UK General Discussion: Rishecession

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Course Keirrection
Love's Labour's Lost

[Neo-Malthusian Misanthrope]

You guys didn't watch Severance, huh?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

You guys didn't watch Severance, huh?

Never heard of this show. But I support your proposal now.

[Lumine]

I can't think of a brief title for it, but as a concept, I find the meme that Starmer has a captured genie giving him infinite wishes since c. 2021 rather hilarious.

[Pericles]

Course Keirrection

Ooh I like this one.

[brucejoel99]

If the subtitle of the first megathread under the next Labour government isn't "Chaos, now (finally!) featuring Ed Miliband", Talk Elections has failed as a community.

Still accurate!

[Torrain]

“The Toolmaker’s Son”

“The only thing we have to Keir, is Keir itself”.

“The Starm before the storm”

[afleitch]

'Rishing the End' has to come first surely. Even if for just a few weeks.

[CumbrianLefty]

For those who recall The Candidate, maybe "What Do We Do Now"?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

'Rishing the End' has to come first surely. Even if for just a few weeks.

I Rish I Already Was in California?

[Frodo]

With the majority Labour is set to win in a few weeks, it would be political malpractice not to do something about the House of Lords.  Perhaps replacing it with something more closely resembling a Senate:

House of Lords to face ‘immediate modernisation’ under a Labour government

[brucejoel99]

With the majority Labour is set to win in a few weeks, it would be political malpractice not to do something about the House of Lords.  Perhaps replacing it with something more closely resembling a Senate:

House of Lords to face ‘immediate modernisation’ under a Labour government

"Immediate modernisation"

Although Labour recognises the good work of many peers who scrutinise the government and improve the quality of legislation passed in Parliament, reform is long over-due and essential. Too many peers do not play a proper role in our democracy. Hereditary peers remain indefensible. And because appointments are for life, the second chamber of Parliament has become too big.

The next Labour government will therefore bring about an immediate modernisation, by introducing legislation to remove the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords. Labour will also introduce a mandatory retirement age. At the end of the Parliament in which a member reaches 80 years of age, they will be required to retire from the House of Lords.

Labour will ensure all peers meet the high standards the public expect of them, and we will introduce a new participation requirement as well as strengthening the circumstances in which disgraced members can be removed. We will reform the appointments process to ensure the quality of new appointments and will seek to improve the national and regional balance of the second chamber.

Whilst this action to modernise the House of Lords will be an improvement, Labour is committed to replacing the House of Lords with an alternative second chamber that is more representative of the regions and nations. Labour will consult on proposals, seeking the input of the British public on how politics can best serve them.

Translation: goodbye hereditary peers & hello 80-year age cap (aka goodbye Tory Lords), but absolutely nothing more. Any further reforms being longer-term that aren't guaranteed in the first 5-year Labour Parliament means there'll be no further reforms, certainly nothing on the scale of replacing the current Lords with an elected regional Second Chamber, since Lords reform is Labour's go-to issue to hype-up in opposition only to shrug & move on from when the time comes to actually deal with it in government. Cleaning-up the last Labour government's hereditary peer mess & bandaging it with an age cap feels like blatant reform for reform's sake after they so teasingly commissioned a detailed Lords reform plan by Gordon Brown.

[Sol]

Is there anything stopping a government from simply abolishing the House of Lords? That seems like a preferable alternative to some awkward Australian Senate-type situation.

[Torrain]

Is there anything stopping a government from simply abolishing the House of Lords? That seems like a preferable alternative to some awkward Australian Senate-type situation.

The Lords has to vote through the legislation - and they pay much less attention to convention when it comes to their own reform/abolition. The only way to get around this is to invoke the Parliament Act, and bring the legislation through two years in a row (which lets the Lords be circumvented) - which takes so much time and wrangling that most governments move to compromise instead.

There’s a reason even Blair, at the height of his power, gave up halfway through, and left us with “let’s elect 96 hereditary peers via by-election in perpetuity”.

The Lords do provide a handbrake on some of the worse government excesses (they’re the main reason the Rwanda policy didn’t get off the ground, literally, before the election), so I think full abolition would be met with reluctance within Whitehall - particularly as they’re basically the only check on a parliament that cannot be bound by a Supreme Court or head of state who lacks an electoral mandate of their own.

[Alcibiades]

It would also be incredibly unusual for a democracy the size of the UK to have a unicameral legislature — and there are compelling reasons for retaining the upper house when a government with a majority in the Commons already has so few checks on its power.

[Torrain]

100% to the above. It’s also fundamentally useful to both front and backbenchers to have the Lords around.

The frontbench know they can blame watered down legislation on the Lords, and dangle peerages to their foot-soldiers. And backbenchers tend to chafe when you suggest their will might be overridden by senators with their own mandate.

Pragmatically - the Lords is also a really good source for ministers. Bringing Cameron back *felt* surreal, but he’s almost certainly the best Foreign Sec of the past 14 years. To take another example, Baroness Goldie ended up as the longest-serving minister in MOD, surviving from 2019-23 amid significant churn.

Also - not to go all “Designated Survivor”, but in terms of continuity of government, there are dozens of competent peers who could be drafted for an emergency government, and dozens more created instantly in the event of an attack on Westminster that left us without a functioning lower chamber.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It can also be useful to have retired politicians of a certain level who still wish to contribute a bit around: they can add perspective and a lot of useful detail and both things have value in a revising chamber. This was particularly apparent in the case of the Wilson government: a lot of former Wilson cabinet ministers, and even junior ministers (e.g. Goronwy Roberts), took later appointments to the Lords seriously and put the hours in while they were still capable. This wasn't always in the loosely defined Labour interest either: Dick Marsh was a strong supporter of the Thatcher government in the Lords, which then made his opposition to the precise manner in which the Major government chose to privatize the railways all the more telling.

Against that, of course, a lot of Lords are truly useless. It's an odd chamber.

[JimJamUK]

Personally, I’d favour a ‘House of Experts’ which is able to offer expert advice and amendments. You wouldn’t need to abolish the current House of Lords, but rather gradually change it by getting rid (by death or law) of the hereditary peers and party political appointees. The power of the Lords to block and delay legislation would be reduced and future appointments would be made on merit and expertise rather than political affiliations. Basically it would be there to improve legislation and ask the Commons to think again, but no more than that.

An elected House of Lords is my idea of hell and I’d rather we just abolish it completely or bring back the born to rule hereditary peers.

[Torrain]

Personally, I’d favour a ‘House of Experts’ which is able to offer expert advice and amendments. You wouldn’t need to abolish the current House of Lords, but rather gradually change it by getting rid (by death or law) of the hereditary peers and party political appointees. The power of the Lords to block and delay legislation would be reduced and future appointments would be made on merit and expertise rather than political affiliations. Basically it would be there to improve legislation and ask the Commons to think again, but no more than that.

An elected House of Lords is my idea of hell and I’d rather we just abolish it completely or bring back the born to rule hereditary peers.

I think your House of Experts is what Labour are gesturing towards (eliminate hereditaries etc) - but won't come close to finishing the job.

Making the appointments committee (HOLAC) independent, and merit-based, would cut a lot of the rot out, but I'm not sure a majority government is going to sign that kind of power away - would probably need to be some sort of Lab-Lib coalition that's been struck on constitutional reform.

At bare minimum, we should give HOLAC power to flat-out reject political appointees - we shouldn't stand for another Eugeny Lebedev situation, where the HOLAC rejects a peer on advice from MI5, and then is overridden by the PM on personal grounds, ever again.

[CumbrianLefty]

Getting rid of the remaining hereditaries from the HoL and streamlining the rest (I know that age is a pretty crude instrument here, but its sheer size was becoming pretty unwieldy) is certainly something. The fact remains that some sort of second chamber is useful for all sorts of reasons - and whilst on the surface an attractive option, having it elected will inevitably create legitimacy fights with the HoC.

So maybe slow but steady reform isn't actually the worst option here. Agree fully on an independent oversight on new appointments - Lebedev was indeed a genuine scandal.

[JimJamUK]

I think your House of Experts is what Labour are gesturing towards (eliminate hereditaries etc) - but won't come close to finishing the job.

My concern with Labour, luckily long term by the looks of it, is their movement towards supporting an elected House of Lords, quite likely a significant malapportioned one. I’m instinctively in favour of a democratically elected government that is able to implement its agenda. An elected House of Lords would have a much greater ability to challenge the House of Commons and if it has a different composition it could lead to many impasses. This would be particularly problematic if it’s elected with a different electoral system and especially so if there is some sort of US Senate style malapportionment that delivers wrong winner results. I’m sure there will be fellow posters who view greater limits on the government as a good thing, but as a democratic purist I’d rather Labour didn't win a majority in the House of Commons and then legislate away the ability of the House of Commons to pass laws.

[icc]

I think your House of Experts is what Labour are gesturing towards (eliminate hereditaries etc) - but won't come close to finishing the job.

My concern with Labour, luckily long term by the looks of it, is their movement towards supporting an elected House of Lords, quite likely a significant malapportioned one. I’m instinctively in favour of a democratically elected government that is able to implement its agenda. An elected House of Lords would have a much greater ability to challenge the House of Commons and if it has a different composition it could lead to many impasses. This would be particularly problematic if it’s elected with a different electoral system and especially so if there is some sort of US Senate style malapportionment that delivers wrong winner results. I’m sure there will be fellow posters who view greater limits on the government as a good thing, but as a democratic purist I’d rather Labour didn't win a majority in the House of Commons and then legislate away the ability of the House of Commons to pass laws.

I think the Clegg HoL reforms from the coalition era were pretty much ideal, but by that point the man himself was so tainted that the chance for changes was lost.

[Frodo]

It would also be incredibly unusual for a democracy the size of the UK to have a unicameral legislature — and there are compelling reasons for retaining the upper house when a government with a majority in the Commons already has so few checks on its power.

I think a proposal replacing the House of Lords with a chamber more closely resembling the Canadian Senate but retaining the seats allocated to the Church of England (aka, the Lords Spiritual) would be a reasonable compromise.  It is ultimately something the United Kingdom probably will end up with.  

[Blue3]

How much influence will progressive politics (such as what Corbyn advocated for) have in a new Labour government?

[CumbrianLefty]

Corbyn "advocated for" quite a few things. Some of his domestic concerns may actually get a hearing, but the foreign policy stuff is for the most part right out.