Defending the Indefensible
Janan Ganesh writing in The Financial Times gets to the heart of the argument about 'English votes on English laws' which is the more that Labour keeps trying to defend the indefensible, the more the People's Party will be digging its own political grave.
Because in a democracy you can't go on using Scottish, or Welsh or Northern Ireland votes for that matter, to determine the size and shape of the NHS in England when English MPs have no say on these issues in other jurisdictions.
Self-evidently such an arrangement is monstrously unfair and can only result in Ed Miliband painting himself into a political corner where, as Janan Ganesh says, Labour will inevitably become seen as the 'second' party of England.
Ironically, Labour has increasingly become the 'second' party of Scotland since the Scottish Parliament was established in 1999, having been knocked off its perch by the SNP, and the same fate awaits Labour south of the border if party leaders try and fudge the issue with English voters south of the border.
Ed Miliband will struggle to answer the English question
By Janan Ganesh - The Financial Times
Party leader should avoid giving Labour a reputation as the self-described second party of England
Photo ©PA
To understand Ed Miliband’s predicament, conjure this scene. His Labour party wins next year’s UK general election without a parliamentary majority in England. Soon, his 40 or so MPs with Scottish seats are voting through bills on education and healthcare that affect the English. Because these matters are devolved to the Edinburgh parliament, the laws do not touch their own constituents. This inequity is quickly aggravated as the government honours the cross-party promise to divest more powers to Scotland as a substitute for independence.
At this point, a prime minister the English did not want is piling the statute book with laws they might not like with the help of MPs from another jurisdiction. The English do a charming line in forbearance but they are not masochists. They will howl, and when they do their voices will pass through the amplifiers of the Conservative party, the UK Independence party, much of the press and not a few English Labour MPs. There will be a political rumpus, not merely a constitutional one.
Premonitions of this storm have taken the vim out of Labour’s annual conference in Manchester. This does not feel like a summit of the soon-to-be-mighty. The party gamely announces policies for the election: frugal cuts to child benefit and pensioner benefits, a wisely gradual increase in the minimum wage. And Mr Miliband’s speech on Tuesday will try to drag politics back to his home ground of economic inequality. But so much energy is spent trying to close down the English question, which was opened by David Cameron last week. The Conservative prime minister wants only MPs with English seats to vote on laws pertaining exclusively to England, in return for more empowerment of Scotland.
His intervention was a political event. A week ago, his premiership hinged on the Scottish referendum; his performance during the campaign oscillated between negligence and panic. He is now imposing himself on events. Dealt such a good hand by life, Mr Cameron can play a bad political hand devastatingly well. Perhaps they teach virtuoso escapology at Eton.
Unusually for Mr Cameron, however, this policy comes from the gut. It was in his last election manifesto and unites all sides of his fissiparous party. The most languid Tory is riled by the asymmetry in the constitution.
The prime minister intends to publish a draft bill agreed by all parties on Scottish devolution in the new year. He will also publish a proposal to redress the English question – as a Conservative paper if Labour do not support it. He will then campaign on that proposal at the election, casting the Tories as defenders of England, and Labour as defenders of the constitutionally indefensible. There is a good reason to believe this will have some electoral potency, and it is not the obvious one.
The real vulnerability of Labour’s position is not the unfairness itself, though that is evident in the tongue-tied and dissembling efforts of Mr Miliband and his colleagues to defend it. Nor is the problem that English voters resent Celtic favouritism, even if middling southern towns that Labour won under Tony Blair are reverting to a view of the party as ineffably Other.
The real problem is what it says about Labour’s own confidence. The party is advertising its belief that it cannot win in England. The more Mr Miliband objects to English self-rule, the more he tacitly concedes his unpopularity among the English. The louder the hostilities between the parties on this, the clearer the impression that one is happy to take its chances in England and the other dreads such a prospect. A serious party cannot be seen to write off its chances in a nation that accounts for 85 per cent of the total electorate.
English self-rule is one of those ideas that is impractical in the short term and inevitable in the long term. The imbalance cannot last and nearly everyone agrees the union must get looser. There will eventually be English votes for English laws, or an English parliament, or another referendum on Scottish independence that results in secession. Mr Miliband might be gone by then but he should avoid giving Labour a reputation as the self-described second party of England. If he wants to know how long a dismal brand can endure, he can ask any Tory: 17 years have elapsed since the Tories opposed Scottish devolution; 25 years have passed since the incendiary poll tax was levied on Scots. And still the party is tarred and feathered there.
The oddity of all this is that Labour’s dread is misplaced. The party can win in England. It did so recently. But it must be a Blair-ish Labour party: moderate in thought and expression, mindful of English individualism. And this is why the English question really pinches Mr Miliband. It is not an existential problem for Labour so much as the Labour left. Unlike Mr Cameron, he has hard and fast beliefs. But they are not England’s.
To understand Ed Miliband’s predicament, conjure this scene. His Labour party wins next year’s UK general election without a parliamentary majority in England. Soon, his 40 or so MPs with Scottish seats are voting through bills on education and healthcare that affect the English. Because these matters are devolved to the Edinburgh parliament, the laws do not touch their own constituents. This inequity is quickly aggravated as the government honours the cross-party promise to divest more powers to Scotland as a substitute for independence.
At this point, a prime minister the English did not want is piling the statute book with laws they might not like with the help of MPs from another jurisdiction. The English do a charming line in forbearance but they are not masochists. They will howl, and when they do their voices will pass through the amplifiers of the Conservative party, the UK Independence party, much of the press and not a few English Labour MPs. There will be a political rumpus, not merely a constitutional one.
Premonitions of this storm have taken the vim out of Labour’s annual conference in Manchester. This does not feel like a summit of the soon-to-be-mighty. The party gamely announces policies for the election: frugal cuts to child benefit and pensioner benefits, a wisely gradual increase in the minimum wage. And Mr Miliband’s speech on Tuesday will try to drag politics back to his home ground of economic inequality. But so much energy is spent trying to close down the English question, which was opened by David Cameron last week. The Conservative prime minister wants only MPs with English seats to vote on laws pertaining exclusively to England, in return for more empowerment of Scotland.
His intervention was a political event. A week ago, his premiership hinged on the Scottish referendum; his performance during the campaign oscillated between negligence and panic. He is now imposing himself on events. Dealt such a good hand by life, Mr Cameron can play a bad political hand devastatingly well. Perhaps they teach virtuoso escapology at Eton.
Unusually for Mr Cameron, however, this policy comes from the gut. It was in his last election manifesto and unites all sides of his fissiparous party. The most languid Tory is riled by the asymmetry in the constitution.
The prime minister intends to publish a draft bill agreed by all parties on Scottish devolution in the new year. He will also publish a proposal to redress the English question – as a Conservative paper if Labour do not support it. He will then campaign on that proposal at the election, casting the Tories as defenders of England, and Labour as defenders of the constitutionally indefensible. There is a good reason to believe this will have some electoral potency, and it is not the obvious one.
The real vulnerability of Labour’s position is not the unfairness itself, though that is evident in the tongue-tied and dissembling efforts of Mr Miliband and his colleagues to defend it. Nor is the problem that English voters resent Celtic favouritism, even if middling southern towns that Labour won under Tony Blair are reverting to a view of the party as ineffably Other.
The real problem is what it says about Labour’s own confidence. The party is advertising its belief that it cannot win in England. The more Mr Miliband objects to English self-rule, the more he tacitly concedes his unpopularity among the English. The louder the hostilities between the parties on this, the clearer the impression that one is happy to take its chances in England and the other dreads such a prospect. A serious party cannot be seen to write off its chances in a nation that accounts for 85 per cent of the total electorate.
English self-rule is one of those ideas that is impractical in the short term and inevitable in the long term. The imbalance cannot last and nearly everyone agrees the union must get looser. There will eventually be English votes for English laws, or an English parliament, or another referendum on Scottish independence that results in secession. Mr Miliband might be gone by then but he should avoid giving Labour a reputation as the self-described second party of England. If he wants to know how long a dismal brand can endure, he can ask any Tory: 17 years have elapsed since the Tories opposed Scottish devolution; 25 years have passed since the incendiary poll tax was levied on Scots. And still the party is tarred and feathered there.
The oddity of all this is that Labour’s dread is misplaced. The party can win in England. It did so recently. But it must be a Blair-ish Labour party: moderate in thought and expression, mindful of English individualism. And this is why the English question really pinches Mr Miliband. It is not an existential problem for Labour so much as the Labour left. Unlike Mr Cameron, he has hard and fast beliefs. But they are not England’s.
