This year is the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta. Following the independence referendum in Scotland, calls for a constitutional convention are widespread and growing. The Oxford University Politics Blog, together with OurKingdom, IPPR and the Department of Politics at the University of Southampton, are hosting the Great Charter Convention – an open, public debate on where arbitrary power lies in the UK today and how we should contest and contain it. What would a new Magna Carta say, and what could a new constitutional settlement for Britain look like?
Citizens should have the power to call constitutional conventions
There is much debate about the need for a constitutional convention for the UK. The case for a convention is strong: the constitutional settlement is currently in flux with cross-party agreement to devolve further powers to Scotland; the Welsh and Northern Irish assemblies want enhanced powers; and there are calls for devolution to the regions and cities within England and/or an English parliament. Older constitutional issues such as the voting system and the future of the House of Lords remain unresolved. A great deal of ink is being spilled on the question of what form any convention should take. A concern that a new settlement will be a stitch-up amongst the major political parties and the vibrancy of the referendum …
Opening up a new British constitution
Last year the Select Committee for Political and Constitutional Reform published a bulky report with a question as its title: A New Magna Carta? The Committee’s Chairman Graham Allen MP launched it in July at the British Library. It set out three options for the overall reform of the UK’s constitution: a codification of what exists; a consolidation of existing laws and conventions into a unified framework; a written constitution. It issued a call for public responses. To encourage the imagination and inspire people the Committee also lay down a challenge: come up with your own preamble to the Constitution of the future. The air is full of talk about the constitution, about Magna Carta, about the need to renew democracy. So this is …
Can a constitutional convention offer real and radical change?
The establishment of an Irish Constitutional Convention was first proposed in April 2010 at the Labour Party conference in Galway, when then Labour leader Eamon Gilmore called for the establishment of a convention to revise the text of Bunreacht na hEireann, the 1937 Irish Constitution, in advance of the 1916 centenary. Given the outdated language of some of the articles of the Irish Constitution, many of us greeted this proposal with real excitement. The proposal for a convention was subsequently included in the Programme for Government drawn up between Fine Gael and Labour following the February 2011 General Election. In July 2012, motions were passed in both the Dáil and the Seanad (Upper and Lower Houses of the Irish Parliament) …
What would a constitutional convention for the UK look like?
In the wake of the Scottish referendum, the idea of a constitutional convention is gaining popularity. It appeals to the public and the Conservatives are now the only major party resisting a convention in principle. However, as has been discussed on the UCL Constitution Unit blog, the process of realising a convention that can deliver subsequent reform is likely to be fraught with difficulties. If Labour, the Liberal Democrats, the Greens or the SNP were pushed to define the nature and purpose of a UK constitutional convention, it is almost certain that any consensus would fall apart very quickly. At a recent Constitution Unit seminar, Dr Alan Renwick, Reader in Politics at Reading University and author of After the Referendum: Options for …
On Smith Commission’s proposals on Scottish governance
The Report of the Smith Commission on further devolution of powers to the Scottish Parliament is a modest document – only 28 pages long. But it packs a big punch. In summer 2014, Lord Smith delivered the Commonweealth Games in Glasgow without fuss and to budget. By some magic, he has now got all five parties in the Scottish Parliament to agree to a set of proposals, which the UK Government also endorsed as soon as they were published on 27 November. The process involved some huge compromises, on all sides. Smith got all-party agreement to: Embed the Scottish Parliament so that it cannot be abolished by an Act at Westminster; Make statutory the rules for inviting one parliament to …
DevoMix: localism and the devolution debate
Considering a wide range of media reports and commentaries on the UK’s ongoing devolution debate – do the solutions politicians seem to be offering genuinely address the issues as seen by local people?
In recent weeks, the media has been awash with articles and reports about proposed new ways of governing different parts of the UK. Clearly, the Scottish referendum has awoken a sleeping giant – something that our national political class should ignore at its peril. Because devolution goes to the heart of the localism debate, we’ve put together a representative cross-section of what’s out there.
