Falling Apart

The outgoing Prime Minister of the United Kingdom has demanded that the Charter of Fundamental Rights, adjunct to the European Union amended treaties, should be explicitly non-justiciable under English and Scottish law.

How good to see the recognition that these are separate legal systems.

Has the Scottish government been consulted on these demands? Under the Concordats it most certainly should have been. What would the Scottish Parliament and people like? It's quite clear what the English people want.

Meanwhile, the Scottish Parliament has voted in the first stage of abolishing Council Tax. It is to be replaced with a local income tax.

Agreement has been reached between the Welsh and northern Irish Assemblies and the Scottish Parliament, to alter the fiscal relationships with the Westminster regime. The Barnet formula arrangements are at least as unsatisfactory to the Welsh, Irish and Scottish as they are to the long-suffering English taxpayer, though for different reasons; not unnaturally, as theirs are very different agendas from those of the Labour junta in Westminster .

Libyans Discover Scottish Government

The new government in Scotland is faced with its first public, though doubtless not first unpublicised, problem with the Labour party Executive in Westminster not grasping what is no longer within its jurisdiction.

The Libyan convicted of involvement in the PanAm Lockerbie plane bomb has been the subject of discussion between the Westminster Prime Minister and the President of Libya. Unfortunately the Prime Minister at Westminster has no say in the fate of a prisoner held in Scotland, convicted in a Scottish court, of a crime committed in Scottish airspace.

Attempts by English Foreign Office civil servants to advise the Labour Westminster Prime Minister that this was a matter for Scottish Prime Minister Salmond were not accepted (or understood).

The Libyans have got it now though and, according to the Sunday Herald, are not best pleased. The Herald notes in a leader,

'...Alex Salmond is using the full authority of his position to challenge Westminster's ways of doing things - from leading talks with Europe on fishing to signing memoranda on prisoner transfer with Colonel Gaddafi. The SNP government will shortly publish its white paper and bill for a referendum on independence.'

The MP for the Scottish constituency of Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath and Leader-designate of the Labour party is looking ever weirder as candidate prime minister at Westminster.

Not Just Doing Their Jobs

High-ranking civil servants are more than tools for carrying out the will of their political masters. The very continuity of their service to changing Executives has caused these outstandingly clever men and women, with their experience, education, and honed skills, to be pushed aside in favour of political appointees with narrower learning and inferior training, by the current Executive in its almost paranoid suspicion of the Home Civil Service having its own agenda, separate from that of the New Order.

Senior civil servants act under at least two kinds of constraints from which the New Order is wholly free: the constitutional and legal structures of the United Kingdom, which the Labour Executive sees as an obstruction to their purposes and to be peremptorily removed from their path whenever encountered, rather than the product of centuries of controlling and blocking despotic tendencies in the use of power; and an awareness of their service to the state itself, i.e. us, in a pluralist democracy, and our political and cultural longterm objectives and achievements, rather than to temporary holders of elected office.

Unsurprisingly it is the lawyers and the very senior civil servants who have broken ranks first. Elizabeth Wilmshurst's resignation from the Foreign Office and her distinguished career there, on 18 March 2003 ended ...' I cannot in conscience go along with [this] advice - within the Office or to the public or Parliament...' and '... am therefore discussing ...whether I may take approved early retirement. In case that is not possible this letter should be taken as constituting notice of my resignation ...I joined the Office in 1974. It has been a privilege to work here. I leave with very great sadness.'

What of the lawyers who are Parliamentary Counsel? One has remarked, [The]'analytical function of the drafter is vital. The capacity to stand back and to question is one of the greatest qualities needed in legislative drafting. But it is not enough simply to destroy ideas. The capacity to contribute fresh and constructive ideas is also important. Of course the basic policy is for others - ultimately for ministers. But it is a definite part of the drafter's job to point out any traps inherent in the policy, and where possible to offer solutions. It is sometimes surprising how much the drafter contributes in this way to the formulation of policy.'

How are they reacting to drafting the measures that abolish our civil liberties? What do they do when the policy they are helping to formulate puts people in prison without any of the legal or constitutional former safeguards that are being legislated away? Does the belief that '..members of Parliament want to avoid any possible injustice. For instance, if a Bill infringes people's liberties safeguards will be needed.', hold now ?

In the higher echelons of the Foreign, Diplomatic, and Home Civil Service people have resigned, been sacked, spoken out to newspapers in frank language. “Stalinist ruthlessness”, "Brown, like Blair, requires not just loyalty but total obedience ".

If, as all the evidence shows, the objective and determination of the Labour Executive is to retain power permanently, these people are as much in the way as the electorate and the judiciary. Cleansing a professional and highly competent administrative class requires time, so that at entry level there can be vetting on conformity (usually accompanied by a fall in achievement quality of entrants), at intermediate level a promotions policy that favours the acquiescent and disappoints innovative and independent thinkers, and at senior level the favouring of early retirements, and/or forced resignations.

Ten years. Nearly there.

The First Parliamentary Reform is an English Parliament

Parliamentary reform requires a parliament for England. The effrontery of the England of the Regions propaganda compounds the failure of the Union of the United Kingdom within the collapse of democratic representation and its expression in the Westminster Parliament.

Scotland, Wales, and northern Ireland answer to their local electorates on all and any matters of immediate significance to those voters - health, education, housing, infrastructures and, in Scotland's case, some weighting of tax burdens and the facility to initiate legislation.

England is to be governed by an Executive whose leader is unelected in England (and unelected in his own Party), and whose Party has been defeated in Scotland yet uses Westminster MPs from Scotland to maintain control in England.

This Westminster Executive disposes of all the powers of the Crown, which are used without reference to the Westminster Parliament in the case of England, but are ceded to the Scottish Parliament in the case of Scotland and, to a lesser extent, some of which are ceded to the Welsh and northern Irish Assemblies in matters concerning those countries.

The powers of the whips at Westminster are a function of this Executive power (the whips do not derive their control from charm or even force of character), and from the powers of prime ministerial patronage. Any Westminster MP sitting for a Scottish, Welsh or Irish seat can hope for advancement only from the Westminster Executive, so they do precisely what they are told, although what they're ordered to do will apply only to England for anything affecting normal everyday life. They do not represent English voters, nor do they care what they want.

Until this Parliamentary reform is carried out, all other discussion is a waste of time.

Monarchy and the Democratic State

The hollowed-out pumpkin that is the office of our country’s head of state has been displayed fully in the last week.

The Prime Minister has offered his resignation in the Trimdon Social Club.

The Labour party has designated the incoming prime minister.

The date of the handover has been fixed in private discussion between members of the Executive.

Bearing in mind behaviour exhibited over the courtesy of wearing formal dress at formal and official dinners, the chances of the kissing of hands and acknowledgement of higher authority are poor.

All powers denominated Crown prerogatives now rest with the Executive and, more specifically, with the prime minister of the day. What and who the prime minister answers to is no longer a Constitution, or its custodian the Head of State.

It is 30 years since the office of head of state showed any signs of constitutional life. Discretion is a virtue but this obscurity veils powerlessness and inaction while our Constitution is lopped of its limbs, and our liberties consumed.

Nor is it a Parliament to which the exercise of power is answerable, when the majority party is responsive to particular organisations and interest groups with their own objectives and factional discipline, rather than answerable to the whole electorate, and to those too who are without a vote.

The respect for the Crown even now connects to the mystic notion of powers devolved from God. More importantly the immense regard in which the present monarch is held has been cynically appropriated to project an emotional narrative of safety and security in the enjoyment of our lives.

Monarchy, constitutional or no , lies uneasily with democracy. So now we are faced with government by an appointed prime minister, an appointed countrywide nomenklatura , unchallenged in office and in power by the undefended and severely damaged permanent constitutional structures of the state.

Reality and romanticism

The Scottish people go to the polls today to elect their parliament. Undeniably there is the the most pressure to vote in such a way as to open the path for choosing Scottish independence, since the Act of Union was signed 300 years ago.

What is the form that dissolution of a federal state might take? The most recent dissolution of a European federated state was in 1991.

When Yeltsin decided to disband the Soviet Union he did so constitutionally. Russia and the governments of Ukraine and Belarus were parties to the Treaty of the Union of 1922 and, on 8 December 1991, the leaders of the Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian republics met in Belavezhskaya Pushcha near Minsk and signed the Belavezha Accords ‘declaring the Soviet Union dissolved and replaced by the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).’ Gorbachev described this as an unconstitutional coup, but this was rejected, and anyway it could not be halted.
On 12 December 1991 the legislature of the Russian Soviet Republic formally accepted the secession of Russia from the Soviet Union by ratifying the Belavezha Accords and denouncing the 1922 Treaty on the creation of the Soviet Union.
On 17 December ‘twelve of the fifteen soviet republics signed the European Energy Charter in the Hague as if they were sovereign states, along with 28 other European countries, the European Community and four non-European countries.’

On 21 December 1991 ‘representatives of all Soviet Republics, except Georgia, signed the Alma Ata Protocol, confirming the dissolution of the Union ‘ .. 'all former Soviet republics, except the three Baltic States, agreed to join the CIS.’ Russia was authorised to succeed to the UN membership of the USSR, and take the USSR seat in the Security Council. Russia was accepted as the successor state to the USSR on 31 December 1991.

All powers still vested in the presidency of the USSR were ceded to the president of Russia , Yeltsin, and on 26 Decembe 1991, the Supreme Soviet ‘recognized the extinction of the Union and dissolved itself. By 31 December 1991 all official Soviet institutions had ceased operations and individual republics assumed the central government's role.’ (this is an extensively edited and shortened version from Wikipedia’s excellent entry, and from other sources).

The plainness of this account belies the knife-edge avoidance of descent into open violence and armed repression, involving tanks on the streets, the courage of the White House defenders, military mutiny, and attempts at re -seizing power by Soviet elites.

This is the dissolution of a much larger federated state, it faced different problems and was motivated by only some of the forces driving the desire for Scottish independence; furthermore it was the principal state of the Union, Russia, that sought the dissolution.

The United Kingdom does not face economic collapse, despite the doomsayers; England has no major political force seeking dissolution of the Union, quite the contrary, all parties want its maintenance; Scotland will achieve no economic benefits from secession - pace models of celtic tiger and oil-fired growth - indeed the economic evidence points to relative impoverishment; there will be no ready acceptance of its independent status by supra national states or organisations, other member states of the European Union have no desire for such an example to make good , and the EU policy of regionalism is designed to avoid this kind of member- state fragmentation. Losing a Security Council seat (which would surely happen if the UK broke up) flies in the face of the current UK administration’s entire foreign policy and, presumably that of any opposition party. There is no other part of the UK with which Scotland could ally against the Westminster administration - mutatis mutandis the Supreme Soviet - for Wales and Northern Ireland are no Ukraine and Belarus.

To break up a federated Union, then, requires constitutional routes, external overpowering threat of the order of economic collapse, cultural and historical links and memories, powerful allies , and international acquiesence if not encouragement. Scotland has the third of these requirements, and may have the first.

Independence may require also the facing down of physical threat by the Union state, and there has been a lot of practice in just this - ask the people of Northern Ireland.

Choices and an English parliament

It is St George’s day. Raedwald has posted that there can be no further delay and that it is time to establish a parliament for England, regrettable as the consequences may be for the union of the United Kingdom. What follows are my thoughts on this.

Many might make the observation that in the counties of Ulster, 6 making up Northern Ireland, and 3 part of the Republic of Ireland, there will be a generational, demographic shift that will unite Ulster in one region of the European Union. This view is strengthened by a glance at the Irish EU regional map. Ancient Ulster waits to take its place in the Europe of the regions, and is not part of these thoughts on an English parliament.

What of the mainland? There are different answers that depend on whether the United Kingdom remains in the European Union or withdraws in the face of a constitution too far.

Should we remain then the form of UK governance calls for regionalisation; but not the regions as they are now. English local government needs to be wholly rethought, and the European Union driving policy of subsidiarity whole-heartedly accepted by the most highly centralized governance in Europe. There will need to be regions embodying the natural divisions of the kingdom, wrought by geography, economic structure and historical and cultural bonds. This last implies more than one region both in Scotland and in Wales, and more than nine in England. It requires democratic answerability, with all levels of government elected; and it requires the passing down of democratic choice and responsibility to the lowest possible level consonant with responsiveness to people’s wishes, effectiveness, and efficiency. Germany and Italy are just as fractious as the United Kingdom, their unifications more recent, and yet their national unity is well-served by self-identifying regions with real local power.

Another response is to remain within the European Union and try to exploit the anomalies generated by the policies of regionalisation to achieve the entrenchment of the last statist, authoritarian power outside of North Korea and Cuba. Apart from any other objection to the status quo, for that is where we are, Scotland and Wales might find that European entry statuses and requirements are harder to achieve than their nationalist factions pretend; the European Union has no desire to enable separatism within member states.

Were England to establish a parliament, abandoning the Scots and Welsh to their assemblies’ care, it should choose to leave the European Union.

London is a globalised economy hotspot; its hinterland, as well as the collapsed former heavy industry areas, and no- remaining manufacturing industry areas, are carried by the wealth it generates. It can be thought of as a far greater and richer version of, for instance, Singapore. English-speaking and lying off the coast of Europe, with such unmatchable economic and financial markets and services, it is an independent, immensely wealthy state.

London is the English state. London has the capacity and the interest to build upon the threads of empire that lie neglected by the incomprehension, revenge against thatcherism, redistributive authoritarianism, dead ideologies practice of the last 10 years, and the false conciousness (forgive the usage but here it fits) of Blair's lickspittle warmongering. An English parliament would serve and advance the interests of this state, and truly enrich its members in contrast to their relative impoverishment (again forgive the usage but again it fits) and the tax ‘farming’ that has been endured in this vaunted economic regime for a decade. London is the prize that Brownites will grasp unless an opposition wakes up to prevent it. And all that wealth generation will be used to cement their power.

What would I choose? Now that it is set out as it is here, the first option - remaining within the European Union, recasting local government, and preserving the union of the United Kingdom, while seeking to rebuild commonwealth strengths and co-operation. My family is as much mainland European as it is British and Commonwealth, and they come first; there are, too, great difficulties and sadness in dismantling the United Kingdom; and there is much to fear in the idea of an English state and its alliances, foreign policies and the construction of its post-imperial relations.

Devolution and deviousness

Devolution is the word used by government to describe the regionalisation of the United Kingdom. It brings to mind the separate parliament of Scotland and the Assemblies of Wales and Northern Ireland. But there are 12 devolved parts of the UK and it is illuminating to think of 12 United Kingdom regions, each with a regional assembly, of which 4 are elected by proportional representation - Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and London. The other 8 regional assemblies are appointed by central government from a mixture of elected representatives of lower level local authority bodies, community stakeholders (religious, local business, cultural groupings, state-funded various) and rag, tag and bobtail others.

These regions are the product of European Union statistical entities created for the purposes of collecting the data etc., needed for European Union allocations both of statuses and resources. In England the majority have no responsiveness to geographical, historical, economic, social or cultural links. They are a grid.

The largest is the South East followed, in order of size, by: London, the North West, the East, the West Midlands, Scotland, Yorkshire and the Humber, the South West, the East Midlands, Wales, the North East; the last is Northern Ireland which is such a special case it is not part of this post.

The appointed regional assemblies in England have yielded an enormous bonus to central government in terms of party control. Budgets for these assemblies run into billions of pounds of tax revenue returned to the UK by the European Union. We are funding a government administration countrywide network of jobs, investment, cultural allocations, environmental spending and a host of other forms of patronage. The regional assemblies drain power from directly elected local authorities, money is directed to them and diverted from other local authorities, and they have direct connection with the European Union’s Europe of the Regions.

Such an executive power base is not going to be left to any other governing party should there be a general election. Before leaving office the Labour government will activate electoral procedures for the English assemblies under proportional representation, as already exists for London, the only elected English assembly. This will have the advantage of wiping out the importance of widespread losses in the May local elections, and make the case for election by proportional representation to the Westminster parliament immensely strong. The heterogeneous nature of these regions does not aid any conservative, large or small "c", bid. And should there be a Conservative administration in Westminster, it will face elected power in some regions that are bigger than Scotland.