An anti-democratic alliance emerges

By Ed Mayne

I must admit, I was surprised when the Tories and the Liberal Democrats first agreed to go into a formal coalition. But looking at it again it’s less surprising.

The Conservative and Liberal parties are the oldest groupings in the House of Commons, both can trace their heritage back to the historic Whig Party, and they traditionally share an institutional respect for the unwritten British constitution. It is therefore with genuine surprise that I’ve read about their proposals for political “reform”.

Perhaps the most well publicised part of the Libservative agreement is their proposal for five-year parliaments. I’ve long been in favour of fixed term Parliaments, but five years is far too long.

Much was written in the run-up to the general election about the increasingly presidential style of British politics. As has often been said, we’re moving towards a presidential system without the checks and balances of the international presidential models. Statutory five-year Parliaments will strengthen this line of argument further. Four years would be far more appropriate.

Both parties in the new coalition also seem to agree that future motions of no-confidence in the government should require the support of 55% of MPs to pass. This offends me both as a History graduate and as an active proponent of constitutional reform. Under the historic British constitution, government is split into three branches: executive, judiciary and legislature. Unlike many foreign constitutions there has never been a separation of powers in the UK. The three branches have always overlapped. This is perfectly demonstrated in the composition of our legislative branch.

The UK Parliament in its entirety is made up of Monarch, Lords and Commons. Often misunderstood, the name “Commons” comes from the Norman French word “communes”, literally making the House of Commons the representatives of the “Community of the Realm” in parliament. It is the only democratic part of our national governmental structure.

If we therefore take the House of Commons to be the representatives of the entire nation in parliament, if half of them think the government should go, they should resign! This is not to mention the fact that the Conservatives have 47% of MPs in this Parliament – making a no-confidence motion virtually impossible to pass under the proposed rules.

Then there is their plan for the House of Lords. The “new kind of politics” coalition is proposing a bill that is likely to include “single long terms of office” and a “grandfathering system for current Peers”. Quite frankly, this is worse than what we have already. Such token democracy will strengthen the role of the House of Lords as a retirement home for the political classes, rather than making it the genuine check on government that it should be.

Milton Friedman always said that capitalism would flourish where democracy flourished too. If one accepts that neo-liberal capitalism has taken root in this country, whether you like it or not, I would argue that Friedman was wrong. Margaret Thatcher’s neo-liberal reforms were enacted without ever receiving support from 50% of the electorate at a general election.

Despite the share of the vote that this coalition commands, which I do not dispute, I fear that democracy may once again be a casualty of top-down politics.

I don’t often agree with the historian David Starkey, but he’s right on one thing: this country needs a constitutional convention if we are to do a new kind of politics properly. Only then can we tie up the loose ends of our constitution and genuinely change the way we do things.

In the last Economist magazine democracy index, the UK was ranked 21st out of the 30 countries classed as “full democracies”, one place below Belgium and one place above Greece. Without proper democratic reforms, I fear our next rating could be much lower.