You are here: Home » Comment »

Tonight – Labour MPs should hold their noses and vote with Cameron and Clegg

July 10, 2012 2:32 pm

Author:

Tags:

Share this Article

Update: Since this post was published, the government have withdrawn the programme motion.

It’s no surprise to me to see how angry many within the Labour Party are over the party’s stance on Lords reform. It has been an article of faith within the movement for over 100 years to either abolish or reform the Upper Chamber. The various benefits of a unicameral or bicameral legislature are more for the academic lecture series than they are for this blogpost – but what is clear for most Labour people is that priveledge, patronage, bishops and the hereditary principle should have no place in a modern legislature.

Ed Miliband agrees with that. He said a few weeks ago that:

 ”I believe that democratic election is the best system for our country and that is why I intend to lead Labour MPs in a vote for the Second Reading of the Bill and in support of reform of the House of Lords.”

Certainly this bill has created some unholy unlikely alliances. I find myself wishing hoping some Labour MPs vote with Nick Clegg and David Cameron, whilst many Labour MPs will – as Kevin meagher noted earlier – walk through the same division lobby as Bill Cash and Nadine Dorries.

A sobering thought.

I agree with Alan Johnson, who has bravely argued today that Miliband won’t succeed if:

“the Parliamentary Labour Party decide that playing games with the coalition is more important than establishing real constitutional reform.”

The constitutional conservatism of some in the parliamentary party is as surprising as it is galling. None can have failed to notice that Labour has repeatedly been elected on a platform of democratic reform of the Lords – and yet today the party risks losing Lords Reform to the abyss of Parliamentary tactics by voting against the programme motion. As I argued a couple of weeks ago:

 ”What Ed Miliband proposes is that Labour will both vote yes and no. Labour MPs will vote for the Second Reading of the Bill but oppose the proposed timetable – providing an opportunity for Tory rebels to back Labour and sink the bill. A whips trick. Too clever by half.”

The position of the Labour leadership is to argue that this isn’t the case. A senior party spoke to LabourList this afternoon to say that:

“A government defeat on the programme motion does not kill this bill. It means there will be a proper debate. Ed is clear: He wants House of Lords reform out of the Commons.”

I admire Ed Miliband’s backing for Lords Reform. And I no longer believe that he is trying to sink the bill. But I still worry that could be the outcome of today’s votes.

If no timetable is set for debating the bill then what are the chances of the bill ever making it through the Commons into the Lords? Does Labour believe that the government will allow an open-ended debate on Lords reform, with the debate grinding slowly through the house and clogging up the rest of its legislative agenda? Whilst this would be highly desirable for Labour – as Peter Hain argues, it could destabilise the government’s legislative programme and stop rightwing legislation – is it really likely?

Or is it more likely that Labour could miss the chance to see a bill pass that would reform the Lords?

A flawed bill? Absolutely. it’s not 100% elected, it maintains appointments and Bishops, and a 15 year term seems ludicrous. But the alternative is that Labour could miss – as Hain describes it – a ”now or perhaps never” chance to reform the Lords. If the current bill passes, there is nothing to stop Labour fixing the mistakes inherent in the bill once in government. But if it falls…the issue may be off the table for a generation.

That is the fear. And I haven’t been convinced that it isn’t a real and credible fear. Whilst I hope that the gambit being played by Ed Miliband and Sadiq Khan – that the government must allow prolonged debate on reform, and allow serious concessions – pays off. I find it unlikely. I hope – but I do not believe.

If Labour MPs feel likewise – they should do what comes highly unnaturally, break the whip, and vote with the government on the programme motion. Because – on this very rare occasion – it is the right thing to do.

Related posts:

  1. Sod tactics, Labour. Vote with your principles
  2. The party of unrelenting change? Tonight, Labour can prove it
  3. Why a vote to spite Clegg on AV is a vote for Osborne
  4. Labour MPs – vote with your hearts
  5. Support the right for religious groups to hold civil partnerships
  • http://twitter.com/sxybio ColinW

    Er, the 15 year term was a Labour proposal – although it is indeed, far too long.

    This is a Coalition Government, so these are compromise proposals. Lib Dem policy is for a 100% elected upper house, by STV.

    Why must Labour play these stupid games when the Bill can be amended? If they vote against the programme they vote to kill off Lords reform.

    Robin Cook would not be happy.

    • ThePurpleBooker

      Oi! Robin Cook, John Smith and even Keir Hardie would not want to hear the likes of Liberal Democrats like you lecture us on progressivism. Your comment is just pure rank hypocrisy. In 1999 and 2005, when we put forward radical reforms to the House of Lords the Tories opposed it and the Lib Dems voted against the programme motion and did not vote for it. So what you have said is just sickening hypocrisy. Perhaps you could apologise for that before indulging in your pious and sactimonious lecture.
      The 15-year-term without re-election is a terrible idea and was looked at and debated within our party. Coalition and compromise? Boo hoo! You chose to go into the Tories so don’t go round trying to morally blackmail and troll our websites to support you lot. You have not delivered your manifesto promise of a 100% elected House but then again manifesto promises mean NOTHING to Liberal Democrats which is why you will be slaughtered at the next election. Our policy is a referendum on an elected House of Lords and we are not supporting the programme motion so that the Bill can be debated and have more scrutiny because you need to have good reform not railroad through a Bill which has proposals which could threaten the primacy of the House of Commons and deliver another bad system as well as no consultion with the people about their Parliament. You need to get a grip, lad.

      • http://www.markpack.org.uk/ Mark Pack

        I wonder if your comment is worded too politely to convince anyone? Perhaps expressing your views a little more pungently would make them more persuasive?

        • ThePurpleBooker

          I am just furious with your party over this issue. I am sorry but I think there is amazing double standards and hypocrisy coming from the Liberal Democrats and I do not apologise for sounding like Sir Gerard Kaufman. The Bill should be sent back to the drawing board that is why it needs more scrutiny.

          • Alan Giles

            You don’t even sound like Gerald Kauffman, who I am sure is far busier watching the £8000 TV set we bought for him, rather than issuing  contemptous abusive little rants from the safety of one of your screen names (what happened to the “Labour Right Toughie” one?)

        • treborc

          I take it you know he is a Liberal or ex LIberal.

          • ThePurpleBooker

            I am not. That is a lie.

          • treborc

            Rubbish mate you were called the Ex Lib it was your name was it not, then you changed it to the Purple hooker then you changed it again then again then back. seems you have a serious problem with your memory

          • ThePurpleBooker

            I joined Labour in 2000. I have not been a Liberal Democrat or voted Liberal Democrat in my life. You are chatting rubbish as usual.

    • http://www.barder.com/ephems/ Brian Barder

       This Bill is much too deeply flawed to be capable of conversion into an acceptable piece of reform by piecemeal amendments, even if the coalition were to be willing to accept the dozens, perhaps hundreds, of radical amendments that would be needed.  Tear it up; sketch out a road-map to a thorough, wide-ranging constitutional review after the Scottish referendum; and ensure that an all-elected federal (Westminster) second chamber is slotted into the much wider constitutional reform that results.  Clegg’s Bill gets almost everything wrong, including its timing, and tries to put a rickety cart before a very substantial horse. 

      To support this just because you support Lords reform is a sad perversion of logic.

  • Alan Giles

    Good article Mark, and, for once, how much I agree with Alan Johnson (”
    the Parliamentary Labour Party decide that playing games with the coalition is more important than establishing real constitutional reform.”).

    Again it shows Labour looking somewhat – muddled at best, indecisive and amateur.

    It’s a bit like the position with Twigg on the Neil Programme (June 10th) saying in effect yes and no to the same question similtaneously , or the obnoxious Byrne making a great thing of the small portion of the Welfare Reform Bill he doesn’t approve of, having made it very clear that he “agrees with three quarters of it”.

    As the next election gets ever closer this ad-libbing from day to day, striking a pose, scared of saying what they believe in case the Daily Mail disapproves, can only damage the party at the same time as making it look weak and confused

    • http://www.barder.com/ephems/ Brian Barder

       Strongly opposing a thoroughly misconceived and deeply flawed Bill, whose consequences if it were to become law would be deeply damaging to our constitution and our law-making processes, and which is clearly too bad to be capable of resuscitation by a thousand amendments, and which is being put forward at the wrong time and for the wrong reasons (to pacify the LibDems), can hardly be described as “playing games with the coalition” — another remark that unfortunately puts a question mark over the judgement of the likeable Mr Johnson.

  • Mr 0a

    12 Bishop seats retained that are not permitted to be occupied by women

    15 year terms with no reelection meaning candidates will promise the earth and then do nothing aside from serve vested interests

    The introduction of the corrupt and limiting party system into selection for the Lords

    No referendum on this massive constitutional change when we have referendums for the  mayor of cities

    No consideration of the relationship between the Commons and the Lords

    Reform stretching until 2025 so zero chance of revisiting this issue until after then

    I’m with the Tory rebels, I hope they wreck the bill so we can get proper reform

    • JC

      I wasn’t aware that they had to be occupied by men. Will women bishops be excluded then?

      • Mr 0a

         Women are not permitted to become Bishops.

  • Billsilver

    This is shabby Mark, really shabby.
    No popular mandate has been given for these (Liberal – not, Democratic – are you joking?) self-seeking changes and the cowardice shown by ALL ‘leaders’ in denying a referendum is magnificent.
    The chamber of supposedly impartial and expert advice looks like being lost for ever and a rump of party hacks put in their place for 15 years, with no chance to boot them out. 
    Let’s just think for a moment – PR voting ensuring that Liberals have a hold on government business while the electorate – whose will is supposed to be paramount – can have their will, whether Labour or Tory, denied and frustrated by these parasitic ‘senators’.
    If this is reform, bring back Cromwell.

    • Steve Cohen

      I don’t know about “shabby”, but Mark’s article does seem to
      suggest that we should accept this reform of the House of Lords, because it’s
      the only reform on offer. But that ignores a very simple question.

       

      Why do we need Lords’ reform. The obvious answer is, because
      the present House of Lords is undemocratic.

       

      But that is the wrong starting point. Do we need a second
      chamber at all? Nearly half the world’s legislatures manage perfectly well
      without one. And even if we do, what do we want it to do?

       

      In the US the Senate was designed to limit the overweening
      power of the large cities and more populous states. In Germany, the Bundersrat
      is made up of representatives appointed by the governments of the 16 Bunderslander
      - put there to prevent the resurgence of an all powerful central executive.

       

      The House of Lords, especially the crossbench peers, are said
      to have an expertise that isn’t found in the House of Commons allowing it to
      revise legislation in a way that elected bodies could not.

       

      Maybe what we need is a House of Experts, appointed by
      professional bodies, trade unions, charities, trade bodies, community groups, academia,
      the CBI etc.

       

      What we certainly don’t need is what’s on offer from Nick
      Clegg!

  • JC

    It depends on how much the party wants to be seen as an opposition party, and how much a party that can lead the country.

  • DanMcCurry

    What a stupid article.

    • Alan Giles

      No more so than your comment. The article has substance, your reply is just petulant

  • Hugh

    15 year tenures for someone selected from a party list? Really?

    If there’s nothing to stop  Labour fixing the mistakes inherent in the bill once in government then there’s nothing to stop it introducing a decent bill without those mistakes once in government, and also putting this major constitutional change to a referendum.

    • http://www.barder.com/ephems/ Brian Barder

       Bravo, Hugh!  Pithy, to the point, and dead right.  And there are literally dozens of other totally unacceptable nonsenses in this rubbishy Bill, far too many to amend into a piece of constitutional reform worth submitting to an obviously inescapable referendum.  Labour should join with the Tory reactionaries and ensure that this misbegotten document never gets anywhere near the statute book.

      • treborc

         S0 another 112 years with no change then

  • Francislerouge

    Yes, let’s be conservative – but with a small “c”. Mark: the burden of proof  is on you. To have a timetable motion on a major constitutional bill  is something new and, I suggest, something unwise and conceivably dangerous.
    Even if you don’t agree, surely you would concede that 10 days are totally inadequate.  Surely most progressives – not just socialists – would agree that the present bill has serious faults Faults we should not expect our children and grandchildren to live with.
    Just consider:  one 15 year term, party list votes, bishops to mention only the most obvious.
    You argue that Labour can correct these horrors when it gets back to power. But in that case, having waited 100 years, might it not be better to start with a decent democratic efficient and effective bill presented by a Labour government  with LD support? With luck and hard work, we might have a sensible Lords Reform Bill in 3 or 4 years?      

  • LEONKING295

    MARK CAN YOU PLEASE SPELL ‘PRIVILEGE’ PROPERLY – YOU HAVE MADE THIS MISTAKE SEVERAL TIMES ALREADY AND IT IS VERY AMATEUR, ESPECIALLY COMING FROM SOMEONE EDUCATED AT CAMBRIDGE.

    • treborc

       Check to see where your capital lock is, it’s easy it named capital lock.

      • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_ZPXYLRVP4XOIGGDJWAL6HUO7U4 David

        Very witty

        • treborc

          I just think spelling mistakes are not the end all is it, my GP must have the worse spelling I’ve ever seen, and he went to to University.  But if you are going to pull somebody up then make sure you do not make any mistakes.

    • Brumanuensis

      Amateurish surely?

  • gpkearns

    There is nothing wrong with the article so long as you believe in the existance of a second chamber to begin with.  Many Labour supporters don’t and would like the House Of Lords abolished rather than reformed.  Surely there are enough members of the Commons not involved  in front bench duties to do the job of revision free from the tribal loyalties imposed by the Whips office?

  • http://twitter.com/bencobley Ben Cobley

    I can’t see how the Labour Party can go about lecturing anyone about democracy. We should be getting our own house in order and showing we understand even vaguely what the concept means before we go creating even more layers of it which are surely doomed to failure and disillusion.

    Democracy is fundamentally about culture and practice; the systems and rules come second. Focus on the first and then you can ponder on having a crack at the second. Creating a whole new alternative layer of political party yes-men and -women and calling it democracy is not the way forward.

  • Brumanuensis

    On the one hand, I’m in favour of a fully-elected House of Lords. And I find the call for a referendum by Sadiq Khan just plain stupid.

    On the other hand, the current bill is – not to put too fine a point about it – crap. It contains so many bad provision – many covered by Anthony Painter in his article – that I can’t muster up any enthusiasm for it. And with the programme motion in  place, the amount of discussion would have been derisory.

    The fact that the government’s legislative agenda is now going to be gummed up, perhaps slowing down some idiotic proposal by IDS or Lansley, makes me positively cheerful. Not to mention the Gerrymandering Bill may now be voted down by the Liberals.

    • http://www.barder.com/ephems/ Brian Barder

       I agree that this is a terrible Bill that should never be allowed to get anywhere near the statute book.  But if by some mischance it were to be allowed to jump through all its parliamentary hoops, it would be absolutely essential to submit it to a referendum, like any other proposal for major constitutional change.  (A referendum might at that stage be the only, indispensable, way to kill it.)

      • Brumanuensis

        I have a long-standing aversion to referenda, Brian. I don’t think they enhance democratic discussion and in a representative democracy I find them unecessary. By all means the public should have a mechanism to force issues onto the Parliamentary agenda, which is why I think petitions should be allocated more time for debate, but after the AV debacle and bearing in mind Atlee’s words about them being the device of ‘demagogues and dictators’, I’m happy to reserve the matter for Parliament.

        I do agree with your proposal for equal representation of the nations of the UK in a reformed Upper House, incidentally.

        • http://www.barder.com/ephems/ Brian Barder

           @Brumanuensis:disqus :  In most circumstances I share your dislike of referendums: government and parliament should make decisions according to their own best judgements, being held to account for them at election time, not constantly instructed what to do by referendums (or by focus groups and opinion polls which are mini-referendums only worse).  But I think significant constitutional changes are another matter.  In the single-document, written federal constitution which we shall eventually have to have, there are bound to be special provisions for protecting the principal clauses of the constitution against ill-considered and potentially undemocratic amendments, often lacking support by a national consensus, forced through by an ephemeral majority in the house of commons:  IOW, such basic clauses of the constitution need to be entrenched.  Because (a) we have no single-document written constitution, (b) we are plagued by the absurd myth that parliament is all-powerful and can’t be bound by decisions of its predecessors or by any outside authority, (c) many of our constitutional defences against dictatorship and repression depend on unwritten conventions which are by definition unenforceable, and (d) our constitution is not justiciable — i.e. our supreme court has no power to overrule parliament when it behaves unconstitutionally:  for all these reasons it seems to me essential that there is general acceptance of the rule that any significant constitutional change must be approved in a referendum.

          I strongly support reform of the house of lords (especially if done as part of a general up-dating of our entire constitution to take account of semi-federation resulting from devolution) but Clegg’s Bill is so poorly conceived and so full of unacceptable nonsenses, and its timing and motivation are so bad, that in any referendum on it I would have to vote No. 

    • ThePurpleBooker

      Firstly, a referendum on House of Lords reform is our policy in our manifesto! Saying that the Shadow Justice Secretary calling for his own party’s policy is plain stupid is plain stupid in itself.

  • http://www.barder.com/ephems/ Brian Barder

    I’m disappointed to find on LabourList two posts arguing that those of us who support the reform of the House of Lords have some kind of duty to support Nick Clegg’s Bill, regardless of its contents.  Supporting reform can’t possibly entail an obligation to support *any* old reform that comes along.  The Clegg Bill has far more totally unacceptable features than positive ones.  There’s absolutely no way that it could be amended into a worth-while reform, even in the unlikely event that the coalition were to agree to all the radical changes that would be required. 

    But in any case this is absolutely the wrong time for a narrow piecemeal reform that addresses just one limited element in our constitution without paying the slightest attention to the wider related issues that arise from devolution, the UK’s semi-federal (and probably future fully federal) status, the need for a ‘states’ House, the need to protect the interests at the federal level of the smaller of the UK’s four nations against domination by a much bigger England, the lessons that need to be learned from the experience of other federal democracies, the unpredictable implications of the Scottish referendum (barely two years away yet with no UK party having worked out a coherent policy for dealing with it either before or after the vote) — the list of relevant factors ignored by this misbegotten Bill goes on and on.

    It would be little short of criminal to lumber the country with this crass attempt at reform without first conducting a thorough-going review of all the needs for constitutional reform across the board in the light of the results of the Scottish referendum.  Trying to deal with the federal second chamber in isolation and prematurely, purely to keep the coalition together and the Tories in the driving seat by throwing a pacifying lollipop to Nick Clegg, is shabby, unprincipled, incompetent and doomed.  Labour should have none of it.

    (Many of the numerous  unacceptable features and follies of the Clegg Bill are mentioned in other comments on this post, and some of the rest in my own LabourList post at
    http://bit.ly/RM5md7.  There are too many of them to spell them all out again here.  Just read the Bill and then come back and say that Labour should support it!)

Latest

  • Featured Becoming a Living Wage City – an ambition worth having

    Becoming a Living Wage City – an ambition worth having

    By Ian Stewart

    A cleaner met me on the corridor the other day as I was leaving the office and gave me a huge hug. “Thank you, City Mayor,” she told me “that’s been the best news for years.” After I had recovered from my embarrassment, I realised what she was talking about. Salford had just introduced the full Living Wage – becoming the first local authority in Greater Manchester to implement a full Living Wage of £7.45 for every member of staff [...]

    Read more →
  • Comment Planning the revolution – Labour and the Spending Review

    Planning the revolution – Labour and the Spending Review

    By David Robinson

    In four weeks time the Chancellor will announce the results of the 2015 spending Review. There won’t be many winners but some will have lost more than others. Political commentators and discussion forums will pass judgement and public sector managers will, yet again, pick through the debris, making do and mending from what ever they can salvage. Before we get overtaken by the detail we should reflect on the bigger picture. What ever the chancellor says on June 26th it [...]

    Read more →
  • Comment A call for action at the G8

    A call for action at the G8

    By Ivan Lewis

    In less than a month’s time, the UK hosts the G8 Summit. With hunger, tax, trade and transparency all on the agenda, the UK has a unique opportunity to show global leadership on these issues. The scale of hunger is devastating. There is enough food in the world for everyone, yet 1 billion people still go hungry. 2.3 million children every year die from malnutrition – to put that in perspective, that is around 16,000 children every day. Or one [...]

    Read more →
  • News TUC suggests Football World Cup vote should be re-run – Media roundup: May 24th, 2013

    TUC suggests Football World Cup vote should be re-run – Media roundup: May 24th, 2013

    Subscribers to our morning email get the best of LabourList – including the Media and blog round up – every weekday morning. If you were a subscriber you would have already received this in your inbox. You can sign up here. TUC suggests Football World Cup vote should be re-run “The TUC along with its international equivalent – the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) – is calling on UEFA to address the appalling treatment of workers and players in Qatar and [...]

    Read more →
  • Featured A Northern Tory that Labour should be afraid of

    A Northern Tory that Labour should be afraid of

    By Mark Ferguson

    The Labour Party spends a great deal of time beating itself up over its performance in Southern England. We know it simply isn’t good enough, but we can’t seem to put our finger on why exactly that’s the case. Is it demographics? No. Culture? Perhaps. Lack of basic party organisation in some areas? It’s certainly a factor. But whilst we’re flagellating ourselves over our inability to perform south of the Watford gap (outside of London), we should remember that the [...]

    Read more →