Labour can and must transform the UK into a union of nations – here’s how

England is the most centralised and unequal nation in Europe. Power is hoarded at the centre in Westminster and Whitehall, creating a huge barrier to any government wanting to deliver radical social and economic change. The strains inside the union are obvious. A government elected by a minority of English voters imposes its will across the whole of the UK. Our parliament has only a thin claim to represent opinion across the union. But neither democracy campaigners, nor constitutional reformers, nor those who want the union to continue in the 21st century, have taken much interest in how England is governed or its impact on the future of the UK.

Yet the three are intimately linked. The first-past-the-post electoral system enables a Tory Party elected on a minority of England’s votes to impose its assertive anglo-centric British nationalism across all the other nations. Johnson’s government has a majority that lies entirely in England and is seen in the rest of the UK as imposing an ‘English’ government on the entire union. Yet at the same time it sustains a centralised state that has left England without even the most basic machinery of government, political leadership or democratic structures that can coordinate policy across the nation. The settled majority of England’s voters who want England’s laws made by England’s MPs have been ignored and the limited and bureaucratic form of English votes for English laws have now been abolished. ‘English devolution’ has offered little more than localised ‘deals’ controlled by Whitehall.

The first-past-the-post electoral system also exacerbates tensions within the union by exaggerating the polarisation of politics across the UK. ‘British’ politics is without a doubt steadily becoming the politics of four separate nations, but our first-past-the-post system exaggerates the differences in the Commons – making Scotland look too nationalist, England too Tory and Wales too Labour. It drives the adversarial mentality that has left relationships between the devolved administrations and the UK government at an all-time low.

These links between electoral reform, the future of the union and the governance of England are rarely drawn. Electoral reformers demand change to the first-past-the-post system for electing MPs to the House of Commons, but have largely ducked the democratic deficit represented by the absence of any national democracy for England. Unionists try to persuade Scotland to stay, but rarely ask about England’s position in the union. Many want more devolution inside England but don’t address England’s national government.

These issues are intertwined, and must be tackled together. A reformed electoral system would better reflect the true range of political views across the union. The establishment of a discrete machinery of government from England, delineated for genuinely UK wide policy, would enable relationships between the UK government and its nations to be placed on a new and more respectful basis. And a more democratic Commons would allow English-only laws to be made by MPs properly reflecting England voters.

Of course, any incoming Labour government will be impatient to begin tackling the economic and social legacy of a dozen years of Conservatism. It won’t want to have an extended period of constitutional introspection. Instead, as I outline in a new report for Compass and Unlock Democracy, Labour should initiate a series of strategic, incremental changes. Some can be put into place immediately after an election while others will, over time, move the union from a unitary state towards something more like a union of nations. As we do, New Labour’s devolution of 20 years ago will be understood as one stage in this process, rather than the one-off reform that was imagined at the time.

Firstly, the rights of the devolved nations to exercise their own powers need to be defined in statute and mechanisms for cooperation across the union, and their rights to shape union policy, must be put on a legal basis. Second, the machinery of government for England must be delineated from that of the union, with a Cabinet Committee and civil service structure focused solely on England and answerable to a Secretary of State for England. Third, a coherent system of national government for England must facilitate radical devolution within England. Fourth, a consultative senate of all the nations (including England), the UK government and local government from across the union should be created.

Crucially, the subsequent general election would be fought on a reformed electoral system, bringing the politics of Westminster into line with the pluralist politics that are already commonplace in the devolved nations. Free from the fear that a first-past-the-post England would always be dominated by a minority of Conservative voters, reform would also enable Westminster to operate as a dual-mandate parliament in which English-only affairs were determined by England’s MPs alone. In the longer term, as a pluralist politics becomes the norm, we might see the UK Cabinet excluding ‘England-only’ ministers but including representatives of the national governments.

With tensions manifest across the UK – from the demand for a second Scottish independence referendum to the debacle over the Northern Ireland Protocol – a union can only prosper if it can find shared purpose and aspirations. These shared ambitions might include the transition to zero carbon, building a post Brexit economy, creating social and economic inclusion and ensuring positive relationships with our neighbours in the British Isles and in Europe – and would need to be based on a 21st century union in which each nation’s rights are guaranteed and shared institutions reflect common interests.

It is time to bring these separate debates – exercise of state power, electoral reform, the future of the union and English democracy – together. They must be tackled as one if Labour hopes to implement its aspirations for radical social, economic and democratic reform, and if the union itself is to be given a future purpose.

For the past 20 years, Labour has lost every battle about what is to be British or English or Scottish in the 21st century – consistently failing to frame Labour politics within a clear vision of nation and nations: their people, what they stood for and what their future would be. (Only Welsh Labour seem to have got it right, but are roundly ignored by the rest of the party.) The electoral consequences in Scotland, and in England where Labour lags massively amongst English identifying voters, are all too clear.

Labour may be waking up to the need for democratic renewal and constitutional reform. The party’s Commission on the Future of the UK led by former Prime Minister Gordon Brown is awaited, although it is not clear how well it will grasp these issues. At its 2021 conference, 80% of Constituency Labour Party delegates supported electoral reform for the House of Commons, a powerful indicator of the mood among grassroots activists. Subsequent decisions by trade union Unite suggest a re-run of the vote would now win the conference.

But these questions are now pressing. An incoming government will face huge resistance from Whitehall to radical change. The temptation to defer, delay and ultimately abandon reform will be strong. If Labour doesn’t commit to action now, it is unlikely to find the will later.