A Critical Look at the Constitutional Structure of Britain

8/9/2019 A Critical Look at the Constitutional Structure of Britain

1/5

A critical look at theConstitutional Structure

of Britain


2/5

A critical look at theConstitutional Structureof Britain.

Economic Research CouncilPresident:Vice Pres idents :

Chairman:H"". Sec to tary :

Th e R Hon Lord Eeech ingPro fessor 0 .C. AllenSir David EarranProfessor P Sergant Florence CB ELord N i l l earnSi r Ian MacTaggar t, E tMr Pat r i ck de LaszloMI E d w a r d Holloway

ObJect:TO promote education in th e acienca of economics, with part icularre fe rence IO monetary prac t i ce .Membership is open t o all who are in sympathy with th is objectl i i d i v idua l subscription f5.00 a r annum.Corpora te subscr ip t i on f25.00 par annum.

Fur ther information from:Economic Research Council10 Upper Berke ley StreetLondon, W1H 7P ETelephone: 01.222 4120

T h e A d d r e s s is p u b l i s h e d by t h e E c o n o m i c R e s e a r c h C o u n c i l butm e m b e r s of th e C o u n c i l a r e no t n e c a ss a r il y c o m m i t t e d t o t h e con-c l u s i o n s

T H E economic problems wi th w hich.we are faced are not just the result o f pwreconomic planning in this country or of a world recession in general. They must beseen within the context o f the basic structural changes that have bcen taking placein B ritain over the past few decades and which are now obvious for all to see. Thatis wh y I elieve that the long -term solution to our econom ic problems lies not onlywith better economic and m onetary systems. but more important ly, wi th a num berof fundamental changes that need to take place in the country.Failure of he clam ayatcmOne o f the princ ipal social changes that has taken place in this country has beenthe failure of our caste systcm, and the fact that no new system to replace it hasemerged. Un til very recently, many in this country spoke quite normally of the rul-ing class. The graduates of our Public Schools naturally considered themselves asbeing the oflicer class. In industry. in inance, and in commerce. the same graduatestraditionally considered themselves the "director m aterial", who in due coursewould delegate operations l o managers - he Non Commissioned Oflicers ofbusiness. Eng land was one o f the few remaining countries in which even accentswere not u st regional but were linked to class. We must not forget that we have notbeen forcibly invaded for nea rly a thousand years, and that we have not had a full-blooded revolution. So our systems have never been brutally overturned. rather theyhave evolved. And it i s in this way that over the past decades. our class system hasbeen progressively d ying.

In a caste system, people knew where they stocd. They knew how high theycould aim. The co rporal knew that he could aim at beco ming a Regimental SergeantMajor , bu t never an ofl icer. The oll ice manager knew that he could perhaps becomeCompany Secretary but never a director. The ambit ious young man in a majorcomm ercial bank could perhaps become General Manager. but until very recentlynever became a director. This did produce a form o f order which worked for a longtime. But it has now failed, and while failing has affected every aspect of our life, bei t political, industrial. rur al or social. An d so fa r it ha s not been replaced. A vacuumhas been created and a struggle i s now taking place as to who wi l l fill th is vacuum.The first m ajor contestant has been the extreme len. They have prepared theirground well, Their main ra w materials have bcen the rescntment of he class system;the weakening economic position of the nation, w hich has made us the comparat ivepaupers of Europe and the recent wo rld depression, which has meant that for thefirst time in many decades and qui te contrary lo everything that we have beentaught. the nation has to face the fact that an annual increase in real net income i snot an automatic and natural right.


3/5

Communist InRl tral ion through trader unlonaUnlike many other countries, the Comm unists in this country have not fielded amajor political pany at general elections. They know that in Britain only very fewwould knowingly vote Communist, So their strategy has been to attempt to infi ltrateand progressively to capture the Trade Un ions and the Labour Party machinery.This has been made poss ible because the electoral system within m uch o f the TradeUnion movement and within the Labour Party organisation i s not dissimilar ineflect to the old national voting system known as the Rotten Borough, which waseliminated by the electoral changes included in the Reform Act 1832.The electoral system in the Unions i s complex because each of the hundred or soUnions al l i liated to the TU C has it s own regulations. But take for exam ple the caseof one o f our largest Unio ns in which the leader was elected by 6% of it s membersand. subsequently. the Unions rules were changed so that he would hold oll ice untilretirement. In some Unions, elections are not held by secret ballot but b y a show o fhands in open meeting. Some Union s claim a large turnou t at their elections, butthis can be very misleading because of the block voting system. This is a systemwhereby each Union branch convenes a meeting of its members to decide how a11the branch votes will be cast. A t the meeting o f a branch with, say 1.000 members.maybe only 50 wil l turn out to vote. On the principle of winner takes all. the majori -ty d ecision of the 50present wil l de termine how the 1,000 bra nch votes are cast as ablock. The unions voting returns are presented as though the 1.OOO branchmembers had all voted and done so unanimously for the chosen candidate. J o eRogaly writes in the Fina ncial Times election on a derisory vole. often for l ife,was the method of accession to power o f nearly every one of the principa l trade un-io n bosses.

Reassuringly. there are other voting systems. The Electrical and PlumbingUnions introduced the postal voting system after it had been proved in the HighCour t in 1961 that the Communists had gained control of the Electrical TradesUnion by rigging ballots. Another example i s the engineering section of theAmalgamated Union of Engineering Workers which succeeded by one vote in in-troducing the postal and secret voting system. As a result, the rate o f participationin elections i s on average working out at 30%. which i s to be compared to a par-t ic ipat ion of between 2j % and 9% previously.Trader unlon Influence In the Labour Party

The organisation of the Labo ur Pa ny has similar defects. Par ty policy i s deter-mined by the Annual Conference of the Labour Party. The Parliamentary LabourParty i s supposed to he the executive arm that carries out the decisions taken dur ingthe Conference. Let me quote Ron Hayward, the General Secretary of the LabourParty. He states: The lon g-term program me of the Party is determined by An nualConference. An d let me refer you to Clause 5 o f the Pany Const i tut ion whichstates no proposal shall be included in the Party programme unless it has beenadopted by the Party Conference by a ma jority o f not less than two-thi rds of thevotes recorded on a card vote. Decisions at Conference are indeed taken by ma-

l

i-.1Ii1

iI

I

!

!II

1

jority vote. But who has the right to v ote? There are 6.518.000 votes, 5.787.000 o fthese belong t o the- Trade Unions. 39,000 to Coopera tive Societies and on ly692.000 to indiv idual registered members oft he Labour Pany throughout the coun-try. Theoretically. these 5.787.000 votes represent 10.3 mil l ion members of theTrade Union movement out of a w orking populat ion of 24 mi l l ion. But in fact thevotes are cast n ot by members, bu t by the Un ion eadership and its delegates. whosesystem of election I have already commented on. In fact, between them. theleadership of the I argest Trade Unions have the necessary two-third s majority o fthe votes at the Labour Partys Annual Conference.

I t is this Annual Conference which determines Party policy, and it is thisConference which elects the members of the ke y Labour Party commitlee, theNational Executive committee. Now there is even agitation in favour o f Annua lConference electing the Party Leader.The fate o f the moderate kR

Luckily. among the members of the Parliamen tary Labo ur Party, there arepatriots of sulficient na tional stature to challenge the decisions o f AnnualConference - ugh Gai tskel l in his great speech to Conference advocatingchanges in the Partys attitude to nationalisation and Ha rold W ilson and the ma jori-ty o f his cabinet during the Com mon. Marke t referendum.

But the Party machinery is continually gaining ground. I t is capturing theprocesscs whereby members of Parliament are selected in their constituencies. Therecent case o f Reg Prentice usefullydcmonstratesthis.In hat case, we saw a promi-nent member of the Cabinet. h olding moderate views, being rejected by a small andactive extremist minority in his constituency. Similar minority groups throughoutthe country are tryin g to purge the Parliamentary Labour P any o f its moderate andsocial democratic element. What i s more, the Trade Unions sponsor I16 membersof Parliament- his means that they back them financially. Let me quote GeorgeBrown. the former Deputy Leader of the Parliamentary Labour Party. He said i norder to be nominated to the Unions l is t of sponsored candidates, a m ember mustbe vetted both by his Regional Committee and the National Executive and submitto questioning about his adherence or nonad herence to th e policy decisions laiddown by the Unions bi-ann ual conference. This seems to me to come about as nearto a breach of Parliamentary privilege as y ou can get. So more and more membersof Parlianent are in,danger o f beco ming mere Parliame ntary delegates representingspecial interests. I t should be noted that whereas an estimated 24% of all Labourmembers of Parliament are members of the left-win g Tribune Group, 60% o f thelast intake of new Labou r members of Parliament are members oft ha t organisation.So. progressively. the Pany machinery, dominated by the Trade Unions, i s takingcontrol of the Parliamentary Labour Parly. and in due course, when the presentleaders retire. will perhaps be able to appo int a new generation of Lab our leaders.The Upper middle class - he downfal l of th e Consmalive P WThe Con servative Party is also flawed. I t s st i l l haunted by it s upper m iddle class


4/5

origins. Adm ittedly. graduates of our leading Public Schools no longer ddm inj te it sfront bench. Ted Heath and Margaret Thatcher both spring from the heart of thenation. But the Party's organisation in the constituencies st i l l hankers for a return tothe womb. An i l lustration of this is that twenty years ago about 5% more peopleconsidered hemselves as being natural mem bers o f the Labour Party. as opposed toheing natural members of the Conservative Party. Th is had nothing to do wi ththeir voting intentions. Rather. it reflected the influence of th e class system and howthe Parties l i l ted into that system. Last year. after twenty years o f supposedly dis-mantling the class system and encouraging equal opportunity. that figure of 5% ha dgrown even larger. The Conservatives had therefore failed to grasp their opportuni-ty to hridge what Disraeli called "the two nations*'.Constitutional changer essential for Britain's revivalBut. despite a11 this. I elieve that Britain now has one of the greatest oppo r-tunities of it s long and proud history. I t has an opportuni ty to make the radicalchanges that have become so necessary. indee d so urgent. The breakdown in theclass system has released a great new national energy. It i s not dissimilar to the mo-ment when we split the walls of the atom. the reby releasing the energy containedtherein. S plitting the walls o fth e class system means that people are no longer con-tained within a rigid structure. but on the contrary. they now have the opportunityto use their energies to the full. But this great new force must be harnessed.otherwise i t could be as destructive as it could be beneficial. I should l ike to makef ive specific proposals:I. Britain must become a meritocracy. T he best. no matter what their background.must reach th e top. Excellence must be unreservedly encouraged. Our present

educational system i s incompatible with, indeed hostile to. this obvious objective.Ou r private sector. dominated by the Public Schools, consists. w ith trivial excep-tions. of. students selected on the criteria of wealth and birth. It i s absurd tobelieve that this nation can fur long continue to tolerate such a system of selec-tion.The trad itional answer to this is of course that people should be free to spendtheir money as they see fit. This is right. but it is right subject to their spending tin a way wh ich does not seriously harm the community as a whole. Divid ing thenation at so early an age is. in my view. enormously harmful to the country as awhole.The pub lic sector is us t as misguided. Our new Comprehensive Schools Seem1 0 he based on the idea that streaming according o meri t is evil. that it is sociallydcstructi\,e to promote the giited Faster than those who are less so.

Let me quote irom a series of n depth and sympathetic articles published ear-l y las t year in the Sunday Times under the title "The T ru th about Comprehen-sives". I t says: "Both the stall and p upils have consistently rejected any m eritawards". O r again: "There are no qualifications to get into the sixth form.Anyone is eligible.'regardless o f his or her ex am ination suicesses or failures". Oragain: " I t ' s considered antisocial to want to beat other people. a feeling which

3

i i ( ~ w 'appears to be universal in Comprehensive sixth forms". Well, 111 let yo uinlu a secret. If ou are an industrial nation. overpopulated. competing for wor ldtrade l o pay for the imports of food tu feed your people. then you need a fewwinners whether you like them or not. Have we forgotten that we cannot runanything without hierarchy. and that for this nation to revive. i t is imperativeIhill our hest citizens be trained 10 reach the lop of that hierarchy? So I ouldsuggest that our twv parallel systems of education be unified. Within this ne wsystem. ou r Public Schools and our Gram mar Schools should be preserved andcunlinually improved. They are an impartial part ofour heritage. But they musthe adapted so that the best of the nation, no matter what their background. isstreamed into-them. Le t us ensure that equality of opportunity and encourage-ine i i l of excellence hecome a reality right from the start.

At the moment. in Britain. there is much discussion about working participa-tion in the management ofinduslry. Within a meritocracy. worker participatibnis automa tic: directnrs. managers and workers spring from the same root. Thereare no artificial barriers which need bridging and there need be no particularresentment afdilTerential financial rewards. It is just a case oft he m ost capableheing promoted and properly rewarded. We all quite often hear that this n ationis sinking under the deadweight of egalitarianism and that there is deep resent-ment nf financial rewards for achievemenl. I believe that the nation knows fullive l l that yo u don't win fGotball cups with teams selectedon the random princi-ple of cgalitarianism. We al l know that to win we must have the best and weinusl pay them. Much of the resentment of dilferential payments is du e to thefact that finan cial rewards have quite often gone hand in ha nd with privilege andtw scldnm hnnd in hand with merit. Create a true meritocracy and this nationwi l l he pleased to reward those who serve it well.

2. l rn de Union and Party reform. The single most important reform is to spreadthe spirit of the Representation of the Peoples Act io the Trade Union move.meiit. t o all m>liticalparties and indeed to all other elected policy m aking bodies.After suilablc amendment. this should ensure a secret ballot. preferably a postaltialliit. ii minimum quorum and regular elections. In this way. we would al l besatisfied that the leadership of a11 Unions and of a11 political parties is a truec in i i na l im of the memhership and that it is not being taken over by some es-o le r i c group with ideas foreign to those of it s members.Undouhtedly. the most encouraging development in the past twelve monthshiis k e i i th e emergence of th e moderates in some trade union elections. We have;i lways known that the majority o f trade union members are moderate. b i t wedi d not k n o n when this majority would start to assert itself. A national opinionpol l wa s carried DUI to ascertain the response to the following statement:

"The political views of Trade Unio n leaders are usually not representativehl% of those questinned agreed wit h lhis. o nly I2% disagreed. 2 IX, ha d no opi-i i i(in. But it is important to note that 12% of trade union members questioned:igrecd with this statement.

01. the views o f inmt 01 thcir members".


5/5

The Louis Harris organisation followed chis up with th e proposition that 'thesystem ofTra de Unio n elections should be changed to get as many Trade Unionmembers as possible voting by secret and postal ballots".The result was equally decisive. 65% in favour, 15% against and 20% don'tknows.

3. We must re form our na tional voting system and adopt the procedure o f he alter-native vote. Ou r present system has the disadvantage of being able to bring topower a pol i t ical party lor which only 28.6% of the national electorate hasvoted. as was the case at the last gen eral election. It also causes resentmentbecause the Liberal Party. which received votes totall ing.l3% of the nationalelectorate. is only represented in Parliament by 13 members out of a totalmembership of 635. that is to say a 2% representation.

Ma ny in this coun try are suggesting that the remedy i s a form of proport ionalrepresentation, with each political p arty represenled in Parliament in proport ionto its share oft he n ational vote. But this system has many faults. I t encouragesthe emergence of splinter groups with representatives in Parliament. It usuallyleads to Governm ent by coalition. Such government can be elfective for a l imitedtime and can implement a l imited number of pre-determined and'clear-cutmeasures needed in moments o f national emergency. B ut olherwise coalition inthe long-term and under no rmal circumstances i s a formula for paralysis. Final-ly. pro portionate representation tends lo disassociate MP s from their constituen-cies.

Alternative voting. on the wnt rary , encourages the emergence of a consensus.It eliminates splinter groups and therefore acts to the definite disadvantage ofe x-tremists of all kinds. An d i t has the added advantage that M Ps continue to repre-sent their constituencies.

4. In this country, the Ministers responsible for o ur great technical and industrialministries are drawn from Parliament, By this, I mean the M inisters responsiblefor massive industries and services, such as aviation, road transport, trains. elec-tricky. coal. oil, Post Ollice, local government, etc. These people are currentlyresponsible for spending no less than 60% of our Gross Nat ional Product. orabout 5O.ooO mill ion pounds per annum. Now. who are these people? Let ustake as an example the House of Commons in 1964. In that year. the LabourParty came back to power after I3 years in the wilderness. They did so with 3 I7members of Parliament. Of hese, 81 were past retirement age. O f the remainder,only a small handful had ever had authority or executive responsibil ity in an y. ignificant enterprise. Yet over I00 o f these were appointed to G overnment. inother words were responsible for spending the bulk o f our Gross Na tionalProduct and for directing the main industries in this country. An d don't let memisguide you into thinking that the Conservatives are much bctter. A t the mo-ment. there ar e 277 Conservatives MPs and of these only a dcpresdngly smallnumber have had dim authority or executive responsibility i any signiracant enter-

Little wonder that our major industries have been run into the ground. A re-

ii

I~I~

~

~

I

prise.

i

ce n t survey published in the Fina ncial Times compared output per man in ourhasic industries with ou tput per ma n in a number o f other European countries.L e t me quote some of the figures. Airl ines: Britain f 1.ooO output per man,weragc of the others f 15.960; Aerospace: Britain f7.169, others f12,598;Hailways: Britain f3.156. others f6.078; Shipbuilding: Britain f3.700. others.CY.80h: Steel: Britain f8.068. others f 16.907; Transport : Bri tain f3.316.others f 16.900;Util ities: Britain f 10.568.others f29,630. ou need a nationalconspiracy to produce such disgraceful, such shameful figures. A nd when appor-tioning blame. start by looking to the top.I can understand that the great political Ministers such as the ForeignSecretary or the Hom e Secretary. should be drawn from the Houses of Parlia-imenl. but it is perfectly evident that our Prime Ministe r should not be restricted

to pick ing his main executive team from a limited number of MPs, but should befree to pick from the 56 mill ion citizens of the nation. Please do not think that 1am advocat ing n Government of businessmen. No.We must dra w from the bestin al l walks o f l i fe- he Civil Service, the Universities. the Trade Unions. aswell as from industry and from commerce.5. I1 is not b y chance that most democratic wun vies have an executive. a judiciary

an d IWO chambers to their Parliament. We are constantly being reminded thatdemocratic countries need the checks and balances provided b y such a system.Unfortunately here, in Rritain. one of ou r Parliam entary chambers, the Houseof Lords. has lost much of its credibil ity and. despite the wisdom and the quality

of many o f it s members, has become principally ornamental. It w ould be naiveto hclievc that our senior chamber in Parliament could retain credibil ity when7% of i ls members are there due to the hereditary system and many of theremainder are there as a mark of respect at the end of their careers. We need astrong. vital and nationally respected second chamber. W ithou t it, the power ofthe House of Comm ons goes unlimited and uncontrolled. Because ofth e lack o fefl'ective ch ecks and balances. a majority vote in th e House of Commons canhring iihm any change. no matter how fundamental. to the political. economic.lcg;il :ind social systems of this country.

So the House of L ords should assume the authority of a senate. I ts membersshould he elected. albeit b y a som ewhat different process to that used in electingtnemhers of the House of Comm ons, and i n this respect, we have much to learnfrom the US and the French constitutions. O ur particular tradition w u ld berespected by incorpora ting a system whereby hereditary peers would elect fromm m ng themselves a given num ber of representatives to this senior chamber,And our particular tradition must be respected because a nation which losesrespect for it s traditions and for its heritage i s a nation which has lost its way.There are hu t a few o f the fundamental changes that are needed to unite the na-

lion and to harness it s energies. Without them. there can be no worthwhile andlasting British economic recovery.

Documents

A Critical Look at the Constitutional Structure of Britain