Both the SNP and the Tories are putting the integrity of the United Kingdom at risk

Less than nine months after Scotland voted No to Independence, our Union remains in crisis. The Scottish Nationalists and the Conservatives are running parallel campaigns either side of the border, both arguing that a Labour Government would unfairly favour the welfare of Scottish voters over English voters, and vice versa.

In doing so, they are putting the very integrity of the United Kingdom at risk, as they knowingly practice the politics of grievance and division in pursuit of political power. That the Scottish Nationalist Party has chosen to operate in such a fashion is no surprise: that the Conservative and Unionist Party has chosen to do so is quite simply a disgrace.

A vote for Labour this election is a rejection of this politics of bitterness and division. It’s also a vote to end the underlying constitutional imbalances which have lead us to this point.

For many decades we have debated what sort of political structure best suits Britain and its constituent nations. In 1979, I and many others in the Scottish Labour Party campaigned, unsuccessfully, for a Scottish assembly. In 1999, we finally succeeded in establishing a Scottish Parliament with significant devolved responsibilities. In the last sixteen years, those responsibilities have grown, as have those of other devolved administrations in Wales and Northern Ireland.

Despite this, our political system remains grotesquely centralised and chaotic. England suffers from a huge democratic deficit in comparison to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The relationship between our nations, and the proper role of the ‘centre’ remains unclear, and many of our towns and cities are deprived of the powers they need to grow and prosper.

In “A Claim of Right for Scotland”, a collection of essays published in 1988, I argued that the only stable long term solution was “phased federalism”, with a reformed second chamber whose make up would reflect Britain’s nations and regions. (The House of Lords remains, as I argued in 1988, an “affront to democracy”, which “if it existed in any third world country, would be condemned by British MPs as feudal and undemocratic.”)

I am delighted to say, that as Prime Minister Ed Miliband will deliver just this.

The next Labour Government will replace the House of Lords with an elected Senate of the Regions and Nations, with representatives from every part of the United Kingdom.

We will also transfer £30 billion of funding to English cities and regions, put Welsh devolution on the same statutory basis as Scottish devolution, and give the Scottish Parliament extra powers over jobs, tax, and welfare.

Most importantly, we will set up a people-led Constitutional Convention to decide how Westminster should be reformed, and how the relationship between our nations should be calibrated. Such a convention has enormous potential.

As Ed has often said, ‘politics is far too important to be left up to politicians’. This is why, as the All Party Group on Reform, Decentralisation and Devolution has suggested, the convention should include members of the public alongside representatives of all the major political parties.

And to make sure this process really is people-led, we recommend that members of the public make up over half of the convention, and that forums such as social media, town hall meetings and other forms of political engagement are heavily relied upon to inform the process.

Change must come from the bottom up, not be imposed from the top down.

This should not, however, be an exercise in kicking constitutional change into the long grass. Sitting for no longer than a year, the Convention should report to Parliament which should act immediately on its recommendations.

Taken alongside Labour’s proposals on limiting political donations, giving votes to sixteen and seventeen year olds, and capping political donations, these plans amount to the most radical reimagining of the British body politic in my lifetime.

Unlike our main rivals north and south of the border, the Labour Party goes into this election offering something unique: a roadmap to better, more united kingdom.

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock is a life peer in the House of Lords