3rd September.
THERE can be no doubt that the UK’s political structure is in a terrible mess, and that the time has finally come for the kind of radical constitutional overhaul that many of us have been calling for since the 1980s.
The twin rocks on which the UK has foundered have been the conjoined twin referendums.
In Scotland, the country has been fractured by the inability of the losing side to acknowledge its de-feat, and its obdurate continuation as a noisily large minority. The rock at UK level has been Parliament’s inability to reconcile the outcome of an exercise in direct democracy (the Brexit referendum) with the workings of a representative democracy.
Against this background, the recent contributions of Gordon Brown and Professor Jim Gallagher will be welcomed by most sensible people. However, individual efforts of this kind are unlikely to be enough. What is required is a major inquiry, in the form of a Royal Commission on the British Constitution, and the commitment of all political parties to enact its findings as far as possible.
Its remit should include electoral reform, the role and status of devolved administrations, the responsibilities and composition of the Upper House, the use of referendums (including thresholds for approval), the role of the Speaker, and the codification of the constitution itself.
Those with long memories will remember the defeat of the 1979 devolution referendum, and that what emerged 20 years later was a much better arrangement than the assembly which would have been delivered at that time. In the same way, the Scottish and UK referendums might in turn lead to a long-overdue modernisation of the way in which we are governed, and a settlement which will be accepted by most reasonable people.
Peter A Russell, Glasgow G13.
7th September.
STEWART Chalmers (Letters, September 5) writes that Westminster has had a century to sort out the issues to which I refer (Letters, September 3) when proposing a Royal Commission on the British Constitution. In doing so he misses the point.
For example, life peerages as we know them date back to 1958, the current voting system based on the franchise for over-18s to 1969, referendums to 1975, and the devolved administrations to 1999. The current arrangements have developed piecemeal over Mr Chalmers’ century, resulting in a hand-knitted Heath-Robinson contraption of a constitution.
Now that its wheels and wings have fallen off and its engine has blown up, the people of the UK deserve a sleek, efficient and up-to-date model – perhaps like the one we built for our German neighbours.
Peter A Russell,Glasgow G13
Planet Pedro! 