for consideration by the Council and European Parliament but rather to take this momentous decision in secret committee - the Article 6 Committee, referred to as a “Technical Committee”.

The Commission’s intention is all the more surprising as exactly this issue was the subject of heated discussion in the Council prior to the Justice and Home Affairs Council on 1 December 2005.

“The story starts back in July when the UK Presidency presented a Note on “Minimum common standards for national identity cards” to SCIFA (Strategic Committee on Immigration, Frontiers and Asylum) (EU doc no: 11092/05). The Note called on SCIFA to ask the Article 6 Committee to draft standards including the “use of biometrics”. This “Article 6 Committee” is a technical committee set up by the Commission to work out the implementation of the uniform visa format in 1995 - but what powers are there to extend the Committee’s remit first to residence permits for third country nationals, then to EU passports and now to EU ID cards? As the original purpose of the Committee was to deal with the uniform visa format, on the the European Parliament was only “consulted”, it appears the parliament has no right to see what is happening on all the other issues too. See: EU: Biometrics - from visas to passports to ID cards.

The proposal surfaced again in November 2005 when the UK Presidency sent another Note to SCIFA on 11 November (EU doc no: 14351/05). The Article 6 Committee had “considered” physical security features and produced “interim conclusions” and in parallel “an ad-hoc group of experts from Member States” produced its “conclusions”. SCIFA was “invited” to agree “Conclusions” with a view to their adoption “in the margins” (as an A Point - adopted without discussion) at the Justice and Home Affairs Council (JHA Council) on 1 December 2005.

The opening Recitals in the Conclusions plainly show the lack of a legal basis. No legally binding standards or timetables could be “imposed” on member states - “Conclusions” are anyway “soft”, non-binding law which have to be agreed unanimously. This is followed by “without prejudging the issue of the possible legal basis” to “harmonise” security standards for national identity cards - in plain language this means that there is no legal basis but if common standards including biometrics are adopted by member states one-by-one (independently as it were) then “harmonisation” can follow later (a common tactic for controversial measures).

The Conclusions contained two elements, first, standards related to the “issuing process” (eg: applicants should appear in person, security of data and storage). Second, the introduction of biometrics identifiers (”face and two fingerprints”) incorporated into a radio frequency chip (RFID) which should follow the specifications for passports “without modification” - this proved to be controversial. Also by the back-door the Conclusions set standards for checking applicants data “against existing databases” for example, “civil registers, passport and identity cards databases or driving licence registers”.

A week later (18 November) a Note (EU doc no: 14622/05) from the UK Presidency to COREPER (the permanent committee based in Brussels of high-level officials from the 25 governments) said SCIFA “had reached agreement on most of the issues” and it was invited to:

“examine the only outstanding issue, which concerns a reservation by Belgium”

The final version, dated 25 November 2005 (EU doc no: 15000/05), had highly significant changes concerning biometrics. Member states could choose whether they wanted to have biometrics on national ID cards and the passport biometric standards were now only a “reference point” or “starting point”. All references to fingerprints and RFID chips were deleted.

“Belgium and the Czech Republic consider that the introduction of biometric data into national identity cards cannot be examined only from the technical angle. The question requires a wide-ranging debate, which includes the protection of the private life [privacy], budgetary and organisational aspects”

It is interesting to note that while the Conclusions were published in the official press release of the JHA Council on 1 December the statement by Belgium and the Czech Republic was not JHA press release, 1 December 2005.

Tony Bunyan, Statewatch editor, comments:

“This is no way to try to bring in such a far-reaching policy, one which will affect millions of people. It is particularly objectionable that the Commission appears to be proposing that the introduction of biometrics on national ID cards should be considered as a “technical” issue by a committee whose actions cannot be scrutinised. By-passing national and European parliamentary scrutiny, let alone civil society, has no place in a democracy”

In our own parliament the real culprits for the decimation of our constitution, have been debating ID Cards again before the vote later this week.

First, on the so called voluntary introduction of the system; is seems that the government proposes to initially allow a “voluntary” take up of the cards, at some point to be determined later, it is proposed to bring in compulsion. The idea being that if enough of the people prove to be open to the system by taking out the cards on a voluntary basis then the government would make it compulsory.

In fact in the Labour manifesto states “We will introduce ID cards, including biometric data like fingerprints, backed up by a national register and rolling out initially on a voluntary basis as people renew their passports.”

The problem is that the government want to make it a condition that you must take the ID Card when you apply for a new or to renew your passport. This clause was removed by the House of Lords but has been put back into the bill by the government.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury put the matter nicely when he moved the amendment in the Lords. He stated:
“We seek to replace compulsion by voluntarism. Citizens should not be forced to have ID cards. Compulsion is far too often resorted to by the modern state. That comes from an intensely managerial culture in which regulation rules. That sits uneasily with fundamental rights such as privacy and voluntarism. This Bill is an authentic clash between such rights and managerial efficiency.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 23 January 2006; Vol. 677, c. 957.]

Baroness Scotland, speaking on behalf of the Government, tried to claim that passports are voluntary. Well they are but by the government linking the card scheme to passports means that to avoid being compelled to take an ID card you become a prisoner in this country with no opportunity to travel on business or for pleasure. Also as over 80% of us do carry a passport the governments chosen trigger for compulsion would soon be reached.

David Davis made points about the national register;

There are many good reasons for not wanting to be on the national identity register, which involves a large number of pieces of data about each individual being put on a single Government database, many of them the access keys for other Government databases. That is the important point: it is a central database with access keys effectively to all the other Government databases.

It is disingenuous of the Home Secretary to say, “We’ve already got all those.” One of the transitions that has taken place over the past several years under the Government, and to a small extent under the previous Government too, is the removal of barriers to the transfer of information around Government. Those barriers were a protection of the liberties of the individual, and now they have gone. Many have gone for good reason—to make the Child Support Agency work, to stop terrorism, and so on—and the Bill will accelerate that process.

Finally, there is the most important question about the whole issue—the insecurity of the system. The Government have made, in a way properly, much of the issue of identity theft, particularly with regard to terrorism. Yet their proposal—a point I referred to earlier—is to gather the access keys to virtually every Government database in the national identity register, put them on one large computer and then create many thousands of direct access points to that computer. They will have created the most attractive possible target for every fraudster, terrorist, confidence trickster and hacker on the planet. Those people will be able to lift data out and put viruses and false data in.

If the Pentagon and Microsoft cannot keep hackers from penetrating their mainframes, what chance the Home Office? Speaking about the scheme, Microsoft’s national technology officer has said that a central identity database could worsen the very problems that it was intended to prevent, such as terrorism and identity theft. He said that

“ministers should not be building systems that allow hackers to mine information so easily.”

So, far from protecting the public, the Government will put the individual citizen at risk by creating a culture of complacency that is based on an ill-designed and ill-thought-out scheme.

Incidentally, this is yet another area where the Government mounted a mendacious attack on the independent LSE report. I will deal with that in detail because it is rather important. The section of the report that highlights the very serious security flaws in the proposed system was written not by an antagonist of the identity card system, but by somebody who favours identity cards, Dr. Brian Gladman, the ex-technical director of NATO, who had an eminent career in the British military ensuring the security of our military computer systems. He himself has said:

“the UK ID cards programme as now envisaged will create safety and security risks for those whose details are entered into the system.”—

that from an avowed supporter of ID cards.

The English Question
Thanks to the Blog Great Britian not Little England for the link to this report from Publius: The Journal of Federalism by Robert Hazell.

Devolution to Scotland and Wales throws up related questions about the government of
England. Does England need to find its own separate political voice? Does England too need devolution? There is little demand for an English parliament. ‘‘English votes on English laws’’ commands more support but would be impossible to implement in practice. Despite the setback of the Northeast referendum defeat, the future will see further development of regionalism in England. Regional government is the only institutional solution that could help to give England a louder voice and also help to decentralize the government of England. But it is not inevitable. There is no logic in the process of devolution that requires the English to have devolution too.

England is the gaping hole in the devolution settlement. Some argue that devolution will not be complete, and the settlement will not stabilize, until the English Question has been solved. Others believe that England can be left out indefinitely and devolution confined to the Celtic fringe. This article aims to explain the different formulations of the question and to analyse one by one the range of different answers.

The English Question can be divided into the following groups of subquestions:

1. Strengthening England’s place in the Union:
_ Does England need to find its own separate political voice, to rebalance the louder
10 political voice accorded to Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland?
_ Could this be supplied by an English parliament, ‘‘English votes on English laws,’’
independence for England?

2. Decentralizing the government of England:
_ Does England too need devolution, to break from the excessive domination of the
15 central government in London?
_ Can this best be supplied by elected regional assemblies, administrative regionalism,
city regions, stronger local government, elected mayors?

3. Continuation of the status quo:
_ Or do the English want none of the above, with no separate representation or
20 political voice, and no share in devolution either?

These questions have come onto the political agenda as a result of devolution to
Scotland and Wales. They are big issues, issues that will determine the future shape
and nature of the United Kingdom as much as the future government of England.

Devolution has already profoundly changed the United Kingdom’s system of
government, but it extends to only 15 percent of the population. England, with
85 percent of the population, for the moment is left out. If the English ever choose to opt in, the choice they make will have huge consequences not only for the government of England but for the whole future of the Union.

As devolution was a top down exercise imposed and assisted by central government, it is wrong to now look for a grass roots movement calling for the English to opt in, the English preferred the status quo that was as part of one union, this union has now been partially dismantled.

This erroneous argument is followed through into the rest of the report; Hazell, it seems is quite happy to accept the results of the governments top down forcing of the issue in Scotland and Wales, but now asks the English people to start a grass roots movement in order for the English people to exhibit a desire for devolution.

Different Versions of the English Question

Improving the Government of England or Strengthening England’s
Place in the Union? The ‘‘purely English’’ version of the English Question asks: How can we improve the government of England? Interest in regionalism as a possible solution goes back to Fawcett (1919) and Cole (1947) (Tomaney, forthcoming). It springs from long- standing concerns about the poor performance of many of England’s regions,especially in the North, and the difficulties faced by central government in finding effective policy instruments and institutions to drive up regional economic
performance. Successive governments, Labour in the 1970s and Conservative in the1980s, had given up on local government as providing the solution because of its lack of political will and lack of effective capacity. More and more functions were
transferred from local government to centrally controlled public bodies, many
operating on a larger scale at regional rather than local level. In 1994 the Conservative government led by John Major took regionalism a step further by bringing together the regional outposts of four central government departments into new government offices for the regions, with common boundaries based on the Treasury’s eight standard regions of the Northeast, Northwest, Yorkshire and Humberside, West
Midlands, East Midlands, East Anglia, Southeast, and Southwest.

English masses show little concern about devolution in Scotland and Wales and no demand for devolution for themselves (Curtice 2001, 2006, forthcoming). In November 2004 that was dramatically confirmed by the ‘‘No’’ vote in the Northeast regional referendum, when the voters in the Northeast region rejected the government’s proposals for an elected regional assembly by four to one, despite strong campaigning by the deputy prime minister in this solidly Labour region.

The rejection of the government’s proposals is not evidence that that there is little concern about the devolution process, rather it is evidence that the governments proposals for regionalisation were unacceptable.

Prof. Hazell offers us some alternative roads forward and looks at the support both in elite circles and in the general public and the likelihood that any of them may be adopted.

An English Parliament which has low support and an English parliament would risk being as overburdened as Westminster and equally remote. More on this later

English votes on English laws which has good support 60% in England and 50% in Scotland which might be because it was Conservative party policy

English independence which has negligible support. Hard to envisage England unilaterally declaring independence from rest of the United Kingdom

Decentralize government of England regional assemblies

Hazell claims this has a 25% support with the public, considering the only area that was allowed a referendum; the NE rejected the proposals by a 4/1 margin I cannot see how this figure can be supported, opinion polling perhaps, but that ignores the NE result which showed the polling to be totally out of touch with the real answer at the referendum. And a point Hazell makes later on the issue of Local mayors.

Administrative regionalism
This is regionalisation by the back door ie. Regional chambers exist, and powers and functions slowly growing and of course is Labour party policy with little public knowledge.

City regions
this has minimal support and apparently need not cover whole of England

Revive local government
Politicians all pay lip service; no party has strong proposals Public seem to share some of national politicians’ mistrust of local government competence

Elected mayors
Low. Very little support among local councillors High in opinion polls, less when tested in local referenda Might also be linked to city regions.

Having posed his questions the professor now attempts to answer them;

An English Parliament
An English parliament would appear to be a neat solution to the fundamental asymmetry in the devolution arrangements. It would create a federation of the four historic nations of the United Kingdom, each with its parliament enjoying significant devolved powers.

But it is one thing to create such a federation, quite another to make it work. The fundamental difficulty is the sheer size of England by comparison with the rest of the United Kingdom. England, with four-fifths of the population, would be hugely dominant.

On most domestic matters the English parliament would be more important than the Westminster parliament. No federation has operated successfully where one of the units is so dominant.

I find these arguments to be less than compelling, of course the English parliament would be more important on domestic issues than Westminster, that is the idea behind devolution in the first place. Is the Scottish parliament not more important than Westminster on domestic issues.

If the size issue is important and means the new federation would not work then how are we to understand the EU were Germany with 82.5 million and France with 59.9 million massively outnumber Malta with 398,534 or Cyprus with 780,133. So how is it that an English parliament would unbalance a proposed UK federation when this does not seem to matter at the EU level.

Professor Hazell does make one good point about an English Parliament here that he seems to dismiss on other points and that is; “Perhaps because of this lack of elite support, mass support for the idea of an English parliament remains low and shows no sign of increasing.” Not only is there no elite political support, but this follows through into the main stream media, there is also no coverage for an English parliament, in fact the only real coverage is for regionalisation regional assemblies.

English Votes on English Laws: Westminster as a Proxy for an English Parliament
In contrast, English votes on English laws is a proposition that does command some
elite support and considerable mass support. Polling data consistently show that
between 50 and 60 percent of people in England agree that Scottish MPs should no
longer be allowed to vote on English laws now that Scotland has its own parliament
It seems only logical and fair, since English MPs can no longer vote on matters devolved to Scotland. Even a majority of Scots support restricting the voting rights of Scottish MPs in this way (Curtice 2001, 234). But the difficulties of implementing such a policy seem insuperable, at both a technical and a political level.

Proffor Hazell says; The technical difficulty is identifying those English laws on which only English MPs would be allowed to vote Strictly speaking there is no such thing as an English law, in the sense of a Westminster statute that applies only to England.

That is a point, however it would be quite feasible to note which particular laws did not apply to Scotland because that power had been devolved to the Scotish parliament.

On the political front Hazell sees even more problems;

“Proponents of English votes on English laws tend to underestimate just what a huge change would be involved. It would create two classes of MP, ending the traditional reciprocity whereby all members can vote on all matters. It would effectively create a parliament within a parliament”

Well yes of course it would be a huge change, but then the problem has been brought about by the devolution process itself a huge change, which has created a problem in that Scottish MPs can vote on proposals which have no affect on their own constituents. So we already have two classes of MP`s those that are accountable and those that are not.

The U.K. government might not be able to command a majority for its English business, leading to great political instability.

I do not see this as a great problem if not enough English MP`s are prepared to vote for a policy that only affects England then that policy fails.

English votes on English laws would suddenly become a critical issue if (as
may happen) after a future election Labour formed a government with a narrow
majority and depended on Scottish and Welsh MPs to get its legislation through.

Well this is exactly the point is it not, if the Labour party has to rely on Scots and Welsh MP`s voting for something that does not affect them then that is also wrong.

Hazlle says that :
The Conservatives have fought two elections on a platform of English votes on English laws (in 2001 and 2005) and have tried to arouse the English. The English have failed to respond. Although opinion polls show majority support for English votes on English laws, it is not a high-salience issue. It would become salient only if the government used the votes of Scottish and Welsh MPs to force controversial or unpopular measures upon the English. Its salience would depend on how the media reported parliamentary votes upon the issue.

This issue was not at the forefront of either of the two elections mentioned, also the labour party is in power at Westminster only because of Scottish and Welsh votes.

Two Other Possible Answers to Votes on English Laws
Reduce the number of Scottish and Welsh MPs to reflect their reduced role at Westminster after devolution and more proportional voting system.

Neither of these options offer an answer to the west Lothian question, they only reduce the affects.

Independence for England
English independence is the third and most extreme institutional solution that would
ensure the English have a louder political voice. If it is impossible to give the English a political voice within the Union, the argument goes, they need to break free from the Union and establish their own English state.

This idea is dismissed out of hand because it has no elite support. However if the idea is to dismantle the UK as a political unit then perhaps support for this option might well be something that will grow in the future, especially if support were to grow for Scottish independence.

If the English Are Denied a Louder Political Voice, Does English Nationalism Need Some Other Outlet?

Identity and institutions mirror each other. Englishness is commingled with Britishness in the English people’s sense of identity and in their political institutions. To combine Englishness with Britishness is not necessarily a sign of confusion. It is a reflection of reality. We cannot readily disentangle Englishness from Britishness in our history or in our institutions. It is better to accept them for what they are, deeply intertwined, and to allow the English to celebrate being English and British. Their political allegiance is to Westminster.

There is a lot in this particular observation, the English as a rule do consider themselves British, the problem is that Britian itself is changing, and it is those forced changes which will put the English in a position of having to choose, would they prove willing to tolerate these political anomalies and suffer rough justice in their parliament, at the hands of the Scots and Welsh MP`s who do not have to face the consequences of their votes in their own constituencies.

The fact that the English consider Westminster as their parliament is very much dependant on that parliament being the “one parliament” for the whole of Britain, that is no longer the case, if the concept is Britishness is to be devalued, as this becomes ever more evident, then the English may well not be relied upon to accept the situation.

Elected Regional Assemblies
At the elite level, elected regional assemblies have been supported by Labour and the
Liberal Democrats but opposed by the Conservatives and by the business community.
Mass support has always been much harder to gauge, with some opinion surveys
suggesting quite high levels of support.

Then in November 2004 came the referendum result in the Northeast. The region
had been chosen by the government as the most likely to vote ‘‘Yes’’ to a regional
assembly because of its strong sense of regional identity, proximity to Scotland,
remoteness from London, and long history as a Labour heartland. Yet the
government’s proposals for an elected regional assembly were decisively rejected by
four to one, on a surprisingly high turnout of 48 percent.

This of course the Governments preferred option and the one that has already been set in motion by the establishments of a system of administrative regionalism. The people of the North East put a spoke in those plans to roll out elected assemblies. But of course this will not stop them passing ever more powers to the regional quangos in the hope that they can point to them in future referendum as being the de facto local government so we will be offered a choice of having elected representation at this level. We are already seeing more moves in this direction with the “restructuring” of police forces and fire Brigades.

Administrative regionalism describes the growing array of unelected government bodies that operate at the regional level. A dense network of policy actors has gradually grown up in each region around the three main pillars of the government office, regional development agency, and regional chamber. The government offices for the regions have become the main regional outposts of central government, with representatives from nine government departments. The regional development agencies have seen big increases in their budgets for economic development since their creation in 1999.

City Regions and Elected Mayors

City regions, sometimes linked to elected mayors, have never quite made it on to the political agenda….. Finally, some of the arguments advanced against city regions are similar to those advanced against regional assemblies: that they are essentially technocratic, of interest to elites not ordinary people, and at best a patchwork solution.

Neither do they answer the major problems caused by devolution.

Strengthening Local Government
The main alternative to regionalism as a policy solution for excessive centralization is to restore powers and functions to local government. Local government has become increasingly the creature of central government. The English structure of local government, with large county councils and smaller districts in rural areas and unitary 30 local authorities in most towns and cities, has been subjected to successive reorganizations since the 1970s that have left it battered and demoralized.

Quite, in its surge toward regional government or the break up of England if you prefer, central government has done everything it can to make life difficult for local government instead of supporting local government it has been steadily denuded of its powers which. There is very little likelihood of this trend changing because to do so would be to offer an alternative to the governments desire to break up England into regions.

Regionalism Remains the Best Answer to the English Question
Regional government in England is the only solution that offers an answer to both
versions of the English Question. It could help to give England a louder voice within
the Union, and it would help to decentralize the government of England. But it could
achieve the first aim, of giving England a louder voice, only if there were elected assemblies with strong powers and functions. The stronger the better. The stronger the powers, the louder would be England’s voice within the Union, because they would be a closer match for the much greater (although varying) powers given to the devolved assemblies in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

Well there is a surprise! I just did not see this coming.

But Regionalism Is Not a Complete Answer
Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland have powers to make laws in their devolved
assemblies and substantial executive powers over major public services such as health, education, and local government. English regional assemblies would have had no lawmaking power and no executive powers to speak of. The difference can be seen in
terms of their budgets. The budget of the Northeast assembly would have been thirty
times smaller than those of the devolved administrations in Scotland and Wales. The
tiny budget reflects its strategic role, shorn of responsibility for any major public
service. It would require a revolution in thinking about regional government for it to be granted responsibility for a major public service with a big budget such as health or education. Such devolved responsibilities are not uncommon in the regions of Europe, but they are currently beyond the imagination of politicians in England.

Arrr.. the EU at last gets a mention, so far this report has not even touched on the EU involment with regionalisation, or the EU policy for regionalisation or the destruction of the nation state in favour of an EU of the regions.

How Might Regionalism Develop in Future?
Professor Hazell suggests there are three things which could influence the regionalisation development, “The first, top-0 down accelerator would be if the government decided to throw its weight more strongly behind regionalism”

I do not know how much stronger the professor thinks the government could be! it has ignored the referendum in the NE and is continuing its policy of creating more regional quangos as fast as it can.

The second, bottom-up set of forces would be a slower-burning fuse. It would depend upon the constitutional conventions that sprang up in five of the English regions to make plans for elected regional assemblies not giving up following the defeat in the Northeast but redoubling their efforts. Following the precedent of the Scottish Constitutional Convention, they might decide to come forward with their own proposals for a stronger set of powers and functions. They would need to be prepared for a seriously long march. In Scotland it took eighteen years. And although the Scots may not have appreciated it at the time, the eighteen years of Conservative rule at Westminster helped to fan the flames of devolution in Scotland. Another prolonged period of Conservative rule could similarly help to rekindle the cause of devolution in the northern regions of England.

The last point is taken care of by the third development which could have an effect on the regionalisation policy and possible stop it dead “Election of a Conservative government would stop the process,” This would seem to be a call to arm for all of us who stand against break up of England as a political unit.

To be honest although I find that Professor Hazell makes some interesting points, I feel that he dismisses the likely outfall, as the problems caused by devolution become more evident to the English people. This present government is perhaps storing up problems for its chances of re-election by pretending to ignore those problem, when Tony Blair says of the West Lothian question, “it has gone away” perhaps he is speaking more in hope than anything else.

Certainly the problems are being kept below the general horizon, even as the moves are being made to enhance the regional assemblies, but there are ever more of us who although we would prefer a British parliament for Britian, are willing to think about the alternatives if the Scots and the Welsh do wish to divorce from the union, and we are not thinking regional assemblies offer any sort answer for the voice of England. Regional Assemblies only make sense in an EU of the regions, when the Westminster parliament no longer has power and is only a talking shop.

I say that Professor Hazell has ignored the Elephant in the room the EU, that is the case in this particular report but elsewhere he said;

In practice many devolved competences have an EU dimension, including regional economic development, environment, agriculture and rural affairs, fisheries, and, in Scotland, justice and home affairs.

Then of course the whole idea of an independent Scotland was dependant on the EU, because the Scots were not calling for independence, but for independence within the EU. This is a totally different kettle of fish, take the EU out of the equation and Scotland would not be calling for independence in the first place. So it can be suggested that the existence of EU is the basic cause of the moves for devolution, and certainly for the break up of England.

We can debate the devolution process but not in isolation to the EU plans for a United States of Europe, or a Europe EU of the regions, which is separate and distinct from a Europe of nation states. Everything that has happened so far in the devolution process has been in line with the regionalisation of Britian and England as agreed at an EU level.

An English Parliament, English Votes on English Laws: Westminster as a Proxy for an English Parliament, Reviving local government, is just not part of those plans. In fact the only agreed plans are for the break up of England into regions this is something that this government is continuing to do by the back door.

Simon Jenkins is again having a go at Trial by jury in the Times today he says;

Jury trial has outlived its usefulness. To pretend that it delivers justice is absurd. This archaic theme park democracy is expensive, a waste of time and adds nothing to fair trial. Abolish it.

He cites as evidence for this call to abolish Trial by Jury two recent cases which have not gone the way he thinks proper;

Of the Abu Hamza trial he says;

In the first the trial of a man now known to have been a serious public menace was delayed for four years because the Crown Prosecution Service felt that the evidence of the police and MI5 was insufficient to get a jury conviction. And the Sion Jenkins case, here Simon Jenkins (no relation I assume) says After nine years, three trials, 700 witness statements and £10m in costs, the judicial system still cannot decide whether Jenkins killed his foster daughter, Billie-Jo.

Jenkins assumes that was why the CPS did not prosecute Abu Hamza, but it could equally have been because this Labour Government relies on a great many Muslim votes to keep them in office, and did not want to unset the apple cart.

Even if we accept Jenkins superstition, which is difficult even in his own terms, because he say now known to have been a serious public menace in other words that accusation has been tested in court, before then it was only an assumption.

In any event what is the alternative? That people be convicted without evidence or with a lower standard of evidence. And whose fault is it in the Jenkins case, if the prosecution cannot find the evidence to convince a jury, then obviously the evidence is lacking, here again Jenkins seems to be calling for conviction on a lower standard of evidence.

He then goes on to say;

No sooner was the Jenkins jury released and the accused formally acquitted than Thursday`s newspapers were filled with evidence that the jury had not been allowed to hear although it had been heard previously by Court of Appeal judges. This evidence, of violent rages suffered at Jenkins hands by his former wife, had been banned from disclosure at the trial as prejudicial (a word seemingly synonymous with relevant). The impact was to make the jury appear a bunch of dupes.

This is not a condemnation of trial by jury but of the legal professions own rules, which deny the jury the full information, originally up until the 17th century the jury would have made their own investigations and would not have been mere pawns in the professional game, to be spoon fed only the information decided by the judge. However even on that point; the reports that Jenkins suffered violent rages is not proof in itself that he murdered his foster daughter.

The fact the Charles Clarke is going to present arguments for the government to have the power to lock up people without trial since courts are slow and jurors may not convict is not an argument against trial by jury, it is in fact the very reason we need trial by jury.

Any government, that is its own judge of, and determines authoritatively for the people, what are its own powers over the people, is an absolute government of course. It has all the powers that it chooses to exercise. There is no other — or at least no more accurate — definition of a despotism than this. Spooner.

Jenkins claims in a case last year, where he was a juror, that the Judge suggested that the jury must acquit someone he believed to have been guilty the drift of the judge`s summing up was to the effect that the jury could only acquit. But this is not possible the judge cannot instruct a jury to find either way, Such was the case in the 1670 political trial of William Penn, who was charged with preaching Quakerism to an unlawful assembly. Four of the twelve jurors voted to acquit  and continued to acquit even after being imprisoned and starved for four days. Under such duress, most jurors paid the fines. However, one juror, Edward Bushell, refused to pay and brought his case before the Court of Common Pleas. As a result, Chief Justice Vaughan issued an historically-important ruling: that jurors could not be punished for their verdicts. Bushell’s Case (1670) was one of the most important developments in the common-law history of the jury.

Of course this concept like all our defences against the state is now under attack from a government who would like to be the deciders of their own powers. Jenkins then is either a fool, or useful idiot working in the cause of those who would like establish authoritarianism in our courts.

Jenkins now goes on to offer more evidence for abolishing jury trial

“Juries try less than 2% of criminal cases. They are a judicial sideshow. Given the professed sanctity of the institution to lawyers it is a wonder that they accept the fairness of the remaining 98%.”

Well there is that point, why should any of us accept the fairness of a system which decided on the evidence alone, that is one of the major benefits of the jury system it make the ordinary man or woman in the street the final arbiters of our law;

“For more than six hundred years — that is, since Magna Carta, in 1215 — there has been no clearer principle of English or American constitutional law, than that, in criminal cases, it is not only the right and duty of juries to judge what are the facts, what is the law, and what was the moral intent of the accused; but that it is also their right, and their primary and paramount duty, to judge of the justice of the law, and to hold all laws invalid, that are, in their opinion, unjust or oppressive, and all persons guiltless in violating, or resisting the execution of, such laws.

Unless such be the right and duty of jurors, it is plain that, instead of juries being a “palladium of liberty” — a barrier against the tyranny and oppression of the government — they are really mere tools in its hands, for carrying into execution any injustice and oppression it may desire to have executed.” Spooner I think.

Thomas Jefferson stated: “I consider trial by jury as the only action ever yet conceived by man by which a government can be held accountable to the to the principles of the constitution.”

Jenkins; “Research suggests that 90% of those electing to go for jury trial are guilty and are merely seeking delay or putting their faith in the ever-rising jury acquittal rate. The jury is presented, usually by those who have never sat on one, as a citizen’s last line of defence against an over-zealous state. It is mostly a villain’s last throw against conviction.”

They are not guilty unless they are fund to be by the jury, and it is up to the prosecution to prove that guilt. To dismiss one of our greatest freedoms from tyranny as a villain’s last throw against conviction is nonsense;

Removal from the jurors of their judgement on justice issues transforms Trial by Jury into the unlawful, one-sided, unfair mistrial-by-government-judges, the corrupt method by which tyrannies thrive.

This system enables and obliges judges to enforce every persecution, stealth-tax, oppression, money-motivated subterfuge and injustice government introduces, and which judges then lawlessly claim is “the law.” Democratic government generally attempts to enact legislation that is approved of by or is acceptable to the majority of the population. However, majority assent of itself does not invest legislation with legitimacy or virtue, regardless of its support, e.g. NAZI Race Laws. If Trial by Jury had been operating in the Third Reich, the NAZI tyranny would have been curtailed, perhaps then the Holocaust and the Second World War would have been averted.

Jenkins could not have been be more wrong if he tried when he says “Juries date from the days of trial by ordeal”, he is inverting historical facts, in order perhaps to use an oft (left wing) utilised method of argument; that is damming by association.

In 1219 Henry III, directed that this method of trial be abandoned in England after Pope Benedict III had condemned trial by ordeal in 1214. The jury trial was a replacement of the trial by ordeal and not a leftover from those days.

The fact is that for whatever reason Simon Jenkins does not like jury trials, and thinks them and archaic imposition on the power of the state. That they are an impediment to the power of the state, is a commendation for them and is the very reason we need to retain our rights to judge ourselves and to decide for ourselves, on the fairness of those laws our lords and masters in Whitehall, and increasingly in Brussels, wish to impose on us, because for as long as we have trial by jury we have the freedom to live by our own laws.

In his book Trial by Jury, published in 1956, Sir Patrick Devlin said:
For more than seven out of the eight centuries during which the judges of the
common law have administered justice in this country, trial by jury ensured that
Englishmen got the justice they liked and not the sort of justice that the
government or the lawyers or any body of experts thought was good for them.

Each jury is a little parliament. The jury sense is the parliamentary sense. I cannot
the see the one dying and the other surviving. The first object of any tyrant in
Whitehall would be to make parliament utterly subservient to his will; and the
next to overthrow or diminish trial by jury, for no tyrant could afford to leave a
subject’s freedom in the hands of twelve of his countrymen.

So that trial by jury is more than an instrument of justice and more than one wheel of the constitution: it is the lamp that shows that freedom lives.

It is a lamp that Charles Clarke, Tony Blair and Simon Jenkins wish to put out, it will be our great loss as a freedom loving nation if we let them get their way.

Edit
I just have recived this from Dennid Cooper;

Having read this through twice, I can’t find a single good argument leading to his conclusion that jury trial should be abolished, so I’m left wondering whether he has some ulterior motive. Eg, MI5 didn’t want Abu Hamza prosecuted for other
reasons, not because the evidence wouldn’t convince a jury.

Clarke argues for locking people away without due process because that’s