I wrote this a while back for a friend who's active in Plaid Cymru, hence referring to the AV vote...
After the debacle that was the AV referendum,
everyone will be delighted to hear the Liberals are at it again - this time with
plans to reform the House of Lords. A draft bill introduced by the UK Government
proposes that 80% of the house will be elected on a fifteen-year, non-renewable
mandate via the STV method. Whilst this in itself will doubtless appear
reasonable to the vast majority of the UK electorate, of the actual powers
granted to the house, the bill's foreword summarises...
"We propose no change to the constitutional powers
and privileges of the House once it is reformed, nor to the fundamental
relationship with the House of Commons, which would remain the primary House of
Parliament."
And herein lies the problem. Whilst the UK
electorate is largely opposed to the nepotistic means by which most peers have
taken their seats over the centuries, in times when an increasing proportion of
the electorate feels disenfranchised by the scores of traitors & miscreants
who abuse their positions in the Commons, it's hard to believe that the
electorate will engage in a process which seeks to elect more of the same to a
house which serves barely any legislative purpose. By whichever means members
take their seats in the reformed House of Lords, it is and shall remain nothing
more than a place where political careers go to die.
Whilst this inconsequential bill, which lacks
political support in both houses, will serve only to plunge the Liberals further
into the hole that they've been desperately trying to dig themselves out of
since they joined the coalition, it does pose an important question to
nationalists in both Scotland and Wales.
As the Lords is little more than a hangover from
the days of feudalism, with its functions & powers subject to the whims of
the government of the day, it is regularly used by unicameralists to repudiate
the adoption of a multicameral legislature in a post-independence scenario. Not
only is this argument spurious, but its also dangerous - in keeping with the
notion that "the only problem with a one party state is that it's one party too
many", it can't have escaped the attention of nationalists in both Scotland and
Wales that unchallenged, the Labour Party will loot, pillage and probably even
sack the odd city or two.
After winning our independence, despite whatever
confidence we have in our initial government, it would be naive to suggest that
things would not change. We already know that when the UK economy is strong (as
our independent economies would undoubtedly also be), the electorate tends to
vote Labour. Whilst the Labour Party may not exist in its current form, the
blackguards that constitute its ranks will still be here, so we need to ensure
we have appropriate measures in place to stop them running amok.
The best way to do this would be for parliament to
have two chambers - but unlike Westminster, both chambers would have real power.
The system is simple - whilst only the lower chamber would have the power to
introduce bills, before these bills could become law they would have to gain the
assent of both chambers. Members of both chambers would be elected via the STV
method - subject to a caveat whereby no party could gain a majority in the upper
chamber.
Critics will immediately point to the likelihood
that such a system would create political deadlock between the two chambers, but
rather than being a flaw, this is the whole point. Independence is not simply
about breaking the shackles of London-rule, it's an opportunity for our
respective nations to shape our futures - and a future without entrenched Labour
corruption can only be a good thing.
