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Robert Saunders Profile picture
@redhistorian
Dec 13, 2021 • 9 tweets • 3 min read • Read on X
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Big constitutional news: the cross-party Public Administration & Constitutional Affairs Committee has called for the controversial Elections Bill - which imposes Voter ID, allows ministers to direct the Electoral Commission & extends FPTP - to be suspended committees.parliament.uk/committee/327/…
On Compulsory Voter ID: "there is currently no evidence of widespread personation at UK elections". Voter ID "risks upsetting the balance of our electoral system & making it more difficult to vote". "The Govt should not proceed" until it has shown evidence to justify the change.
Allowing ministers to set the direction of the Electoral Commission "risks undermining public confidence" in the electoral system; yet there was "no formal or public consultation". The whole section, it concludes, should be "removed" from the bill, pending further consultation.
As several witnesses to the report noted, the Electoral Commission is not like other regulators: it is not there to ensure that government policies are carried out. It is there to police the process by which governments are elected. Ministerial control is wholly inappropriate.
On imposing First Past the Post on mayoral contests (a change stuffed into the bill at a late stage in Parliament). There are different views on the best electoral system, but the change was made without consultation & no evidence was offered that the current system is at fault.
The Bill also expands the use of "secondary legislation", allowing ministers, rather than Parliament, to set the terms of electoral law. This not only risks further complicating electoral law: it is obviously problematic when ministers are drawn from a single political party.
The Elections Bill proposes major changes to our democracy; yet "there was limited to no public consultation on more controversial or contested elements of the Bill". There was so little pre-legislative scrutiny that the Report urges a statutory commitment to *post*-leg scrutiny.
It is a major weakness of our constitutional arrangements that one participant in the electoral process can rewrite the rules of our democracy without public consultation, without proper evidence-gathering, without pre-legislative scrutiny & against the will of every other party.
The Public Administration & Const Affairs Committee is a senior, cross-party committee, chaired by a Conservative. That it has called for the Elections Bill to be paused should be taken very seriously indeed. MPs of all parties should think carefully before they vote. [ENDS]

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More from @redhistorian

Robert Saunders Profile picture
Nov 6, 2024
If Lincoln spoke to "the better angels of our nature", Trump calls to our demons. His return is a moral as well as political tragedy.

As others study his example, progressives will need to think harder about how to respond. As so often, I've been thinking about Gladstone...🧵
Gladstone saw politics as a moral struggle, for the conscience of the people.

It was a struggle that could be lost: humans were sinful, and could be corrupted or deceived.

But ultimately, "the demos" was the only tribunal in which a progressive politics could put its faith.
So at moments of crisis, Gladstone would take his case to working-class audiences, speaking for hours on complex questions of foreign policy or finance.

He treated working people with respect, as people of conscience; people who could handle complexity & rise to moral judgement.
Read 8 tweets
Robert Saunders Profile picture
Jul 7, 2024
The 2024 election saw the worst Conservative defeat in history, producing their lowest number of seats, lowest vote share & highest number of ministers unseated.

I've been writing about the "crisis of Conservatism" for years, and have collected some key pieces below. ⬇️ [THREAD]
In 2019 I wrote in the @NewStatesman about "The Closing of the Conservative Mind".

"British Conservatism has broken with three of its most important traditions. It has stopped thinking, it has stopped “conserving” & it has lost its suspicion of ideology". newstatesman.com/politics/2019/…
Later in 2019, I explored the abuse of history in talk of "Global Britain", showing how Boris Johnson & his allies "use the past to imagine the future".

"As so often, history becomes the mask worn by ideology, when it wants to be mistaken for experience".
newstatesman.com/politics/2019/…
Read 10 tweets
Robert Saunders Profile picture
Aug 19, 2023
The most powerful idea in British politics is "the economy".

Parties promise to "grow", "unleash" or "manage" the economy.

It tops lists of voter concerns.

But what if we had no concept of "the economy"?

Until the C20th, we didn't. And its rise has had major consequences...🧵 Image
1. If you had told Mr Gladstone that "the economy has grown this year", he would not have understood what you meant.

Gladstone was the most financially literate statesman of the C19th.

But the idea of something called "the economy", which could "grow" or "shrink", did not exist Image
2. Even in the C20th, as economic questions roared up the agenda, talk of "THE economy" entered political usage quite slowly.

It first appeared in a major manifesto in 1950 & didn't get its own section until 1955.

That's also when terms like "economic growth" appeared in Parlt. Image
Read 16 tweets
Robert Saunders Profile picture
Jun 13, 2023
There's a hugely important vote in the Lords today, where @GreenJennyJones will attempt to kill a Statutory Instrument changing the law of protest.

The Lords almost never block SIs, so this raises big constitutional qs.

Here's why Labour *should* back the "fatal motion" 🧵...
1. SIs are a form of "secondary legislation": law made directly by ministers, rather than by passing a bill through Parliament.

They are meant to fill in the details of "primary", or parliamentary, legislation.

But this one is being used to *overturn* a decision by Parliament.
2. When the government proposed these changes in the 2023 Public Order Bill, the House of Lords voted them down.

Ministers are now trying to overturn that defeat by issuing a Statutory Instrument.

That's a very new use of these powers, with serious implications for Parliament. Image
Read 10 tweets
Robert Saunders Profile picture
Jun 12, 2023
I agree with Anthony Seldon about the damage Boris Johnson has done and his unfitness for public office.

But there's a question he doesn't address here, which needs more attention.

It troubled me about his book, too. So let me try to explain... 🧵
thetimes.co.uk/article/boris-…
1. If Johnson was so manifestly unsuited to office - if his "deep character flaws" were formed so early - how did he rise to power?

What does that say about our democracy, or the qualities we reward in potential leaders?

And what was the role of the commentariat? Image
2. Unlike many of Johnson's chroniclers, Seldon was not always a critic.

In many respects, that strengthens his case. He didn't set out to write a hatchet job. He followed where the evidence led.

But his earlier writing tells us something important about Johnson's rise to power
Read 16 tweets
Robert Saunders Profile picture
Jun 9, 2023
This isn't a resignation statement; it's a temper tantrum.

And its central claim is untrue.

Johnson says he was "forced out anti-democratically" by a "kangaroo court".

So let's remind ourselves of the process from which he has chosen to run away... 🧵
bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politi…
1. Johnson was accused of a serious parliamentary offence: misleading the House.

That triggered a 3-step process.

Step one: an investigation by the Privileges Committee, which has a majority of Tory MPs.

Its chair recused himself, & the taxpayer funded Johnson's legal advice.
2. The committee has no power to remove an MP from the House.

It can only recommend a penalty to Parliament: in this case, that Johnson be suspended for more than 10 days.

That brings us to step two: a vote in the House of Commons, which has a Tory majority of nearly 80 seats.
Read 9 tweets

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