THE NEED FOR AN ENGLISH PARLIAMENT
Below is a copy of an item from the Campaign for an English Parliament website:
During the last week there has been much commentary on Gordon Brown’s proposed exultation of Britain and Britishness. The consensus seems to be that at best it was designed to show Brown as a man of vision ready to lead Britain, and at worst it was a cynical attempt by a Scot to pander to the voters of Middle England.
But despite questioning his motives nobody has actually asked the question ‘should Gordon Brown be Prime Minister?’ The answer to that question is ‘no’.
It is generally assumed that Gordon Brown will be the shoo-in Prime Minister when Tony Blair steps down. The British people will not get a say in this, it will be a bloodless coup and Brown will just step in and take control of our lives. There will be a leadership contest but with a lack of any discernable talent or able-minded competition on the Labour Front Bench it is difficult envisage anything but a Brown succession.
But just why should Gordon Brown succeed Blair? It is bad enough that Brown is part of a UK Executive that exercises complete control over England when he himself is democratically unaccountable to the English people over vast swathes of Government policy, but when he becomes Prime Minister he will head up a UK Executive that effectively makes England a Scottish electoral dictatorship.
Gordon Brown has no mandate from the UK electorate on all matters that have been devolved to Scotland.
Issues that are devolved to Scotland include:
* health
* education and training
* local government
* social work
* housing
* planning
* tourism, economic development and financial assistance to industry
* some aspects of transport, including the Scottish road network, bus policy and ports and harbours
* law and home affairs, including most aspects of criminal and civil law, the prosecution system and the courts
* the Police and Fire services
* the environment
* natural and built heritage
* agriculture, forestry and fishing
* sport and the arts
* statistics, public registers and records
Gordon Brown is elected to represent the people of Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, and those Scottish constituents that vote for him are giving him the mandate to represent them at Westminster on the issues that are reserved to the UK Executive.
Those reserved issues include:
* constitutional matters
* UK foreign policy
* UK defence and national security
* fiscal, economic and monetary System
* immigration and nationality
* energy: electricity, coal, gas and nuclear energy
* common markets
* trade and industry, including competition and customer protection
* some aspects of transport, including railways, transport safety and regulation
* employment legislation
* social security
* gambling and the National Lottery
* data protection
* abortion, human fertilisation and embryology, genetics, xenotransplantation and vivisection
* equal opportunities
However, Brown’s constituents do not elect Brown to represent them on issues that are devolved to Scotland. To fulfill that remit, and to represent their interests in those devolved policy areas, they elect a representative to the Scottish Parliament, and it is that MSP rather than Gordon Brown that has their mandate on devolved areas. On all devolved matters Brown has no mandate from his own constituents. Likewise, he has no mandate from the people of England over whose education and health systems he seeks to exert his authority. We English cannot vote for or against him, and those Scots that can are unaffected by his decisions that pertain only to England. In fact Gordon Brown is democratically unaccountable to any UK voter on important legislative areas such as health and education - as far as these areas are concerned he is an unelected representative - and yet, bizarrely, he expects to lead a UK Executive and assume executive control of England in these areas. He has no moral authority to do so.
The UK system of cabinet government works on the principle of collective responsibility. Brown will decide the Executive’s political direction and he will pick his cabinet members accordingly, cherry picking those MPs that will tow the line. At no stage will the people of England be asked their opinion on this. Come the General Election English voters may, by the ballot box, opt to kick out English members of the Brown cabinet, but no English voter will be able to hold Brown accountable for his record on English health or education.
The English can, of course, chose to vote for another party - as they did in 2005 - but the Labour Party has gerrymandered the UK constitution to ensure that they have permanent majorities in Scotland and Wales, and they can rule England bolstered by their Scottish and Welsh MPs - MPs who vote on English matters without English MPs having the right to vote on the concomitant legislation in Scotland and Wales. And the Labour Party does all this despite not commanding the plurality of the English vote (The Conservative Party gained 72544 more votes in England).
It is simply inconceivable that Gordon Brown should be allowed to become Prime Minister. He has no mandate to legislate for England and his high-office would be reliant on the English over-looking glaring constitutional anomalies for the sake of being governed by an electoral dictatorship of Government design and Scottish provenance.
A Brown premiership will result in a constitutional crisis that will make the UK, and England in particular, ungovernable. The English public and English MPs will, quite correctly, tell Brown that if he wants to legislate on education and health then he should do so for his own constituents by buggering-off and sitting in his own (Scottish) parliament. That is the way that it will be, this is our imminent future; an MP representing a Scottish constituency can not be UK Prime Minister; the Kingdom is dis-united.
It goes without saying that a Scottish led UK Executive should, theoretically, be perfectly able to legislate for the UK as a whole without anyone raising any ethical objection. However, when that executive seeks to legislate for England alone it loses any democratic legitimacy, even more so when it relies on the votes of Scottish and Welsh MPs to impose its will in the Commons.
In order for Brown to succeed to Blair’s throne English legislation must be removed from the UK Executive’s remit. And that means that there must be an English government to take responsibility for those devolved matters that are presently devolved to Scotland; those areas over which Brown has no mandate. Until that time a Brown premiership is inconceivable.
Britain may once have been, for all intents and purposes, a unitary state in which we were all equally affected by the legislation of the UK Government but those days are passed. These days, post-devolution, it is often just the English that are affected by legislation drafted and administered by the UK Executive. Why should an executive whose cabinet is hand-picked by a Scot – one that is democratically unaccountable to the English population on most of the policy areas contained in the UK manifesto - govern England? That is the question that we should ask ourselves.
And while we asking that question our motto should be ‘No Legislation Without Representation’.
It is quite something that we have arrived at a point where the prospect of a Scottish Prime Minister raises grave concerns over representative and accountable democracy. Privately Labour MPs must be concerned about the damage that a Brown leadership will do to Parliamentary democracy and to the Party, and so to should anyone that values Britain and the Union.
Supporters of an English parliament should oppose Brown’s succession and send out a clear message to the Labour Party that under the current constitutional arrangement a Scottish Prime Minister is an untenable proposition. And those that support the continuance of Britain and the Union should know that when the prospect of a Scottish Prime Minister becomes untenable the Union is at threat. The Labour Party’s blithe contempt for democracy has led to this inexcusable situation, and if Brown and his supporters want to ensure his succession against a rising tide of anti-Scottish sentiment they must force the Government to rectify the constitutional imbalance. Until that time, and so long as 100 of us remain alive, we will not submit to the rule of the Scottish Raj, no matter how British they proclaim themselves to be.
Author
Gareth Young
Campaign for an English Parliament
http://thecep.org.uk/news/ViewItem.asp?Entry=919
During the last week there has been much commentary on Gordon Brown’s proposed exultation of Britain and Britishness. The consensus seems to be that at best it was designed to show Brown as a man of vision ready to lead Britain, and at worst it was a cynical attempt by a Scot to pander to the voters of Middle England.
But despite questioning his motives nobody has actually asked the question ‘should Gordon Brown be Prime Minister?’ The answer to that question is ‘no’.
It is generally assumed that Gordon Brown will be the shoo-in Prime Minister when Tony Blair steps down. The British people will not get a say in this, it will be a bloodless coup and Brown will just step in and take control of our lives. There will be a leadership contest but with a lack of any discernable talent or able-minded competition on the Labour Front Bench it is difficult envisage anything but a Brown succession.
But just why should Gordon Brown succeed Blair? It is bad enough that Brown is part of a UK Executive that exercises complete control over England when he himself is democratically unaccountable to the English people over vast swathes of Government policy, but when he becomes Prime Minister he will head up a UK Executive that effectively makes England a Scottish electoral dictatorship.
Gordon Brown has no mandate from the UK electorate on all matters that have been devolved to Scotland.
Issues that are devolved to Scotland include:
* health
* education and training
* local government
* social work
* housing
* planning
* tourism, economic development and financial assistance to industry
* some aspects of transport, including the Scottish road network, bus policy and ports and harbours
* law and home affairs, including most aspects of criminal and civil law, the prosecution system and the courts
* the Police and Fire services
* the environment
* natural and built heritage
* agriculture, forestry and fishing
* sport and the arts
* statistics, public registers and records
Gordon Brown is elected to represent the people of Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, and those Scottish constituents that vote for him are giving him the mandate to represent them at Westminster on the issues that are reserved to the UK Executive.
Those reserved issues include:
* constitutional matters
* UK foreign policy
* UK defence and national security
* fiscal, economic and monetary System
* immigration and nationality
* energy: electricity, coal, gas and nuclear energy
* common markets
* trade and industry, including competition and customer protection
* some aspects of transport, including railways, transport safety and regulation
* employment legislation
* social security
* gambling and the National Lottery
* data protection
* abortion, human fertilisation and embryology, genetics, xenotransplantation and vivisection
* equal opportunities
However, Brown’s constituents do not elect Brown to represent them on issues that are devolved to Scotland. To fulfill that remit, and to represent their interests in those devolved policy areas, they elect a representative to the Scottish Parliament, and it is that MSP rather than Gordon Brown that has their mandate on devolved areas. On all devolved matters Brown has no mandate from his own constituents. Likewise, he has no mandate from the people of England over whose education and health systems he seeks to exert his authority. We English cannot vote for or against him, and those Scots that can are unaffected by his decisions that pertain only to England. In fact Gordon Brown is democratically unaccountable to any UK voter on important legislative areas such as health and education - as far as these areas are concerned he is an unelected representative - and yet, bizarrely, he expects to lead a UK Executive and assume executive control of England in these areas. He has no moral authority to do so.
The UK system of cabinet government works on the principle of collective responsibility. Brown will decide the Executive’s political direction and he will pick his cabinet members accordingly, cherry picking those MPs that will tow the line. At no stage will the people of England be asked their opinion on this. Come the General Election English voters may, by the ballot box, opt to kick out English members of the Brown cabinet, but no English voter will be able to hold Brown accountable for his record on English health or education.
The English can, of course, chose to vote for another party - as they did in 2005 - but the Labour Party has gerrymandered the UK constitution to ensure that they have permanent majorities in Scotland and Wales, and they can rule England bolstered by their Scottish and Welsh MPs - MPs who vote on English matters without English MPs having the right to vote on the concomitant legislation in Scotland and Wales. And the Labour Party does all this despite not commanding the plurality of the English vote (The Conservative Party gained 72544 more votes in England).
It is simply inconceivable that Gordon Brown should be allowed to become Prime Minister. He has no mandate to legislate for England and his high-office would be reliant on the English over-looking glaring constitutional anomalies for the sake of being governed by an electoral dictatorship of Government design and Scottish provenance.
A Brown premiership will result in a constitutional crisis that will make the UK, and England in particular, ungovernable. The English public and English MPs will, quite correctly, tell Brown that if he wants to legislate on education and health then he should do so for his own constituents by buggering-off and sitting in his own (Scottish) parliament. That is the way that it will be, this is our imminent future; an MP representing a Scottish constituency can not be UK Prime Minister; the Kingdom is dis-united.
It goes without saying that a Scottish led UK Executive should, theoretically, be perfectly able to legislate for the UK as a whole without anyone raising any ethical objection. However, when that executive seeks to legislate for England alone it loses any democratic legitimacy, even more so when it relies on the votes of Scottish and Welsh MPs to impose its will in the Commons.
In order for Brown to succeed to Blair’s throne English legislation must be removed from the UK Executive’s remit. And that means that there must be an English government to take responsibility for those devolved matters that are presently devolved to Scotland; those areas over which Brown has no mandate. Until that time a Brown premiership is inconceivable.
Britain may once have been, for all intents and purposes, a unitary state in which we were all equally affected by the legislation of the UK Government but those days are passed. These days, post-devolution, it is often just the English that are affected by legislation drafted and administered by the UK Executive. Why should an executive whose cabinet is hand-picked by a Scot – one that is democratically unaccountable to the English population on most of the policy areas contained in the UK manifesto - govern England? That is the question that we should ask ourselves.
And while we asking that question our motto should be ‘No Legislation Without Representation’.
It is quite something that we have arrived at a point where the prospect of a Scottish Prime Minister raises grave concerns over representative and accountable democracy. Privately Labour MPs must be concerned about the damage that a Brown leadership will do to Parliamentary democracy and to the Party, and so to should anyone that values Britain and the Union.
Supporters of an English parliament should oppose Brown’s succession and send out a clear message to the Labour Party that under the current constitutional arrangement a Scottish Prime Minister is an untenable proposition. And those that support the continuance of Britain and the Union should know that when the prospect of a Scottish Prime Minister becomes untenable the Union is at threat. The Labour Party’s blithe contempt for democracy has led to this inexcusable situation, and if Brown and his supporters want to ensure his succession against a rising tide of anti-Scottish sentiment they must force the Government to rectify the constitutional imbalance. Until that time, and so long as 100 of us remain alive, we will not submit to the rule of the Scottish Raj, no matter how British they proclaim themselves to be.
Author
Gareth Young
Campaign for an English Parliament
http://thecep.org.uk/news/ViewItem.asp?Entry=919
posted by erc @ 2:49 pm
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