If there is one way my policy research has changed me this year, it’s that I no longer demand sweeping radical changes. That’s not what people actually want. They want good government. They’ll support and demand radical sweeping change if that’s what it takes to get good government, but as I’ve found, it’s not actually necessary - and not particularly desirable.
This is something I’ve bumped into while exploring the options for leaving the ECHR. It's a huge can of worms and it doesn’t necessarily get us where we want to be. Rather than big radical gestures, there are smaller, more precisely amendments we can make that will get us closer to our objective of a sensible and fair immigration system.
This applies in many other areas. We don’t need a sweeping Great Repeal Bill to kill off DEI. According to James McSweeney, if we wish to eliminate DEI policies from British life, it would be very easy to do. If we remove Part 11 from the Equality Act 2010, almost every diversity scheme becomes illegal overnight.
With this adjustment, any private or public body pursuing diversity targets would become liable to near-bottomless lawsuits for violating the Equality Act’s prohibition on discrimination on grounds of race, sex, religion, gender identity or sexuality. Overnight, statements of intent to alter any group’s share of the workforce would become damning legal evidence. The entire diversity bureaucracy would be severely damaged.
This is what I’m finding in my search for solutions for The Manifesto Project. A whole raft of bogus immigration claims can be cut out by selective amendments to the Modern Slavery Act.
As such, I am always going to look more favourably on parties and pressure groups who actually do the work and set out their plans. I happen to know that Restore Britain and Advance UK are looking at a Great Repeal bills, as a Reform, but the more I explore this idea, the more dreadful it sounds. The idea of unpicking thirty years of constitutional evolution in a single act is both dangerous and absurd.
There is certainly a principled case of doing this (carefully) and, in spirit, it’s one I agree with, but there can be no half-measures. It is essentially a complete reworking of the British constitution. But it is a long term project that cannot be rushed and will require a long transition. I do not support embarking on such a transition unless there is a widely understood and a properly detailed vision of what it is we are transitioning to.
On this, the right is muddled. Farage advocates for a British Bill of Rights while Braverman et all calls for a reversion to Common Law - while Starkey and the restorationists, supported by Lowe and Habib, are calling for a reversion to the pre-Blair constitutional norms without regard for how the British relationship with the state has evolved.
The pre-Blair constitution was contingent on a functioning Church, parliament and monarchy. A reversion to 1996 fails to take into account the evolution of politics in the internet age. The people won't stand for a reversion to a quasi-aristocratic model - and certainly not without a Christian revival which is not likely to happen. The nation has evolved and so must the constitution.
As such, I cannot support ECHR withdrawal etc until I see a careful, credible plan, a coherent vision of what follows, and a mitigation strategy for the very serious political and economic consequences. But when you're dealing with people who deny there are serious political and economic consequences, you cannot expect an honest appraisal of the risks or a credible plan. Consequently, I will oppose them. If offered the choice between a radical rabble with big ideas versus a collected, measured manifesto based on credible research, I will go with the latter.
It remains to be seen as to whether the Tory party will shape itself in that image or whether it will seek to compete on Reform’s terms. I actually don’t think it matters at this point. If they commit to leaving the ECHR, nobody will believe them, and Reform is already offering that. But if they don’t they have an upward struggle convincing people that a more moderate approach will work and that they are the people to deliver it.
As such, it looks like Rishi Sunak blew the last chance to do things in a measured and intelligent way. Calling an early general election ensured that we never got to see whether the Safety of Rwanda Act (disapplying international law and the Human Rights Act) would work. With public patience at an end, any talk of more discerning reforms just looks like more procrastination and betrayal.
With at in mind, the Manifesto Project feels more like an academic exercise. There is apparently no demand from the parties for coherent policies, and voters seem to prefer vibes over substances. With Reform galloping away in the polls, they have no incentive to change or improve.
I think there are consequences to this. Radical, sweeping reforms have a way of eating their instigators. Brexit certainly consumed the Tory party, and any party taking on the ECHR mess will likely bite off more than it can chew. They’ll squander political capital they don’t have on distractions. There is a growing consensus already that Reform simply aren’t up to the job, and might not even last a term before falling apart - begging the more troubling question of… what then?
Hi Pete,
I value your thoughts and insights into the issues the Nation is currently facing.
However, I’m not so sure regarding your concerns about dismantling the systemic changes to the core of our system of government that have happened over the last 30 years.
It is my opinion that the Blair administration set in place, if not in stone, so many fundamental changes that removed power from Parliament to unelected and unaccountable bodies such as QUANGOS and his newly created Supreme Court, superseding the Law Lords and twined British law into European law- which start out from differing basis, in the UK you can do anything you like if it’s not illegal, in Euro law it’s the opposite- and that has to, must, go.
We need to return governance to the people, via their elected representatives so we restore accountability.
Currently the Supreme Court, and the hundreds of NGO’s are accountable only to themselves.
As Tony Benn once said (in précis) “who are you, who gave you power, and how can it be removed from you”?
I sincerely believe that everything that Blair did needs to be erased, 30 years later we are still finding tripwires in it.
Still love your work Peter, just my opinion.
If Reform gain power, they will soon experience the sort of problems Theresa May immediately faced trying to square the circle of Brexit. Every well-heeled activist lawyer (Jolyon Maughron, Gina Miller etc.), ably backed-up by the civil service, academia, the legacy media and three bitterly resentful opposition parties, will embark on a co-ordinated campaign of lawfare, smears and misinformation designed to destabilise the government and back-up up the gears of governance such that they can barely achieve a fraction of their intentions.
Consequently, having a well-considered list of small, more achevable "plan B" actions such as those in your manifesto becomes increasingly valuable over time. I don't think what you're doing is wasted effort at all.
The trick will be to get these ideas in front of Nigel Farage (and possibly Danny Kruger) and profess that he'd implicitly suggested that such prodigiously brilliant tactical maneuvres were Farage's ideas all along.