On English votes for English laws, Labour has been caught like a rabbit in the headlights.
On English votes for English laws, Labour has been caught like a rabbit in the headlights
In his annual pre-conference interview with Andrew Marr, responding to questioning on Labour’s position on English votes for English laws, Ed Miliband declared “we can’t do it in a back-of-the-envelope, fag-packet way”.
Let’s make no mistake about it, David Cameron’s statement just after the referendum in Scotland in which he called for action on the English question to proceed at the same time as further powers being devolved to Scotland blindsided both Labour and the Liberal Democrats.
It shattered the consensus that led all three main UK party leaders to issue their vows as Scotland considered divorcing the rest of the UK and opened a political trap which Labour is in very real danger of falling into.
First and foremost, the devolution package and timetable pledged by the leaders must be sorted out and kept to strictly. To do otherwise would lead to another referendum much sooner than anyone thought, with a near certain vote for Yes to independence rather than No.
But on English votes for English laws, Labour has been caught like a rabbit in the headlights.
The simple reality is that, for all the talk of Cameron playing politics with the issue, which he undoubtedly has, the argument that things are being rushed is simply not credible.
It was in 2013 that the former clerk of the House of Commons, Sir William McKay, published his report for the government on the consequences for the Commons and how it votes within the context of the devolution settlement.
In 2012, the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) published its ideas on the topic, which in many respects were reflected in the McKay Commission.
And ultimately, we have known since 2012 that Scotland would be going to the polls to determine the fate of the UK and plans should have been in place for a comprehensive response whatever the vote was.
One wonders what the party has been doing all this time if it hasn’t been figuring out a plan to answer the West Lothian Question given the wealth of material that has been published on the topic.
With roughly eight months to the general election, rather than opting for the long grass option of some sort of vague constitutional convention, Ed Miliband must give more concentre indications as to how Labour would deal with what is undoubtedly a lance that needs boiling.
The Labour chairman of the Local Government Association, David Sparks has already warned the party leadership of ingoing the anger that English people feel over being under-represented. Meanwhile recent polling by YouGov has shown that 71 per cent of the public would support the idea of English votes for English Laws.
Although those around the Labour leader are frustrated that that their agenda is being hijacked by what they view as constitutionally geekery, the reality is that the issue goes to the heart of Labour’s problem.
Having stolen the ‘One Nation’ mantra last year, Ed Miliband is fast looking like someone unable to command the attention of any part of the UK. In Scotland Labour remains’ in dire straits, as recent polling on voting intentions north of the border indicates, whilst south of the border it is the Conservatives who are positioning themselves as the guardians of the English interest.
Giving evidence to the McKay Commission, the former Welsh Labour MP and minister Kim Howells admitted that the government of which he was a part had made a “conscious decision” to “stay well away from” the West Lothian questions.
The danger for Ed Miliband is that history is repeating itself with all the electoral damage it could ultimately inflict on the party next May.
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24 Responses to “Conference 2014: Labour is losing credibility on devolution”
David Lindsay
If an English Parliament, or “English votes for English laws”, would be so popular, then put it to a referendum of the people of England.
It would pass in the South East, although I only suspect that, just as I only suspect that it would pass by far less in East Anglia and perhaps also in those parts of the South West that were not too far south and west.
Whereas I know with absolute certainty, as do you, that it would not obtain one third of the vote anywhere else, that it would not manage one quarter anywhere beyond the Mersey or the Humber (or, I expect, in Devon or Cornwall, either), and that it would not scrape one fifth in the North East, or in Cumbria, or, again, in Cornwall. If anyone doubts this, then bring on that referendum.
As for Labour’s needing Scottish MPs in order to win an overall majority, certain grandees of the commentariat need to be pensioned off, or at the very least to have their copy subjected to the most basic fact-checking by editorial staff.
In 1964, fully 50 years ago, MPs from Scotland delivered a Labour overall majority of four when there would otherwise have been a Conservative overall majority of one that would not have lasted a year.
In October 1974, MPs from Scotland turned what would have been a hung Parliament with Labour as the largest party into a Labour overall majority so tiny that it was lost in the course of that Parliament.
In 2010, MPs from Scotland turned what would have been a small Conservative overall majority into a hung Parliament with the Conservatives as the largest party and with David Cameron as Prime Minister, anyway.
On no other occasion since the War, if ever, have MPs from Scotland, as such, influenced the outcome of a General Election.
In any case, with the Government committed to the Barnett Formula, there cannot be any such thing as exclusively English legislation, since it all has knock-on effects in Scotland and Wales. What “English laws”?
<--Ed balls dressed as a Nazi
Yawn.
Benzyl
At least if you boil that lance it will be sterile and suitable for purpose or was its destination going to be up ‘down south’?
Selohesra
There may be complexities and subtleties to the solution but for Milliband & Co to repeatedly refuse to acknowledge when pressed during interviews that there is a unfairness is current assymetric powers of English & Scottish voters immediately puts him on the wrong side of the argument. Defending the indefensible makes him look silly – handing advantage to Cameron who will be encouraged to play even more politics with this issue
robertsonjames
The notion that Scottish devolution, which created the “West Lothian Question”, as Tam Dalyell has been pointing out to you for 40 years, is “a totally different debate” from the “West Lothian Question”, is jejeune.
Frankly, weak arguments like that, with deny both the recent constitutional history and the structural logic which bind the two together inextricably, really just highlight that the root of your objection to English people being governed by a majority of the elected representatives for whom they voted is a loathing of your political opponents, not any attachment to democratic principles.
Leaving aside for a moment whether having your political analysis twisted and distorted by an unhealthy pathologial hatred, it’s worth remembering that viewing your opponents in essentially the same way as the Khmer Rouge regarded anyone wearing spectacles is not a good basis for constitutional reform.