Robert Saunders Profile picture
Dec 13, 2021 9 tweets 3 min read Read on X
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

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
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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
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
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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.
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Jun 7, 2023
I'm a great fan of @lewis_goodall, who argues here for televising the courts.

But respectfully, I don't think the arguments for televising Parliament and televising court cases are analogous.

A few thoughts... 🧵
@lewis_goodall 1. The case for televising Parliament is that voters should know what their elected representatives are saying and doing in their name, so that we can hold them to account at the ballot box.

All those involved are public officials, who are directly responsible to those outside.
2. By contrast, court cases involve private citizens - most of whom have been accused of no crime, but who may be recounting situations of extreme distress, trauma or personal embarrassment.

Those involved are accountable for their conduct, not to public opinion, but to the law.
Read 6 tweets
Mar 5, 2023
"The next war...will leave civilization a smoking ruin and a putrefying charnel house" (Ramsay MacDonald, 19292).

A great find, illustrating a point that's often overlooked in the memory of "appeasement": that "the next war" was widely expected to end European civilization. 1/5
2. For a Conservative example, here's Stanley Baldwin addressing the House of Commons in November 1932:

"When the next war comes, and European civilisation is wiped out, as it will be..."
hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1932/n…
3. Then there are films like "Things to Come" (Alexander Korda/H.G. Wells, 1936), with its post-apocalyptic landscapes.

Or magazine covers of poisoned cities, with abandoned cars and children dead on the streets.
Read 5 tweets

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