The Chairman Mao resembling, Monarchy hating, threat to Britain, Labour Party thread

[meregreen]

5 minutes ago, Davkaus said:

She seems to want a second elected chamber instead.

I don't see how that's an improvement to be honest.

Elected by the people has to be better than the cronyism that allows political leaders to pick their mates. Some of the people chosen have literally bought their peerages with hard cash donations to political parties, and are never held to account for it.

[bickster]

1 minute ago, Davkaus said:

She seems to want a second elected chamber instead.

I don't see how that's an improvement to be honest.

It only works if its elected on a completely different basis. Personally, I've always thought that the Commons should be elected by some form of PR whereas the Lords should be elected on a constituency basis, with a maximum of two terms per person and no party information allowed on the ballot paper. In my utopia Parties would be banned completely from standing candidates.

Pigs'l fly though before that happens

[HanoiVillan]

8 hours ago, Davkaus said:

She seems to want a second elected chamber instead.

I don't see how that's an improvement to be honest.

You're right, it would be much better to abolish it entirely. However, baby steps and all that.

[LondonLax]

It is a risky move not having a second chamber acting as a house of review. In Australia we have elected second chambers both federally and at state level except in Queensland and they come up with redneck legislation constantly

If the second chamber is elected on a different basis to the first then an anomaly of circumstance during the election of one chamber will not impact the other, which can then steady the ship (even just offsetting the election of each chamber by a few years would be helpful). 

[snowychap]

10 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

You're right, it would be much better to abolish it entirely. However, baby steps and all that.

I think that's a slightly bizarre interpretation of moving from an unelected second chamber to an elected second chamber to consider it baby steps to abolition of any sort of second chamber.

[HanoiVillan]

13 minutes ago, snowychap said:

I think that's a slightly bizarre interpretation of moving from an unelected second chamber to an elected second chamber to consider it baby steps to abolition of any sort of second chamber.

I was being slightly facetious. The 'baby steps' referred to the progress in Labour's thinking, rather than the idea that actually implementing an elected second chamber would be a step on the way to abolishing it. In fact I think that if an elected second chamber were implemented, then it would be more or less impossible to remove, however deficient it is. My joke here is based on the idea (and for which there is no actual evidence, I confess) that Labour will have moved on to favouring complete abolition of the second chamber before any reform that made it elected is implemented.  

[HanoiVillan]

2 hours ago, LondonLax said:

It is a risky move not having a second chamber acting as a house of review. In Australia we have elected second chambers both federally and at state level except in Queensland and they come up with redneck legislation constantly

If the second chamber is elected on a different basis to the first then an anomaly of circumstance during the election of one chamber will not impact the other, which can then steady the ship (even just offsetting the election of each chamber by a few years would be helpful). 

In Australia, as in America, there are two chambers which reflect two sources of power. The House of Representatives splits power among the population, whereas the Senate splits power among the states. There is no equivalent situation in the UK, where land either has power through devolution and separate legislatures, or doesn't have power at all. English regions cannot be compared to states in Australia or America. 

Unicameral legislatures are common amongst countries that do not have a federal system of government. In fact, about half of the world's countries have unicameral legislatures, and a look at a map of uni- and bi-cameral legislatures would suggest that there's effectively no correlation between one or the other and the health of the political system:

(In this map, blue marks bicameral legislatures and orange unicameral; green reflects a unicameral legislature and a powerless advisory body, while Saudi Arabia has no legislature at all).

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicameralism#List_of_unicameral_legislatures

[LondonLax]

2 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

In Australia, as in America, there are two chambers which reflect two sources of power. The House of Representatives splits power among the population, whereas the Senate splits power among the states. There is no equivalent situation in the UK, where land either has power through devolution and separate legislatures, or doesn't have power at all. English regions cannot be compared to states in Australia or America. 

Unicameral legislatures are common amongst countries that do not have a federal system of government. In fact, about half of the world's countries have unicameral legislatures, and a look at a map of uni- and bi-cameral legislatures would suggest that there's effectively no correlation between one or the other and the health of the political system:

(In this map, blue marks bicameral legislatures and orange unicameral; green reflects a unicameral legislature and a powerless advisory body, while Saudi Arabia has no legislature at all).

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicameralism#List_of_unicameral_legislatures

The UK could have a federal system of government, with a senate representing the interests of the four home nations and the lower house being elected as currently, if it wanted.

In Australia there is devolution of many powers the to state governments and most of those state governments also have a two chamber government.

 

[tonyh29]

I can't help but feel Russia is being misrepresented by being blue on the map

[HanoiVillan]

20 minutes ago, LondonLax said:

The UK could have a federal system of government, with a senate representing the interests of the four home nations and the lower house being elected as currently, if it wanted.

As I say, we already have devolution, so Wales and Scotland already have more direct power than a Senate would give them. It would be unpopular to remove those legislatures, and profoundly undemocratic to give the populations of Wales and Scotland (combined population - 8.5 million people) more power than the population of England (population 56 million people). Northern Ireland is complicated for other reasons, and even smaller than Wales.  

One alternative of course would be to split England into regions, and for each of those regions to be as powerful as the 'submerged nations', but nearly every time English voters have been offered regional devolution they have rejected it, so the democratic legitimacy of a chamber constituted like that would be weak.

[snowychap]

43 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

I was being slightly facetious. The 'baby steps' referred to the progress in Labour's thinking, rather than the idea that actually implementing an elected second chamber would be a step on the way to abolishing it. In fact I think that if an elected second chamber were implemented, then it would be more or less impossible to remove, however deficient it is. My joke here is based on the idea (and for which there is no actual evidence, I confess) that Labour will have moved on to favouring complete abolition of the second chamber before any reform that made it elected is implemented.  

Personally, I wouldn't see it as any 'progress' in Labour's thinking to move to this bizarrely obsessive desire for abolition of the Lords just for the sake of it and merely making the UK a unicameral version of what it is now.

If they were to move to a position of advocating a unicameral system for the UK then I'd hope that they'd do it as part of a complete approach of rewriting the constitutional settlement - only then might it be deemd as progress.

[HanoiVillan]

Just now, snowychap said:

Personally, I wouldn't see it as any 'progress' in Labour's thinking to move to this bizarrely obsessive desire for abolition of the Lords just for the sake of it and merely making the UK a unicameral version of what it is now.

If they were to move to a position of advocating a unicameral system for the UK then I'd hope that they'd do it as part of a complete approach of rewriting the constitutional settlement - only then might it be deemd as progress.

What other constitutional reforms would you prefer? I'm certainly not averse to broader constitutional measures. 

[snowychap]

11 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

What other constitutional reforms would you prefer? I'm certainly not averse to broader constitutional measures. 

I'm open to plenty* - I'd just like the approach to look at everything rather than tinker with particular things that may be disliked (and the getting rid of which might have serious unintended consequences).

At the heart of things I'd like to see an increase in checks and balances not a decrease (which is what I submit would happen if the second chamber - in whatever form - was just stripped from the equation).

We have a system that is too far tilted in favour of the executive as we'll see demonstrated again in the next five years and if people are really serious about getting rid of anachronistic institutions like the House of Lords and suggesting a codified constitution (I'm not saying you are but I'm putting both suggestions on the same table) then these things need to be considered as part of a new system rather than making comparisons between the UK (a constitutional settlement that has evolved over time) and other newer systems that came as unicameral and codified off the shelf.

Edit:

I think the danger is that we might look at other places and say, "If it works for them then why shouldn't it work for us?"

We should be saying, "We want to improve x, y and z - what can we learn from elsewhere than could be applied to our situation in order to make that improvement." This would be in contrast to just apeing others and hoping that all the other circumstances that apply elsewhere and not here aren't particularly important to their success (or lack of failure).

* Edit 2:

That covers a different second chamber (and even no second chamber if the useful aspects of the House of Lords could be kept in the system elsewhere), electoral reform, limits on terms, reforms of local government, increased devolution, more respect for devolved institutions, &c.

Edited January 13, 2020 by snowychap

[LondonLax]

36 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

As I say, we already have devolution, so Wales and Scotland already have more direct power than a Senate would give them. It would be unpopular to remove those legislatures, and profoundly undemocratic to give the populations of Wales and Scotland (combined population - 8.5 million people) more power than the population of England (population 56 million people). Northern Ireland is complicated for other reasons, and even smaller than Wales.  

One alternative of course would be to split England into regions, and for each of those regions to be as powerful as the 'submerged nations', but nearly every time English voters have been offered regional devolution they have rejected it, so the democratic legitimacy of a chamber constituted like that would be weak.

I wasn’t suggesting stripping power from devolved countries. That is not how the Australian model I was referencing works. 

In the Australian system of government the federal senate is a house of review. They don’t make laws, they amend the laws made by the lower house and send it back to the lower house for reconsideration, similar to the Lords. Both houses have to be happy before a bill can be passed into law.

Electing senators in the UK from each of the home countries would give the UK a similar democratic house of review for ‘federal’ laws, meaning the power of Westminster could be held to account. 

The home countries would still keep their devolved governments for things like heath and education (similar to the role the state governments play in Australia). 

How a UK senate would be set up is open for debate. The Australian system has an equal number of senators from each state, regardless of the state’s population and each states quota are elected by proportional representation from that state.

You could argue that is undemocratic as small states get a more powerful vote than voters in big states, but it was deliberately set up that way to stop small states like Tasmania being dragged into things against their will by bigger states like NSW (this is what has happened to Scotland in this Brexit debate).

Edit: Just further on that, imagine if the UK had a similar senate that meant all 4 home countries had to be satisfied with the form of Brexit being passed before it could become law. Surely that sort of forced review and compromise would have lead to a better outcome for the UK as a whole?

Edit 2: The odd thing about the UK is that England doesn’t have a devolved government for local issues like health/education which would leave Westminster to focus on federal issues only. The UK has a miss-mash half-half system that leads to all sorts of oddities like the West Lothian Question. 

Edited January 13, 2020 by LondonLax

[HanoiVillan]

Some interesting thoughts I'd like to respond to at (a bit of) length, but it'll have to be later. 

[ml1dch]

No Clive Lewis but everyone else is through to the next round for both leader and deputy. 

[blandy]

6 hours ago, tonyh29 said:

I can't help but feel Russia is being misrepresented by being blue on the map

It's basically Tory, now. A few massive powerful richos syphoning off all the weath, and every one else **** ed

[chrisp65]

I like the sort of democracy where Scotland wants a referendum on independence, but isn’t allowed.

It’s funny.

[hippo]

31 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

I like the sort of democracy where Scotland wants a referendum on independence, but isn’t allowed.

It’s funny.

It was allowed a few years back. they voted to remain. You can't keep re running it until you get the answer you like.

[tonyh29]

33 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

I like the sort of democracy where Scotland wants a referendum on independence, but isn’t allowed.

It’s funny.