Are Keir Starmer’s Plans For Radical Constitutional Reforms Too Ambitious?
On Monday 5th December, Labour announced a 40-point plan on overhauling the British Constitution, one that promised to sweep away outdated and outgrown structures such as the House of Lords – to be replaced with modern alternatives. It promised to reunite UK Politics around improved structures – furthering devolution to national and local government, which hopes to rebalance power closer to people; enshrining rights, such as right to healthcare; commitments to clean up corruption in Westminster by banning second jobs and foreign money; and finally introducing a replacement for the House of Lords, representing nations and regions at the centre, and granting power to this assembly to protect constitutional rights. However, like the constitutional reforms made by Tony Blair , these risk not going far enough to repair the foundations of our democracy, and one area remains completely unaddressed: the broken electoral system in place for general elections.
The current electoral model is not fit for the modern age – its greatest weakness being wasted votes, where any vote casted for a candidate other than the preferred of the two most popular candidates running will count for nothing, and possibly even prevent a preferred candidate from winning. This has unevenly punished progressives due to there being a wider variety of parties – a Liberal Democrat who would prefer a Labour candidate to a Conservative is given no chance to indicate preference, and their vote could help decide more fairly the most popular choice in the area.
The absence of electoral reform from Labour’s plans, especially when Keir Starmer has been quoted as saying “on electoral reform, we’ve got to address the fact that millions of people vote in safe seats and they feel their voice doesn’t count,” makes this especially disappointing. With a chance to improve democracy for all voters, Labour should seize the opportunity to rebalance voting power in favour of voters.
The plan for a new upper chamber (The Assembly of the Nations and Regions), promises to better represent the whole UK in Westminster: a change that will address the fundamental concerns behind independence movements and disillusionment with the system, and the promise to grant powers to protect Constitutional rights is a welcome one. However, it seems already that this chamber would struggle against the power of a majority government opposing the House, as the power of the Prime Minister to reverse or weaken these changes is not curtailed. To ensure that these improvements are both lasting and workable, Labour must commit to properly balancing power between branches of government, and work to restrict the damage that an overzealous Prime Minister may do to Human Rights, Equality and other fundamental legislation that impacts the most vulnerable in our society.
A welcome change is an updating of the standards that MPs are held to – banning second jobs and passing anti-corruption legislation certainly promises to hold politicians to a higher standard. However, while judgements will be made by independent bodies, decisions will ultimately still be taken by the Prime Minister, demonstrating that the PM’s role can still be abused to support members of government that fail to observe the rules and standards. Reforms to be made concerning standards, while certainly heading in the right direction, fall short of what the public deserves concerning the implementation of punishments against those accountable to us. To properly reform this area of government, Labour must commit to take power from the Prime Minister’s position and allow independent bodies to enforce the standards we deserve.
These reforms are certainly a step towards repairing the trust between people and politicians, seeking move power away from the centre, but they fall short primarily because it still relies on the “good chap” system – the government only being bound by respect for tradition and established institutions. As was seen with the Johnson administration however, this quickly comes apart once there aren’t “good chaps” in power. Labour’s plans for reform are a step in the right direction, but more must be done if we want to fully repair the trust between people and the political system.
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