It’s official, the Government has decreed it. I am a simpleton. I am incapable of deciding on our relationship with Europe. I can’t have a say in who becomes President of Europe, even though he will pretend to have a mandate to speak for me. I cannot be trusted with scientific research about drugs that may contradict my prejudices.
An infant, I must be protected from the big, bad terrorists, even if that means locking bad people up without trial. I cannot be trusted to look after my friends’ children as I am almost certainly a kiddy-fiddler as well as a kidult. I am a voter.
And the Government is partly right. I must be a bit simple — I’m part of a complacent British electorate that has ignored an unchecked, sustained and haphazard constitutional revolution. Our civil liberties are eroded, our relationship with Europe evolves without restraint, and both the Government and the Opposition treat us like idiots. And we let them, because the word “constitution” induces apathy where it should provoke anger. We should be furiously rattling the railings of Downing Street, howling for a new constitutional settlement. Instead, we shrug, and turn on Strictly Come X Factor.
David Cameron this week said that he would put on the statute books a law “to make it clear that ultimate authority stays in this country, in our Parliament”. In doing so, he unwittingly exposed the charade that is our political system.
In common with Israel and New Zealand, Britain does not have a codified, written constitution. It has, instead, a collection of rules and conventions that have evolved over our admirably peaceful history. The principle at the heart of this mishmash is that the British Parliament has sovereignty; if it says it’s a law, it is a law. The only checks and balances are within Parliament itself — there is no higher authority.
Mr Cameron wants Parliament to pass a law reminding itself of its own sovereignty, despite the shadow of Brussels. But any future Parliament could repeal Cameron’s law at any time, because of its sovereignty. It is the law that eats itself.
Mr Cameron referred to a recent decision of the German constitutional court that it has the power to block any European legislation running counter to the country’s constitution. But the analogy does not apply here; a constitutional court without a written constitution is like a footballer with no ball — expensive and pointless.
The Tories’ stated aim is to ensure that the British people will always have to be consulted about further devolution of power to Brussels. For the plan to work, it would have to come with a written constitution, which would necessarily trigger a political revolution and a public ratification of the new code.
Alternatively, the plan is doomed and this is another piece of pointless political grandstanding. D’oh. Spot the gullible voter who thought, briefly, that a politician had actually proposed something meaningful.
Our attitude towards our haphazard constitution has always been, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. But it is very, very broke. Sovereignty rests with Parliament, an institution that has lost its moral authority. An age of spin and sleaze, and the end of a wider social deference, has eroded the status of elected representatives.
Since 1997, Labour has been dismantling and reshaping our constitution anyway. Our motley collection of rules and codes is no match for MPs filled with reforming zeal. There is no way to stop the disembowelling of what passes for a constitution when there is no written constitution or court to protect it.
Vernon Bogdanor, the Professor of Government at the University of Oxford, argues in his book The New British Constitution that a series of measures including devolution legislation, the Human Rights Act and the abolition of the House of Lords have already replaced one constitutional system with another. The fundamental codes that govern our relationship with the state are being rewritten and we are supine.
Yet increasingly the State’s tentacles strangle us with a sinister if well-intentioned paternalism. The fear of paedophiles and terrorists has made potential criminals of us all. We are watched by cameras, monitored by agencies, registered on databases. The State can eavesdrop on phone calls, spy on our bank accounts. British citizens can be detained without trial. We have no protection against Parliament, when the party that dominates it decides to dominate us.
It is time for a written constitution, ratified by the people. Professor Bogdanor argues that one reason we have never codified our constitution is that statements of citizens’ rights typically mark a new beginning, a birth, or rebirth of a new state. Our tortuous relationship with Europe could be such a catalyst.
Our country is being reborn as a satellite of Europe yet, as the revolution is a bloodless one, it passes without protest. We are alone among the member states in not having a written constitution. This makes us vulnerable to European creep, and the dribbling away of civil liberties. The Czech constitutional court may have cleared the way for the Lisbon treaty, but at least someone other than the MPs had the chance to scrutinise it.
Whether we move towards Europe or away from it is immaterial. I am entirely agnostic about the benefits of membership, but utterly apoplectic about the undemocratic way that it is being foisted on me.
Yet we have no recourse, no protection from the politicians, no way to vent our ire at being pawns in a game played by a bevy of unelected queens. No buffer between us and a political class in thrall to Europe, apart from the real Queen. Another unelected, unaccountable foreign body.
A move towards a written constitution would force a dialogue between political parties and the public. It would involve politicians treating us as more than simpletons, and us treating them with respect. Is either side ready for such a U-turn?
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