A Referendum Constitution

The recent debacle over the referendum on the Lisbon Treaty raises the interesting Constitutional question of whether we have or should have a referendum constitution - i.e. that is one where a the people can be consulted on important issues via a referendum. Opponents of referenda argue that our Parliamentary democracy is not a referendum constitution. Logically they are right since Parliament is supposed to be supreme and the result of any referendum, even if its enabling Bill specified that the result would be mandatory upon the Government, could be overturned immediately by a new act of Parliament.

Note however that I said "Parliament is supposed to be supreme". Legally Parliament is not supreme as any Act of Parliament can be vetoed by the Queen "La Reigne pas le vault!!" and the queen can rule by Orders in Council.

I think we should have a referendum constitution and a real democracy and this is how I propose it could be effected with minimal constitutional change.

1) Make the Monarchy legally constitutional - i.e. the sovereign is stripped of all formal powers over parliament privy Council, and of patronage.


2) Elect a president to assume the current powers of the crown (possibly with some modification in terms of patronage) with the expectation that those powers will be used by the President acting as he sees fit.

3) Elect a House of Lords and revoke the Parliaments Acts 1911 and 1949. The Lords would be elected by PR to a 100 seat House of Lords. This would be on a national or regional basis Individuals would have to be qualified by age (50+ and 70-) to stand and require a substantial list of voter's signatures as nominees to stand. An individual could present himself for election by calling himself a Party e.g. we could have the Martin Bell Party. Each party would have a priority list of candidates being elected according to the party's %vote and their position on the list.
The house of Lords would be given a new power to send a Bill out toReferendum. Eitherthe whole Bill or a part of it or the whole Bill in independent parts. For Example the Lisbon Treaty could have been sent for referendum in parts - e.g. Q.MV. European President, Foreign Minister, common defence policy.

4) Elect fewer MPs (about 300) on a multi-member PR basis with a top up system to ensure that each party had representation in the commons according to its vote. The top up MPS would be allocated a constituency to represent - probably the one they stood in.

EG. if a Labour MP was elected for Newcastle but the Lib Dem came a close second he would become a top up MP and represent Newcastle as a top up MP. The Top Up MPs would be selected in order of the % vote they received in the constituency in which they stood. Voters could vote for individual candidates or parties with each party prioritising their candidates. If 40% of voters voted labour each of the 4 Labour candidates would get 10 % of the votes, if one of the labour candidates also received a 10% personal vote from the remaining voters he would be the Labour candidate elected. The other 3 seats would be filled by the top up mechanism. The full example is :-

Result of Voting in Newcastle Constituency

Labour Jeremy Beecham cand 2 cand 3 cand4 total =50%
20% 10 % 1 0 % 10%
Lib Dem David Turner cand 2 cand 3 cand 4 total = 40%
15 % 10% 10 % 10%
Conservative An Idiot cand 2 3 cand 4 total= 4%
1 % 1% 1% 1 %
Green David Bellamy cand2 cand 3 cand 4 total = 6%
4.5% 0.5% 0.5 % 0.5%

Nationally the result was -

Labour total =40%

Lib Dem total = 34%

Conservative total= 22%

Others total = 4%

So of the 300 seats Labour get 120, Lib Dems 102, Conservatives 88 and others 4%

The 120 Labour seats would be allocated by taking the 120 Labour candidates with the highest % vote and allocating them to the seat in which they stood, some of these seats would have 2 or more labour members.
Then the Lib Dem seats would be allocated on the same basis and so on.
In some cases all the seats would be allocated in that seat so the top up MP would be allocated to anotherseatwith the highest vote for that party. Thereare some possible mathematical oddities but if he principle of 10& of the vote gets you 10% of the MPs is applied all is correct - there might be MPs without a constituency bur for example David Bellamy could act as the MP for all Green Party Voters.

Nick Clegg a Disaster

Yesterday Nick Clegg did a wonderful performance of the Grand Old Duke of York! He has led us straight into an obvious ambush unti all he could do in the end was order his troops to lie down falt on the floor of the House of Commons with their hands over their ears - We had three stalwart leaders and another 12 troopswho sacrificed theselves to do the right thing I am only sorry that the rest of the backbench had not the courage to do the same. THis was a disaster that has ben clear to me for some time - this is my reply to Nick when he announced the policy on the 14th February (I expext he sent Gordon a valentine that day too!):-

I am very disappointed that our party should be using such devious 'Newspeak' with regard to a referendum for the EU Constituton. 'A real vote on Europe' is clearly no such thing but a way to coherce people to agree to the constitution because they are afraid of the alternative option of withdrawal.The so called `Treaty' is a constitution in all but name. WE are being asked to agree it even though the most important aspects of it - viz the powers of the new European President have not even been defined yet!!I would vote for the Constitution in a referendum - even though the CAP and the democratic deficit have not been properly reformed by it - but why can we not have a more sophisticated vote than a simple yes or no. I.E. a series of questions on the major issues in the constitution (QMV, President, Foreign Minister, commondefence policy etc) If some of them are approved and some rejected we will at least have an idea what kind of EU the people of Europe actually want and those elements that are approved can be implemented.

David Turner - Newcastle City Party