[patriots] Constitution
- From: john TIMBRELL <johntimbrell@xxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 20 Sep 2014 07:18:44 +0000
good morning patriots,
I'm circulating this for the report by Rupert Read, (third one down) in which
he promotes a peoples conference to iron out constitutional problems,
specifically he calls for a non elite conference presumably because he does not
trust the politicians and lawyers.
he also mentions an important letter to the times last week.Does anyone have
access to it.
JohnT
WordPress.com
Blog Admin posted: "On 18 September, Scotland
voted against independence by a margin of 55-45 per cent. We asked a number of
experts to comment on the results and what might occur in future.
John Van Reenen: "The economic case for maintaining the union was
overwhelming"
"
New post on EUROPP
Experts react to the Scottish referendum result: The Nays have it
by Blog Admin
On 18 September, Scotland voted against
independence by a margin of 55-45 per cent. We asked a number of experts to
comment on the results and what might occur in future.
John Van Reenen: "The economic case for maintaining the union was overwhelming"
Norman Bonney: "Clearly the great ambitions of the reconvened Scottish
Parliament of 1999 to transform politics in Scotland in a more participatory
direction have failed"
Rupert Read: "The ‘Yes’ campaign has played a vital role in throwing open
questions about the support for our current constitutional settlement"
Craig McAngus: "Although the Scottish Question will remain on the agenda, the
English Question has also been asked"
John Van Reenen - Professor of Economics and director of the Centre for
Economic Performance, LSE
The immense turnout of 85% is a tribute to healthy democracy in Scotland and
the UK as a whole. The Scottish people were brave to vote against breaking up
the UK. There was immense pressure in the campaign to make the vote a
declaration of identity rather than of reason – “You can only really be
Scottish if you vote yes”. This was always deeply offensive and deeply untrue.
It is possible and desirable in the modern world to have multiple identities
and indeed, civilised living requires this. Gordon Brown’s speech on the eve of
the vote - at last - made this into a passionate rallying call.
As I have argued before, the economic case for maintaining the union was
overwhelming. There are now two major battles ahead. The first is over the
European Union as the Prime Minister has promised a vote on this by 2017. This
has even more risks for the prosperity of the UK than the Scottish vote. The
economic arguments in favour of this continued union are also overwhelming, but
the siren call of barren nationalism will again be amplified by UKIP and a
great many narrow minded politicians. And the Scottish referendum has shown
that many people will find this an attractive song - for “distant Westminster”
read “distant Brussels”).
The second battle will be constitutional change. Powers will go to Scotland,
but what about the other countries of the UK? What is clear is that people are
deeply unhappy about over-centralisation of power in Westminster. We need to
consider more power to the city-regions of England and how to economically
revitalise areas outside of London. The LSE Growth Commission has been followed
up by a City Growth Commission (I am one of the members). We will issue our
report next month calling for a new settlement within England across its major
city-regions to match the changes now proposed between England and Scotland.
This is not the end of a move to decentralise power – it’s just the start.
---------------------------------------------------
Norman Bonney - Emeritus Professor at Edinburgh Napier University
Clearly the great ambitions of the reconvened Scottish Parliament of 1999 to
transform politics in Scotland in a more participatory direction have failed.
About half the Scottish electorate do not believe that the current arrangements
which grant generous funding and extensive powers of self-government over
health, education, local government, transport and planning etc. (with more in
the pipeline) are capable of delivering greater involvement, more equality and
social justice. The Labour Party has failed to use the institutions it created
to strengthen its position in Scotland and the stature of its MSPs has never
matched the challenge of the SNP. It has also conceded the progressive
campaigning initiative in socially deprived neighbourhoods to the independence
movement and faces a major challenge to retain its electoral base.
UK party leaders seemed out of touch when campaigning in Scotland. David
Cameron emphasised the apparent weakness of the Tories in Scotland by referring
to the one Scottish MP. But disproportionality at Westminster minimises
apparent Tory support in Scotland and he could have bolstered the party’s
status by mentioning the 15 Tory MSPs (12%) elected under the proportional
representation system as well as Ruth Davidson, their impressive leader. The
hidden agenda of the establishment of the Scottish Parliament, elected by
proportional representation, was to prevent a separatist administration gaining
control of Holyrood. But a low poll in 2011 returned an SNP majority elected by
only 45 per cent of those voting but with a commitment to hold a referendum on
independence. And in the end campaigning may have made little difference to the
final outcome with separatists again polling the same percentage share as in
2011.
------------------------------------------------
Rupert Read - Reader in Philosophy at the University of East Anglia and until
recently a Green Party Councillor in Norwich.
The ‘Yes’ campaign has played a vital role in throwing open questions about the
support for our current constitutional settlement – questions that will not go
away simply because of a narrow defeat for the 'Yes' campaign. In fact, the
questions are in many cases more urgent than they would have been, had Scotland
simply been going its own way.
The debate triggered by the referendum has illustrated how people across the
country have been left feeling unrepresented and neglected by Westminster
policies and politics. It is clear that the “business as usual” approach to
politics favoured by the three 'main' parties is no longer resonating with the
voting electorate. There is now a real opportunity to mount a serious
reassessment of our political system – including a debate over the introduction
of a written Constitutional Convention and Bill of Rights. And this opportunity
is forced upon us, by us all being still in the same Kingdom together.
For the three largest parties have had to commit themselves to some version of
'devo-max', in the last few weeks, in order to stave off independence. So, we
must now have some version of devo-max and that that means that the 'West
Lothian question', the question of what matters the MP for West Lothian etc.
can vote for in Westminster, must at last be properly addressed - which
requires a serious shake-up of our constitution and democratic arrangements, in
itself.
As Green MP Caroline Lucas has already called for, it is therefore now high
time for a people's Constitutional Convention in this country. To settle all
these questions, once and for all, and to take British democracy at last into
the 21st century. The crisis of a wide lack of confidence in the political
system of the UK can only be addressed by a non-elite Constitutional Convention
that involves ordinary people in deciding on how to reform the electoral
system, how to bring in enhanced regional and local government, how to
implement a right of recall of elected MPs who lose their constituents'
confidence, and so on. As a host of fine relevant individuals and organisations
argued in an important letter in The Times last week. We need to get behind
this campaign, together.
------------------------------------------------
Craig McAngus - Research Fellow at the University of Stirling
The referendum is over and Scotland has voted No. There is undoubtedly huge
disappointment amongst those who were campaigning for Scotland to be an
independent state, and relief amongst those who wanted Scotland to stay in the
UK. The turnout, at just shy of 85%, is remarkable and unprecedented, and the
hope is that this democratic engagement in politics can be sustained moving
forward. We know that the pro-UK parties are committed to further devolution
for Scotland and the three main parties will soon begin the arduous task of
putting together a joint position on what those powers should be. The aim is to
have these proposals in draft law by January, and the clock is certainly
ticking in terms of meeting this deadline.
Although the Scottish Question will remain on the agenda, the English Question
has also been asked. At just after 7am, David Cameron made a statement
outlining plans for a sweeping review of the relationship between the nations
of the UK. Crucially, he stated that an answer to the infamous West Lothian
Question would be sought and the issue of English Votes for English Laws (EVEL)
would be examined. Reports in the media suggest that he was under pressure from
a number of MP's who insisted that the issue be visited in return for allowing
the Barnett Formula to remain an, as yet, unquestioned feature of territorial
politics in the UK. John Redwood, a long-time advocate of EVEL, was interviewed
on BBC News this morning suggesting that, in his view, there ought to be days
when The Commons focuses on English legislation only. This is obviously
problematic in that if Labour were reliant on their Scottish MP's for a
majority, or even to exist as the largest party, then they would be outnumbered
by the opposition on these English-only days. However, there is political
capital in dealing with this question given that recent research has shown that
the English are not exactly pleased at the perceived over-funding of Scotland.
UKIP have also sniffed an opportunity to exploit this, and so Cameron is now
using the constitution as part of his campaign in the run-up to the UK General
Election. In the longer term, there is no doubt that a can of worms has been
opened here and so, in a somewhat ironic way, the search for a Scottish Answer
has subsequently asked the English, and the wider British, Question.
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Note: This article is provided by our sister site, British Politics and Policy
at LSE, and gives the views of the authors, and not the position of EUROPP –
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image credit: Joel Suss CC BY 2.0
Shortened URL for this post: http://bit.ly/1BVAga2
Blog Admin |
September 20, 2014 at 8:00 am | Tags: indyref
| Categories: featured
| URL: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/?p=29284
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