Dr Daniel Pitt teaches at Sheffield University’s Department of Politics and International Relations.
New Labour’s constitutional reforms are coming home to roost. Most recently, the consequences are being felt with the new Hate Crime Act and the sorry saga of the fall of the House of Sturgeon.
Sir John Major, in the 1990s, saw the disaster coming. He argued that they would lead to the breakup of the United Kingdom, as it would “fuel nationalism rather than stop it”, and that the new bodies would “generate resentment in England fuelled by the West Lothian Question”.
The new bodies have indeed been a platform for nationalist parties to make the case for the break-up of the Union.
Major also argued that these new bodies “would create a new layer of government which would be hungry for power”, the creation of which “would risk rivalry and conflict between these parliaments or assemblies and the parliament at Westminster.”
How true has this turned out to be? It may be politically useful for the Conservatives to bash the Labour Government’s wholly woeful underperformance of the NHS in Wales, or the SNP’s scandals and their terrible performance on education in Scotland; but this has the potential to fray the national fabric and diminish our shared identity.
Devolution in its New Labour form has been trialled and has been found to be an error. Under our constitutional tradition of parliamentary sovereignty, devolution is reversible, and Conservatives should make the arguments for it. But can we?
James Mill in 1858 wrote incorrectly that Edmund Burke “worked himself into an artificial admiration of the bare fact of existence; especially ancient existence. Everything was to be protected, not because it was good, but, because it existed.”
This misunderstands conservatism. It is not relativist; it does, however, understand that there will be differences across time and between places.
Yet this line criticism of conservative philosophy (especially of the Burkean kind) does, strangely, seem to hold sway over some Conservatives.
For example Nevil Johnson, in his chapter in Layton-Henry’s edited book Conservative Party Politics, argued unconvincingly that being the ‘protagonists’ of constitutional reform presents a serious dilemma for Conservative philosophy because they do not support “dry abstract principles”, and thus struggle to offer “an adequate explanation of deliberate change”.
I disagree: the non-attachment to dry abstract principles is actually a strength of conservative constitutional thought – especially when compared to the proffered alternative, namely an unthinking defence of whatever the status quo happens to be.
Yet that is precisely the attitude which seems to be held by some pro-devolution Conservatives: devolution exists, so Conservatives should support it, or even take credit for it. No matter that devolution (or more precisely, the devolution settlements associated with the New Labour) has been a disaster for this country.
Conservatives can indeed be in favour of constitutional change. The difference is that instead of distilling our blueprints for change from high theory, they should be informed by experience and the traditional materials of our constitution – put simply, trial and error with a strong preference for the tried and tested.
In other words: devolution has been a disaster, and the Conservative Party could and should correct this. Not all change is alike, and that restoring and deepening the Union would challenge the status quo does not make it simply equivalent to what the Blair Government did in the 1990s.
Moreover, it would fit into a long Tory tradition. Conservatives have been arguing against first Home Rule and then devolution for hundreds of years. This has been at times a thorny issue for the party, as Sir Robert Peel’s Maynooth grant (1845) and his defeat over Irish coercion in 1846 could testify.
Yet, during the great Lord Salisbury’s leadership, especially after 1885, the party was explicitly and self-consciously the party of the Union; in alliance with the Liberal Unionists and Irish Unionists, Tory governments of the day celebrated the label ‘Unionist’ as much, at least, as ‘Conservative’.
In our own time, Major’s far-sighted opposition to New Labour’s proposals stands in that same tradition. It is precisely because of the Burkean attitude – that any discrete proposal for reform should be assessed in light of its implications for the wider constitutional order, and our limited ability to foresee what knock-on effects a seemingly-innocuous change might have.
(Although in this case, in the words of Tam Dalyell, the problems with devolution were “predictable and predicted; foreseeable and foreseen”.)
This same attitude behoves Tories to be cautious reformers – or even un-reformers. Our handling of devolution should be prudent and pragmatic, even as we change the heading.
But it is vital to grasp that we can change the heading. Conservatives should not see themselves as destined to simply manage devolution, or any other poisoned chaliced bequeathed them by a progressive government. We should not succumb to the view that devolution is an inescapable ratchet – let alone that we should take what credit we can for turning it ourselves.
Instead, our party must strive to heal the tear in the Union, shore up the institutions that bind our country together, and set the United Kingdom on surer footing.
Dr Daniel Pitt teaches at Sheffield University’s Department of Politics and International Relations.
New Labour’s constitutional reforms are coming home to roost. Most recently, the consequences are being felt with the new Hate Crime Act and the sorry saga of the fall of the House of Sturgeon.
Sir John Major, in the 1990s, saw the disaster coming. He argued that they would lead to the breakup of the United Kingdom, as it would “fuel nationalism rather than stop it”, and that the new bodies would “generate resentment in England fuelled by the West Lothian Question”.
The new bodies have indeed been a platform for nationalist parties to make the case for the break-up of the Union.
Major also argued that these new bodies “would create a new layer of government which would be hungry for power”, the creation of which “would risk rivalry and conflict between these parliaments or assemblies and the parliament at Westminster.”
How true has this turned out to be? It may be politically useful for the Conservatives to bash the Labour Government’s wholly woeful underperformance of the NHS in Wales, or the SNP’s scandals and their terrible performance on education in Scotland; but this has the potential to fray the national fabric and diminish our shared identity.
Devolution in its New Labour form has been trialled and has been found to be an error. Under our constitutional tradition of parliamentary sovereignty, devolution is reversible, and Conservatives should make the arguments for it. But can we?
James Mill in 1858 wrote incorrectly that Edmund Burke “worked himself into an artificial admiration of the bare fact of existence; especially ancient existence. Everything was to be protected, not because it was good, but, because it existed.”
This misunderstands conservatism. It is not relativist; it does, however, understand that there will be differences across time and between places.
Yet this line criticism of conservative philosophy (especially of the Burkean kind) does, strangely, seem to hold sway over some Conservatives.
For example Nevil Johnson, in his chapter in Layton-Henry’s edited book Conservative Party Politics, argued unconvincingly that being the ‘protagonists’ of constitutional reform presents a serious dilemma for Conservative philosophy because they do not support “dry abstract principles”, and thus struggle to offer “an adequate explanation of deliberate change”.
I disagree: the non-attachment to dry abstract principles is actually a strength of conservative constitutional thought – especially when compared to the proffered alternative, namely an unthinking defence of whatever the status quo happens to be.
Yet that is precisely the attitude which seems to be held by some pro-devolution Conservatives: devolution exists, so Conservatives should support it, or even take credit for it. No matter that devolution (or more precisely, the devolution settlements associated with the New Labour) has been a disaster for this country.
Conservatives can indeed be in favour of constitutional change. The difference is that instead of distilling our blueprints for change from high theory, they should be informed by experience and the traditional materials of our constitution – put simply, trial and error with a strong preference for the tried and tested.
In other words: devolution has been a disaster, and the Conservative Party could and should correct this. Not all change is alike, and that restoring and deepening the Union would challenge the status quo does not make it simply equivalent to what the Blair Government did in the 1990s.
Moreover, it would fit into a long Tory tradition. Conservatives have been arguing against first Home Rule and then devolution for hundreds of years. This has been at times a thorny issue for the party, as Sir Robert Peel’s Maynooth grant (1845) and his defeat over Irish coercion in 1846 could testify.
Yet, during the great Lord Salisbury’s leadership, especially after 1885, the party was explicitly and self-consciously the party of the Union; in alliance with the Liberal Unionists and Irish Unionists, Tory governments of the day celebrated the label ‘Unionist’ as much, at least, as ‘Conservative’.
In our own time, Major’s far-sighted opposition to New Labour’s proposals stands in that same tradition. It is precisely because of the Burkean attitude – that any discrete proposal for reform should be assessed in light of its implications for the wider constitutional order, and our limited ability to foresee what knock-on effects a seemingly-innocuous change might have.
(Although in this case, in the words of Tam Dalyell, the problems with devolution were “predictable and predicted; foreseeable and foreseen”.)
This same attitude behoves Tories to be cautious reformers – or even un-reformers. Our handling of devolution should be prudent and pragmatic, even as we change the heading.
But it is vital to grasp that we can change the heading. Conservatives should not see themselves as destined to simply manage devolution, or any other poisoned chaliced bequeathed them by a progressive government. We should not succumb to the view that devolution is an inescapable ratchet – let alone that we should take what credit we can for turning it ourselves.
Instead, our party must strive to heal the tear in the Union, shore up the institutions that bind our country together, and set the United Kingdom on surer footing.