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Nick Clegg’s Choice

July 12, 2012 12:08 pm

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Nick Clegg has a choice. He doesn’t have to lose his prized reform of the undemocratic House of Lords, but in order to not do so he will have to swallow a significant amount of pride.

Here’s what’s not going to happen: Tory MPs are not going to come back in the autumn ready to cave in on their objections. Autumn is conference season. The Tory leadership will be desperate for this not to become a further disturbing display of disunity. The rebels know they will be largely feted by the Tory membership for the stance they have taken. The Tory rebels are not going to change their minds, and their leadership know they will have to be more placatory to get through conference without significant incident.

But the votes to reform the House of Lords exist in Parliament, if Clegg can first persuade himself to work with Labour to make this Bill work (he will need to follow Labour’s lead and swallow a few of Labour’s desired amendments, particularly a referendum and perhaps changing the insane terms), and then persuade David Cameron to let that happen, significant Lords reform could still take place. In all the focus on the rebels this week, it is forgotten that this was a large and comfortably won vote once it had Labour’s support.

So what practical steps must be taken over the summer? Well first the Lib Dems must reach out to Labour. They won’t like this, but their dismissive and hateful attitude is – in part – what has brought us to this place. Their unwillingness to negotiate the Bill with Labour properly in the first place instead presenting a deeply flawed Bill with a “like it or lump it” attitude was largely why Labour said they would force a defeat on the timetable. Clegg must send a team Labour can work with (i.e. not David Laws) to negotiate behind the scenes and thrash our enough agreement to see a way of getting the Bill through the Commons allowing Labour to support closure motions when their amendments or those they support in improving this Bill have been accepted. If Labour and the Lib Dems can use the summer to productively produce agreement that both sides accept and fully understand, then this Bill can be rescued.

It is now clear that a referendum is a likely outcome of such negotiation. If Labour and the Lib Dems can get around the table to save reform, this appears to be a Labour sticking point. I can understand after the bruising experience of the AV vote why Clegg and Co would rather not go through this again, but if properly managed, this time should be different. For a start all three Party leaders would – at least formally – be on the side of change. But if this is to be a part of the process, it must be better managed and better organised than the Yes to AV campaign. It has significantly more going for it than AV, but the campaign must look to recruit from beyond the narrow world of constitutional and electoral reformers to those better able to truly speak to and for the people of Britain. Planning for this should take place immediately. It cannot be left to chance, hope and the usual suspects.

Lords reform is salvageable, but Clegg must stand firm with David Cameron, who has already indicated to the Tory backbenches that he is willing to undertake a significant climb down. While negotiating with Labour, Clegg must stand strong in the face of significant levels of persuasion and arm twisting from his Tory Government colleagues. This will be hard – especially when it will mean siding with Labour and against the Tories, something he is usually politically disinclined to do.

Nick Clegg must decide which he hates more, Labour or an unelected House of Lords. The signs are not great that he’ll make the right decision. But if he does, it opens up a new space where Labour and the Lib Dems can have a new and more productive dialogue. This doesn’t just have an impact on the reform of the House of Lords, but on the potential for the anger between the two parties to finally dissipate somewhat. I don’t know if Clegg wants that, I do know, that to achieve anything the Lib Dems set out to do in this Tory led Government, ultimately and ironically, it will be in building bridges with Labour that they have their only chance to do so.

I for one hope they take it.

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  • http://www.facebook.com/douglasmclellan Douglas McLellan

    Problem is that following how Labour acted in the AV referendum not a single Lib Dem trusts the Labour Party in any way. 

    • Emmaburnell

      Yes, that the precise nose/face removal issue that is stopping you from achieving anything. Well done.

      • treborc

        They have achieved as much as they are going to or will do.

        The problem for labour is of course another coalition after 2015, could happen as people get totally turned off politics, what will labour be offering the Liberals

        • Robert_Crosby

          I remember that Clegg said publicly on the Monday following the election that Labour had to sweep Brown away if they wanted a deal with him… conducting himself that way has ensured that any possible future Lab-LD coalition can’t include him, Alexander, Laws and several others.  There may be LDs who are more keen on going into government with Labour, but not those. 

    • Redshift

      How Labour acted? 

      You seem to be saying:-

       ’how dare they prioritise kicking Tories and Lib Dems out of their council seats, rather than spending their time arguing between two electoral systems that would give very similar results anyway’

    • Geraint

       Bit rich for a Lib Dem to talk about trust Douglas, given the total betrayal the Liberal Democrats have made of everything they claimed to stand for.

      Moreover, Labour acted perfectly correctly over the AV referendum.  Like Lords Reform, it was the actions of Nick Clegg that killed that off.

      • treborc

         Unless of course he’s coming over to labour…

    • robertcp

      Douglas, I do not understand the point that you are making.  Ed Miliband and most leading Labour politicians supported AV.  However, I think Emma is being a bit naive about Labour, as I am not convinced that labour negotiated seriously about how much time it wanted for the Bill to be debated.  Sadiq Khan was not very convincing on Newsnight.

  • http://twitter.com/tristanpw1 TristanPriceWilliams

    Well that sounds good but what does Labour want for a senate?I ask because although I deplore the fact we still have this anachronism and all the tra la la that goes with it (coronets, red robes, ermine collars, and the stupid titles and honorifics), I too thought that the Liberal alternative was almost as bad… and in some ways worse because it would have the air of democratic legitimacy:* 15 year tenure is beyond a joke; *bishops there as of right is an insult to other faiths including dozens of “Christian” sects; * 20% unelected so that the prime minister can still bribe people to do what he wants is an open door to the corruption and sleaze that dominates not just politics but every aspect of public life in the UK, and an invitation for the worst creeps and lickspittles to continue to take money from the state for being nodding dogs;*450 members for a union of 4 states, while America manages with 100 for a union of 50 states is as pathetic as the figures suggest.Like the voting systems referendum where we were being asked to chose between one useless antiquated system and another complicated and also useless system, which was not proportional, and the result was that we were lumbered with a system that suppresses any real interest in politics in 2/3 of the seats, I imagine the same in a referendum on this.So could someone from Labour lay out proposals for what they are looking for to take the country forwards, otherwise we may as well concentrate our efforts on something else and accept that Britain will always be a larger version of a middle European comic opera state with more titles than people. It may be worth remembering that by the time change comes Scotland may be an independent country.

    • Vicky Seddon

       Tristan, we have to measure the proposed changes against what currently exists: hereditaries and prime-ministerial patronage. A mainly elected chamber is better than this. Remember, women’s suffrage did not come in one perfect move but in stages. The first stage made the second stage inevitable.

      Cameron is now talking about a much smaller proportion of elected peers. If this is what  is delivered by the Coalition it will be because Labour wouldn’t support the programme motion.   

      • http://twitter.com/tristanpw1 TristanPriceWilliams

        Thank you Vicky. I see what you are saying. 

        I’d like to know what Labour’s eventual imagine of the senate is, accepting that because the Tories are stuck in the 1800s and the existing membership quite understandably don’t want to give up a tax free income of £300+ a day, it will have to be done it petit à petit,
        pas à pas.

        Is Labour’s eventual aim a fully elected chamber, with no bishops and no medieval titles? Is the final plan to have a manageable number of senators and not the 450 that Clegg appears to want? And will you have them elected for 5 years like most other countries, and not the democracy killing 15 years that are now proposed?

        If there is no REAL change anticipated in the not too distant future, it’s hardly worth the upheaval and the upset for all these poor Noblemen, don’t you think?

  • Rob G

     When so much of the Bill is drawn from papers produced by the previous Government – 15 year terms, role of bishops, proportion unelected, etc. – and the move from STV to what we’re led to believe was the Labour front bench’s preferred option of a list system, about the only point where the Government hasn’t adopted a “conciliatory” stance towards Labour is on the referendum – although it seems that having been offered so much of what it asked for, Labour has decided it now wants other options.

  • Vicky Seddon

    You have let Labour off  the hook here.  Much of the proposal was flagged by Labour previously.  Regardless of how Clegg  et al behave, I expect Labour to take a more responsible attitude than “we will only support it if we can be seen to be top dog” . Playing party politics with this underscores the petty-mindedness of politicians. I wish Miliband could grasp this nettle and prove he is of real leadership material. I promise him, it will play well with the electorate if he is seen to rise above the squabbling,  and to be able to claim that he delivered it. 

  • Mr Chippy

    I can’t help connecting Tory opposition to reform of the HoL with the revelation in the Guardian that a significant number of peers are in the pay of the financial services sector and no doubt other business interests. Think if you are a MP near the end of your useful political life, give up your seat just before the election so that the leadership can impose their favoured sons and a few daughters and take your seat in the HoL as reward. You will have access to your platinum plated and unreformed MPs pension, non-taxed exs of circa 30k making you better off. All the quangos, influence peddling (sorry consultancies) and the such like come as a bonus. This is all conducted in a club subsidised by taxpayers. 

  • James

    The Tories want to keep the status quo as far as the Lords goes because a sh*tload of them want life peerages after their careers as MPs come to an end: many Conservatives also don’t want the boundary changes proposed by Cameron to go ahead because it could reduce their own numbers and chances of re-election significantly. The obvious solution which both satisfies the stroppy Conservatives and placates the Liberal Democrats and helps them save face is postpone reform of the Lords and boundary reorganisation, the latter offered as as a sop to the LibDems in lieu of the Lords, which would please a lot of Tories (like Iain Duncan Smith and Nadine Dorries) who could be forced to move or end up out on their ears in 2015 and preserve their chances as per ennoblement for the foreseeable future.

    I bet this is what will actually happen. 

  • franwhi

    But in making something  more democratic isn’t the process as important as the goal ? How does it work that Labour get to be top dogs ? Why not just get into partnership for something you believe in – or is that just too principled ?

  • derek

    What is wrong with this country? honestly how many people would chose Nick Clegg to be a stand-in- PM and how many people are comfortable with this guy making decisions for millions?

  • https://mikestallard.virtualgallery.com/ Mike Stallard

    Ahem!
    Loyalty……
    Standing by your agreements……
    Or doesn’t that mean anything any more?

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