UK politics general discussion

[WillPS]

On the face of it, I would agree with you. But, this is now going far beyond party politics and into the way the United Kingdom is run as a whole. We currently have a government who appear to be more than happy to have even the most basic standards of public life thrown out the window.

Yes, it's easy to say "play the long game" and we'll be fine at the next election. But I would also say consider the even longer game. If we allow the government of today to set a precedent that this sort of behaviour can go without punishment, then where does it end? How do we guarantee that come the next election that someone else comes into power and doesn't do the same thing, or worse? We are actively demonstrating that the current checks and balances we have in place for public servants can be ignored simply by saying "sorry"...repeatedly. That should never be the case, when previous governments have seen such actions to be nothing less than a resigning matter.

The more the consequences for failing to uphold these standards are watered down or outright ignored, the more dangerous this could become. The UK has sat back on the view that it's the "Mother of Parliament" for a long time, and watched as other countries descend toward becoming more autocratic with the view that "it could never happen here". We're in danger of sleepwalking into that exact situation in the UK, which may sound overdramatic to some, but it's a very slippery slope!

I would put it to you that the precedent has already been set. There is no robust system in place to impeach or remove a Prime Minister who is proven to have lied. The system relies on honour and is broken when the person installed is incapable of acting honourably.

The man wont resign. His party wont remove him, let alone vote with the opposition in a confidence motion.

Anybody can challenge him but he doesn't have to answer, and even if he does and is later proven to have lied, he can't be called a liar.

It's a broken system. The time for protecting precedent has been and gone. The opportunity for a new progressive government to cite how broken the system has been proved to be as rationale for wide-scale political reform is clear, whether anyone has the balls to do such a thing this decade is another argument altogether.

 

[Matt N]

Out of interest; if UK politics is a “broken system”, how would you guys suggest altering the system?

I’m not asking that in a confrontational way, and I apologise if it comes across that way. I’m genuinely intrigued to know your thoughts.

 

[WillPS]

Out of interest; if UK politics is a “broken system”, how would you guys suggest altering the system?

I’m not asking that in a confrontational way, and I apologise if it comes across that way. I’m genuinely intrigued to know your thoughts.

1. A proper constitution which, among other things, provides a robust system of checks and balances to ensure those in high office are held to account for their actions
2. Reform of the Commons. Move to a new chamber to encourage debate rather than jeering.
3. More devolution. Create regional English assemblies or governments with similar levels of power to the Welsh Assembly.
4. Proportional representation.

 

[Tom]

Out of interest; if UK politics is a “broken system”, how would you guys suggest altering the system?

I’m not asking that in a confrontational way, and I apologise if it comes across that way. I’m genuinely intrigued to know your thoughts.

For a start, allocation of members of the House of Lords in accordance with the popular vote at the last election. Then potentially increase its powers.

Eliminate regional mayors as they serve as mere figureheads to deflect responsibility and attention away from central government.

Remove all parliamentary mechanisms by which an early general election can be called.

 

[Alsty]

Replace the outdated First Past The Post with Proportional Representation would be my first change.

 

[Matt N]

It appears that Boris Johnson has been personally linked to two more parties, including a “Prosecco-fuelled” gathering for an aide on 14th January 2021 that hadn’t been known about prior to the Gray report: https://apple.news/A6XB3qd7DSq-Rk_hycBVw8A

Boris was also seen going up to his flat on the night of 13th November 2020, when there was a party in there.

This apparently makes Boris’ personal tally 6, which I’ll admit I don’t entirely know the maths of… which parties is Boris now being linked to, out of interest?

 

[Dave]

For a start, allocation of members of the House of Lords in accordance with the popular vote at the last election. Then potentially increase its powers.

Eliminate regional mayors as they serve as mere figureheads to deflect responsibility and attention away from central government.

Remove all parliamentary mechanisms by which an early general election can be called.

With the exception of the last point that would increase corruption. Aligning the HoL with the HoC would reduce scrutiny of the majority government. Really what you need is a separately elected 2nd house.

Regional Mayors are currently a joke as they have no real power, we need further devolution not less, give them similar control to the mayor of London.

I agree that elections should be fixed (on a 4 year cycle). We also need Proportional representation.

 

[JAperson]

Out of interest; if UK politics is a “broken system”, how would you guys suggest altering the system?

I’m not asking that in a confrontational way, and I apologise if it comes across that way. I’m genuinely intrigued to know your thoughts.

The UK system is only broke because it's been broken and mistreated. It's one of the best systems out there and is used by a lot of very democratic countries.
There are some simple steps

1. Local English assembly and reform of all local assemblies. Why is it fair that Scotish MP's get to vote on English laws but English MP's don't get the same right. And then when a system was introduced to stop this the Scotish MP;s started saying they were second class MP's when I'd actually say it's the other way around.
2. Make the house of Lords a senate with equal representation from each country within the UK, this would be indirectly democratically elected by the results of the last election in each section of the UK via popular vote,
3. Reform the house of commons voting system slightly, First past the post has proven itself incapable of doing the fair job in this country these days. I also am not a big fan of proportional representation as it leads to very small extreme parties being able to get a grib on power. I also like the local MP in terms of you being able to have a local representative. There are other systems that can permit a fairer voting system but don't get rid of the local aspect.
4. A new full guided set of rules of MP's that they must follow or they can trigger a by-election.

 

[WillPS]

The UK system is only broke because it's been broken and mistreated. It's one of the best systems out there and is used by a lot of very democratic countries.

This is tosh I'm afraid.

Any system which relies entirely on the elected members being demonstrably honourable characters (hence their election and elevation) is, by its very nature, flawed. It's remarkable it's taken quite so long for it to come to this in some ways.

Please name some examples of these "very democratic countries" of which you speak.

 

[JAperson]

This is tosh I'm afraid.

Any system which relies entirely on the elected members being demonstrably honourable characters (hence their election and elevation) is, by its very nature, flawed. It's remarkable it's taken quite so long for it to come to this in some ways.

Please name some examples of these "very democratic countries" of which you speak.

There are plenty of example but let's use actually statistics to prove this complete tosh is correct.
Using the democratic index 2020 which judges the democracy of each country around the world we can clearly see some examples.
Using the Wikipedia table as it's easier to read but the full report is available for download:
Canada with a similar system to ours comes in at 5, Australia with a similar system to ours comes in at 9.
The UK itself comes in at 16 which is a significant drop of 2 places.
New Zealand which has a similar system but with some of the reforms I've talked about and actually fully abolishing there second chamber comes in at 4. New Zealand's parliamentary system is very similar however the voting system is quite different it also lacks much corruption. They use mixed member proportion representation (different to standard PR) which means that each person gets two votes one for a local MP and one for a party. This system is one of the systems I was suggesting.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index
(you can find the full version in the sources section at the bottom of the wiki article but I find the table easier to read)

 

[WillPS]

You've picked 3 commonwealth nations there, all of which started with a copy/pasted implementation of our system of politics.

In any case New Zealand and Australia at least have made significant changes, not just moving away from FPTP but actually by enacting a form of constitution in each case. In fact Australia is so different I'd be interested to know how you believe they are similar.

Canada admittedly hasn't strayed far.

I think you've misunderstood the purpose of that Democracy Index you've linked to. Nobody is bringing in to question that we are a socially liberal, (broadly!) progressive nation, nor are we questioning the freedom of media in interrogating democracy. What is being discussed is the lack of systems, checks and balances for ensuring the ongoing legitimacy and integrity of the government.

 

[BigT]

If we are talking about changes to the system then:

1st past the post system works in creating generally majority government’s so on that front it works.
However the number of MP’s could easily be reduced to 300 and nobody would notice any difference.

House of Lords abolished and replaced with a second house made up using proportional representation from the last election.

I like the idea of a new commons chamber similar to Scotland.

There should be a easy method to remove rotten MP’s by the constituents that voted for them.

If an MP resigns from a party it should bring an automatic by-election.

England should have its own parliament with exactly the same powers as Scotland.

Remove local mayors including London.

 

[shakey]

England should have its own parliament with exactly the same powers as Scotland.

Or just scrap the Scottish and Welsh parliments.

We all live on a small island so it seems ludicrous to me that we currently have 3 separate parliments to govern one small island. We are wasting millions of pounds on this every year when 1 uk parliment could do the job. You know like before devolution (another of Blair's f*ck ups).

If needs be then let the 1 parliment take turns in sitting in London, Edingburgh and Cardiff, just to keep everybody happy.

Unfortunately the move towards 3 totally separate independant countries seems to be inevitable, which is going to cost the tax payer several billion more pounds and complicate things even more.

 

[geo4chg]

Or just scrap the Scottish and Welsh parliments.

We all live on a small island so it seems ludicrous to me that we currently have 3 separate parliments to govern one small island. We are wasting millions of pounds on this every year when 1 uk parliment could do the job. You know like before devolution (another of Blair's f*ck ups).

If needs be then let the 1 parliment take turns in sitting in London, Edingburgh and Cardiff, just to keep everybody happy.

Unfortunately the move towards 3 totally separate independant countries seems to be inevitable, which is going to cost the tax payer several billion more pounds and complicate things even more.

Completely agree, devolution is a disaster and has lead to a rise in nationalism that, once out of the box is very hard to stop.

The pandemic has highlighted how ridiculous the devolved setup is with the differences in restrictions - Nicola Sturgeon cannot bring herself to agree with Boris Johnson so instead of the "rule of 6" it's a "rule of 8" while in Wales it's a "rule of whatever but with children exempt" etc - it just highlights how power hungry and petty these politicians are.

We are not a large country and do not need localised power for things that should be the same across the country (education, healthcare, policing etc should be the same no matter where in the UK you live). Local government is only required for local issues such as housing, transport etc, but that is what councils are for.

 

[jon81uk]

Local government is only required for local issues such as housing, transport etc, but that is what councils are for.

and there needs to be significant changes and improvements to this as well. TfL works well and other large cities seem to manage public transport OK, but most county councils don't seem to care about buses. Way too much inconsistancy between the city authorites and the county councils.

If there is a Scottish and Welsh authority maybe they should be more like the Greater London Authority and less like a government.

 

[geo4chg]

and there needs to be significant changes and improvements to this as well. TfL works well and other large cities seem to manage public transport OK, but most county councils don't seem to care about buses. Way too much inconsistancy between the city authorites and the county councils.

If there is a Scottish and Welsh authority maybe they should be more like the Greater London Authority and less like a government.

Agreed on local councils - there needs to be a complete culture change in a lot of the people that work at a local level and fundamental change to allocation of budgets etc.

The trouble with devolution is it is now a one-way street - can you imagine the uproar amongst the SNP etc if power was taken away from the Scottish Parliament?!

At this point, our governing system is completely broken and there is no easy way to fix it without the complete break up of the United Kingdom sadly.

 

[rob666]

Or just scrap the Scottish and Welsh parliments.

We all live on a small island so it seems ludicrous to me that we currently have 3 separate parliments to govern one small island. We are wasting millions of pounds on this every year when 1 uk parliment could do the job. You know like before devolution (another of Blair's f*ck ups).

If needs be then let the 1 parliment take turns in sitting in London, Edingburgh and Cardiff, just to keep everybody happy.

Unfortunately the move towards 3 totally separate independant countries seems to be inevitable, which is going to cost the tax payer several billion more pounds and complicate things even more.

But shakey, the day that England becomes "independent", will also be the day Yorkshire put in for national status, and independence from England.
Of course...I would be happy to see the tykes go, and would bring in customs over the top of the M62.

 

[Dave]

Completely agree, devolution is a disaster and has lead to a rise in nationalism that, once out of the box is very hard to stop.

The pandemic has highlighted how ridiculous the devolved setup is with the differences in restrictions - Nicola Sturgeon cannot bring herself to agree with Boris Johnson so instead of the "rule of 6" it's a "rule of 8" while in Wales it's a "rule of whatever but with children exempt" etc - it just highlights how power hungry and petty these politicians are.

We are not a large country and do not need localised power for things that should be the same across the country (education, healthcare, policing etc should be the same no matter where in the UK you live). Local government is only required for local issues such as housing, transport etc, but that is what councils are for.

Devolution didn’t lead to nationalism, it already existed, devolution was designed to slow down the nationalist agenda.

Fact is the UK Parliament has always been London centric, hence why the north, Scotland and wales all want more decentralisation not less.

The Scottish and Welsh governments haven’t done things differently for the sake of it, they did things differently because of how incompetent the UK government was managing the pandemic in the first place.

It’s curious how everyone in this topic bemoaning devolution talk about the UK as a country, it isn’t a country, it’s a union of countries so why shouldn’t the individual nations not have their own governance?

 

[shakey]

Devolution didn’t lead to nationalism, it already existed, devolution was designed to slow down the nationalist agenda.

Nationolism has always existed but devolution has definitely heightened it. And I think devolution was actually designed to get Tony Blair elected !!

It is extremely easy for the Scottish leader to take all the credit for anything good and just blame central government for the bad stuff. It's like being the manager of Celtic, you cannot really fail !! - It will be a different story when Scotland does eventually go independant, and I see it as a when, not if.

It’s curious how everyone in this topic bemoaning devolution talk about the UK as a country, it isn’t a country, it’s a union of countries so why shouldn’t the individual nations not have their own governance?

Before devolution the UK was essentially one country in everything apart from the names. And even now it is more like the United States of Britain rather than separate countries.

It makes no logical sense to have 3 separate governments apart from to satisfy Nationalist feelings.

It was also a Scottish king that took the English throne to create the union in the first place.

Personally I think it will be a sad day when Scotland goes it alone. It will also be one hell of a mess.

 

[Dave]

Nationolism has always existed but devolution has definitely heightened it. And I think devolution was actually designed to get Tony Blair elected !!

It is extremely easy for the Scottish leader to take all the credit for anything good and just blame central government for the bad stuff. It's like being the manager of Celtic, you cannot really fail !! - It will be a different story when Scotland does eventually go independant, and I see it as a when, not if.



Before devolution the UK was essentially one country in everything apart from the names. And even now it is more like the United States of Britain rather than separate countries.

It makes no logical sense to have 3 separate governments apart from to satisfy Nationalist feelings.

It was also a Scottish king that took the English throne to create the union in the first place.

Personally I think it will be a sad day when Scotland goes it alone. It will also be one hell of a mess.

Of course it makes sense to have separate governments, the needs of Scotland are nothing like the same as the south east of England.

Blair didn’t need devolution to win power, at the time labour was the primary party in Scotland, if anything giving the SNP the platform of local government is what pushed labour out of Scotland and made it almost impossible for a Labour majority in Westminster.

Before devolution the sense of national identity in wales and Scotland still existed, it was just easier for the national media to ignore it. Now when you have compelling Scottish politicians (whether you agree with her or not Sturgeon is a savvy politician) you can’t ignore the Scottish identity quite so easily.

The successor to Elizabeth the 1st being the Scottish king isn’t really relevant to modern identity.