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English Pauses for English Clauses

Iain Dale thinks that Ken Clarke’s “Democracy Task Force” alternative to an English parliament is a sop. I’d go a step further and call it a fucking disgrace.

Former Tory cabinet minister, Sir Malcolm Rifkind, has argued powerfully that the answer to the imbalance is to effectively create an English parliament at Westminster, an “English Grand Committee” of MPs that would oversee England-only legislation from start to finish.

But Mr Clarke is understood to have rejected such a dramatic move, which would severely limit the work of MPs from Scottish seats. Instead, he is said to have advised allowing all MPs to vote on English legislation at the initial second reading stage of parliamentary scrutiny. But only English MPs would get to vote during the detailed committee stage of the legislative process, where real changes can be effected.

At the third and final reading, all MPs could once again vote, but a new parliamentary undertaking would prevent any party using Scottish votes to block amendments made by English MPs. The report was given final approval by the Shadow Cabinet at a meeting in Kent last week, and is likely to be published on July 1st.

Having spent ten years telling us that English Votes on English Laws was the answer, the Conservatives have retreated to the ludicrous position of English Pauses for English Clauses. It is a demonstration of complete weakness, but worse than that it is a top-down Westminster solution to English constitutional grievances that can only be satisfactorily addressed by the people themselves. Only the English can answer the English Question, and this fudged answer to the West Lothian Question does not even attempt to do that.

One wonders how Ministers of the Scottish Parliament would react when informed that MPs from other countries could vote on their bills, and they would only be allowed to take the committee stage on their own? Transposing this proposal to a Scottish context shows it up to be the piece of shit that it is.

English Votes on English Laws sounded straight-forward, and it commanded public support across the UK, but English Pauses for English Clauses will make little sense to the public. Not only does it appear illogical, it also asks us to compromise between the gerrymandered asymmetric democracy of New Labour and English Votes on English Laws, which was itself a messy compromise. Why compromise at all?

In 1999 William Hague warned that “We must provide this [emerging] English consciousness with a legitimate political outlet.” English Pauses for English Clauses does not provide a legitimate voice for England, it does not address the question of who speaks for England, and on whose behalf. England will be governed still as the UK, and for the UK, with Scottish ministers exercising power without responsibility, presiding over the formulation and introduction of laws that do not affect the people that elected them. The principle of ‘the sovereignty of the people’ that underpinned the Scottish and Welsh settlements is nowhere to be seen, because to most Conservative minds what is best for Britain is also best for England. Though I am minded of the words of the now Shadow Home Secretary, David Davis MP:

The people of England deserve no less than the same choice as the peoples of Wales and Scotland last September: a referendum on whether they want a parliament of their own. In their own words, Labour should trust the people – in this case the people of England. An English parliament, on the same basis as the Scottish one, will be the minimum that the English people are likely to be satisfied with.

Anything less will lead to disaffection and discontent, to a belief that the English are being treated as second class citizens in their own land. If Labour wanted to bring about the dissolution of the United Kingdom, that disaffection would be the way to do it.

My guess is that the Conservative Party will decide to kick Clarke’s answer into touch. MPs like David Davis, Roger Gale, Malcolm Rifkind, John Redwood and Mark Field will have their say, and Jack Straw will pop up and ask inconvenient questions about ‘farcical divisions‘. But the real difficulty will be encountered when they attempt to explain, justify and sell such an obvious fudge to the English public.

Tags: Democracy Task Force, English Votes, Ken Clarke

This entry was posted on Monday, June 9th, 2008 at 6:14 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

9 Responses to “English Pauses for English Clauses”

Andrew Ian Dodge Says:
June 9th, 2008 at 6:29 am
To a Europhile like Clarke this is just a case of a Euro-region getting a bit uppity. Is there anything the guy is involved in that is not a disgrace? The guy cares not for England nor Great Britain just for his Euro-masters in Brussels.
Tally Says:
June 9th, 2008 at 6:49 am
To get a better deal for England we need to be rid of Brown Cameron and Clegg. They all see the English question in how it relates to them and their parties and nothing to do with fair play.
The press now has dropped any pretence that the problems faced by the NHS is not the british NHS, but correctly is the English NHS. Cameron on the weekend said he “was tempted to support co-payments “for English cancer sufferers.
Tempted! what a smarmy good for nothing shite he is.
Tally Says:
June 9th, 2008 at 7:03 am
one of the posters on Ian Dale’s blog is Tom Harris MP for Glasgow South, link provided. here’s what he has to say “Nationalist hypocrisy? Surely not…
Further to my recent posting about Boris Johnson and Crossrail, I noticed when I was checking who had voted on the Second Reading of the Crossrail Bill, that four SNP MPs – Angus Robertson, Pete Wishart, Michael Weir and Stewart Hosie – voted against.

So much for the SNP principle of not voting on devolved matters. If, however, our secessionist friends believed they should vote on it because significant sums of money being spent on the project by the Treasury would have an impact on the Scottish block grant, then, of course they are right. Welcome to Unionism!

Mind you, why they voted against is a mystery if that was indeed their motivation. The extra capital spend on Crossrail will be “Barnettized”, as it were, so that Scotland’s block grant is increased by a proportional amount.

Curiouser and curiouser”.
Toque Says:
June 9th, 2008 at 7:40 am
The link to that article is here. Tom Harris is a prick, and if you’re in any doubt about the truth of that you can marvel at his fledgling intellect here.
Len Welsh Says:
June 9th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Having followed your link to his fledgling intellect, I think “Prick” is a little bit on the mild side, mind you I can’t print what I call him.
Ken Clarke’s English Law Fudge « The Secret Person Says:
June 9th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
[...] Ken Clarke’s long awaited constitutional report will recommend what Toque has titled ‘English Pauses for English Clauses‘, a watered down version of both Malcolm Rifkind’s Grand Committee and the previous [...]
Ian Campbell Says:
June 9th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
Sorry to read the effing, Gareth! The following phrase of yours puts it in a nutshell: “Only the English can answer the English Question, and this fudged answer to the West Lothian Question does not even attempt to do that”. Only the English…and it’s about time that the pontificating so-called democratic politicians who lord it over us making up their expenses remembered that we have not been asked and we ought to be asked.
English pauses for English clauses begs more questions than it answers « A National Conversation For England Says:
June 10th, 2008 at 3:01 am
[...] Tory ’solution’, according to the report, is what Gareth Young has dubbed ‘English pauses for English clauses’: Scottish MPs can vote on English [...]
The article ConservativeHome rejected: To be a party of the Union, the Conservatives must also be a party for England « A National Conversation For England Says:
January 5th, 2010 at 3:28 am
[...] alternatives? Well, Ken Clarke’s answer to the West Lothian Question, which has been dubbed ‘English pauses for English clauses’, manages to avoid really asking the question, too. While it makes it possible for English MPs to [...]

English Pauses for English Clauses

9 Responses to “English Pauses for English Clauses”

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