Introduction
I had a dream. It was in September, before the party conferences. Gordon Brown and his Labour Party had a great lead in the polls. There was an opportunity to call an election and go to the people. From the point of view of the Brownites, they wanted to show that they could create an administration different in kind from the top-down control-freakery of the Tony Blair years, and deliver real change - in terms of education, especially. That is why they were for it.
My point of view was different: I thought maybe this is the last chance for a federal, democratic Britain. Many would say that the chance was already lost, that the end of the union is just a matter of time, and is the best outcome anyway (a view that both Roger Scruton and Tom Nairn have arrived at). But dreams are entitled to be impractical.
Anyway, if there was going to be an election it had to be called fast and there had to be a really good reason - and, oh yes, agitation over inheritance tax as well as Europe needed to be addressed. So I wrote this. A dream mixed up with reality. It is not my "programme". For me independent nuclear disarmament by ending the Trident programme and no ID cards would be at the top of any manifesto alongside the need for democracy and liberty. My aim was to try and see how a democratic agenda could be expressed within the existing language of British politics. Neither republicanism (to take the most obvious example) or full-bloodied Europeanism can currently be expressed within it; they are fully oppositional causes outside the parameters of the possible (I am attached to both). I am not saying this is me, nor am I saying it is Brown: it is a dream, of what the younger Brown who called for a new constitutional settlement in 1992 might have said in his dreams...
A system problem
Fellow citizens. Please allow me to ask for twenty-five minutes of your time in this exceptional television broadcast. I have asked the Queen to dissolve parliament and have called for a general election to be held on Thursday 25 October 2007.
Anthony Barnett is the founder of openDemocracy and originator of its OurKingdom blog
Among Anthony Barnett's recent articles in openDemocracy/
OurKingdom:
"Churchillism: from Thatcher and the Falklands to Blair and Iraq" (30 March 2007)
"What will Gordon Brown do now?" (11 May 2007)
"Gordon Brown: an intellectual without an intelligentsia" (26 June 2007)
"Liberate by de-liberating, vote by compulsion" (6 October 2007)When I became prime minister on 27 June it was my hope to lead the country for two years, to show you, the voters, what I could do. I therefore owe you an explanation for my change of mind. When I have set this out I will also headline for you some of the new directions for Britain I wish to pursue.
Before I became leader of the Labour Party I made only one promise: a new reform act to modernise the way we are governed. When I became prime minister, my first priority in my first week was to present to the cabinet and then to our parliament the green paper on the governance of Britain. This points towards a great reform programme for our democracy. I took these steps because in my judgment it is an overriding priority to recreate fundamental trust in the way Britain is governed.
The government of which I was a leading member played a part in the loss of trust. There was the long investigation into allegations of cash for peerages. More important, there were deep divisions over the information used to justify the liberation of Iraq from Saddam Hussein. Information that proved to be false. I was part of this. I apologise for it and when all our British troops have completed their duty there, there will be a full inquiry.
But the problem predated us. The previous Conservative administration of John Major was widely associated with allegations of sleaze. Before him, the way the poll tax was pushed through undermined belief in parliament. My conclusion is a simple one: we have a "system problem". Apologies do not address this. We are on the verge of a chronic and irreversible collapse of trust in our system of government, however honest the people are who run it.
A country cannot be governed well, nor have confidence in the future, if there is hardly any trust in the integrity of its institutions and leaders. Such a country has ceased to believe in itself.
We have experienced this loss of trust again with the run on Northern Rock. It was - and is - my overriding priority to re-establish trust in the governance of Britain. It is essential and it is a priority. I believe that the initial steps I took, both in setting out on a programme of reform and in leading the government through the summer, helped to achieve this. Now these initial achievements are being undermined.
I refer in particular to the growing campaign for a referendum over whether we should sign the new reform treaty of the European Union. Provided I get in writing the terms already agreed in the summer negotiations, and secure our "red lines" I am of the view we do not need a referendum. The changes involved for us are relatively minor and broadly positive as Britain will benefit from a more efficient and less wasteful EU. Furthermore, the treaty is in my view significantly different from the constitutional treaty on which we promised to hold a referendum. In its spirit and name that was a constitution for Europe, one that demanded we think of our membership and sovereignty in a new way. This treaty is not. I am quite clear in my view of this and therefore I am going to sign the treaty and, as I say, provided that the terms have not been changed from what I have been led to expect, I will ask parliament to debate and ratify it without a referendum.
However, it is now clear that for the six months of the ratification process in parliament that will follow the charge will be made again and again that the government is in breech of its word and has broken its trust. I understand also that there is great public nervousness about the growth and influence of the EU. However, it is a fact that we cannot, even if we wanted, have the referendum that was promised two years ago. Because all the countries of the EU have agreed after intense negotiations in which we played a full part: agreed that what is now in the treaty is the way we want to run the EU more efficiently. For Britain to vote against this now in a referendum would, in effect, be to vote against the EU itself. In my judgment neither Scotland nor Wales would so vote, but England might and we would be risking the union of the United Kingdom itself.
An alternative is to hold a referendum on the principle of membership. This is what the leader of the Liberal Democrats has proposed. But this would be seen as a trick. I am confident we would get a majority, but it would be a small one and it would not in fact settle the issue, on the contrary it would leave a large section of the population seething with a sense of being cheated while the majority are likely to feel that that their good will had been exploited. It would fail to staunch the loss of trust and is all too likely to increase it.
But there is no point in my appealing to the opposition parties not to attack the government for going back on its word. I reject the charge completely. But the temptation for the opposition and the press is too great. They may not want to contribute to the corrosion of belief and the trashing of public life but they will not be able to help themselves. It is a perfect example of our system problem.
A democratic, written constitution
What, then, can we do to restore the trust we need - and do fast?
In my speech presenting the green paper to parliament I said that we should all consider the possibility of moving towards our own democratic, written British constitution. I have now come to the view that we have no alternative and this is something the government must now initiate. I will come in a moment to the question of how we do this - which is at least as important as the question of what it contains.
A written constitution will do four things for us;
First, it will set out our liberties and rights and duties as citizens.
Second, it will set out how power is distributed: between our nations, between the local and the national, and between parliament, judges and the government itself.
Third, it will provide a basis for a pledge of allegiance for our young people and new citizens; it will be a means of saying what it is to be British in the modern world.
Fourth it will set out what sovereignty we share with our partners in the EU and what we do not. Like France and Germany, we will have out own constitutional rules and our own British court defining what powers the EU can and cannot have in the United Kingdom.
There will, of course, be a referendum on our own constitution and before that an intense, countrywide debate about it. Instead of a destructive, whining argument about defending "red lines" and protecting our sovereignty we will enjoy a constructive debate setting out our own positive definition of our relationship with the EU.
Let me put it like this. A constitutional process is indeed taking place in the European Union. I accept this. Only it long predated the present treaty. This process will not turn the EU into a superstate. But it will impact on the sovereignty of its members. To be part of this necessarily rule-based club, when we ourselves in the United Kingdom have no equivalent rules of our own, leaves us vulnerable. This sense of weakness is ill-suited to a country that has as proud a record as any in contributing to the best and fighting the worst of European history. It contributes to a sense of unease and suspicion of the EU and sours our relations with our neighbours. To restore trust in our own government we must create trust in our relationship with the European Union - that is now the source of many of our trading laws.
I will sign the treaty on behalf of the British government. There will then be a general election. I will ask you to return Labour to government so that we can ratify the treaty in a normal parliamentary way. At the same time we will initiate a process that will lead to our having our own British constitution in which we define for ourselves what sovereignty we share with the EU and what power it can and cannot exercise over us. This will then be put to you in a referendum. The aim is not just to create a situation where we can trust our relationship to Europe it will create a new, popular, democratically worked through framework for public life and government: our own constitution, the constitution of Britain.
The process of creation
I now turn to our new British constitution, and what the process of arriving at it will be like.
To begin with, the terms. There will be four prior conditions for the process which will be set out by parliament. These are terms which I believe have widespread support across the whole of the UK.
First, This will be a constitution for the Union of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The question of whether or not England should have its own parliament, and of whether the union should be a federal one, or whether for example, England can find its voice in regional assemblies, will need to be addressed and resolved, but within the union.
Second, our monarchy will continue to provide the head of state. The next monarch will pledge to defend the constitution at the coronation. We will not be distracted by debates about a republic.
Third, we will continue to have MPs who represent their constituents in parliament. Whether we should elect them in a more proportional fashion must be considered, but we will continue to have their direct representation in parliament. We will move from what is called the sovereignty of parliament to the sovereignty of the constitution, but the House of Commons will continue to be the sovereign law-making body.
Fourth, flexibility must be built into the new British constitution so that future generations can adapt it. I am confident we can find a way of creating a definition of how we wish to be governed which will be a spacious home and not a prison for later generations.
These conditions are part of the historic and defining achievements of this country over the last 400 years. These will be preserved and renewed by a written British constitution: the union, its monarchy, its constituency MPs and parliament and its flexibility.
Everything else will be debate and decided in the spirit of economy and simplicity: how our nations will relate to each other within the union, how the UK will relate to the EU, how we will set out our own bill of rights, how we will protect our liberties, how we will replace the second chamber - for example we might want to include in it a jury of regular citizen to help scrutinise whether legislation is clear and understandable; how we can ensure local government has real power; how we vote for our MPs; whether we should continue with an independent civil service when this seems to be contributing to poor government; how we can ensure that parliament can be effective in holding the government to account; and how we ensure the constitution is flexible and can grow and adapt.
This is a big agenda. Necessarily, some of it is technical. But the basic principles should be clear for all to understand. It will open with an introduction setting out our aspirations as a country that will inspire all our citizens.
The process of creating Britain's constitution will define the role of parliament, so we will need a constitutional convention that is greater than parliament while having many of members of parliament from all parties involved in it. I want everyone who is interested to be able to follow the debates and participate with their views. I want every school and college to be learning from the process and feeding into it. I want to see every region, town and borough hold meetings. I want us to use the web to help with feedback and discussion.
It seems to me that the process may take as much as three years from inception to ratification by referendum. I will create a small commission of mainly young people from all parties to report back to parliament by March 2008 as to how the process should be undertaken to ensure the greatest amount of participation, fair representation, open and clear identification of the choices and well-motivated recommendations, having themselves taken wide soundings across the public.
It is important that this is a deep and wide process for restoring trust in government. It has to proceed in parallel with the normal work of government. It will be undertaken outside the House of Commons, which must not be impeded, as there is much work of government to be done.
I am convinced that this is now an urgent matter. I want to lead a government that is re-establishing trust in Britain, not just its individuals but how it works, its standards and institutions.
A democratic renewal
I want now to describe briefly the aspects of the programme for government we will undertake if we are re-elected.
Thanks to Labour's decade in office, Britain has enjoyed a period of steady and continuous economic growth without precedent in our history. We face an immediate economic problem which is part of a wider global crisis. We have been through other crises and we will get through this one, because, thanks to our growth our fundamental economic situation will see us through. Our objective will be to continue to ensure steady growth of our economy. But we now need to grow in a new way, in a way that is modern, green and fair.
A critical issue here is housing. While we have grown the entire economy by more than 30% since 1997, house prices have more than doubled and sometimes quadrupled, i.e. risen by 400% This has created painful distortions. We must build more homes, flats and houses. We need them close to city centres to keep down the pressures of commuting and we will ensure that all new housing is carbon-neutral and that local government is free to make imaginative plans to ensure housing is spacious to live in and green in its impact.
But at the same time as releasing local initiative we need an overall approach to ensure Britain remains a competitive, global hub. In other words we have to grow. We cannot achieve this without better airports. Therefore we will initiate an open competition for how best to combine local flexibility with national planning to create an integrated air, rail, and road transport approach for Britain.
As the first step towards this, we will create a new London airport on the Medway / Thames estuary. It will replace Heathrow and will be linked by fast-rail and then cross-rail to all parts of London, and we want to have the first runway in place in time for the Olympics in 2012. Like many of you, I was struck by the fact that although we in Britain invented the railways our first high-speed track is short and goes to France and the first high-speed trains have been imported from Japan. Every major European country has a modern network of fast trains, except for us. We will therefore create a hi-speed Britain, a modern dedicated train network linking Scotland, the North of England, Wales, the Midlands, London, the new airport and the west country and we will integrate this with intelligently planned regional airports. The whole will be dedicated to maximising our business network with the world while making internal flights redundant, diminishing road traffic and aiming for carbon neutrality in its impact. As Heathrow is closed we will build a small, high-density city there, a "little London" to take housing pressure off southern England, along with the eco-cities across the country as a whole.
If this growth will be modern and green how can we ensure that it is fair? I just want to address one aspect of taxation which has also been distorted by the rise in home prices, inheritance tax. In an age of unprecedented growth of super-incomes the Tories want to abolish inheritance tax and make the divisions of inherited wealth forever permanent! The idea is ridiculous. However, what has happened is that a modest couple who have managed to buy their home and would like to pass its value onto their children may well find that the inflation in prices means their estate will need to pay a significant amount of tax at exactly the time when their children need to pay a high price to get into or improve their housing.
So, while we will retain the current threshold for inheritance tax of £300,000 below which nothing is paid, we will in addition exempt all inheritance tax from the value of all bequests worth up £200,000 per person and all bequests made to a registered British charity, provided it is not a trust that benefits the family of the deceased. Thus if someone wishes to distribute all their estate to their children and grandchildren in portions worth up to £200,000 or less, none of it will be taxed. We want people to be able to make the most of their opportunities to earn, we also want to prevent the accumulation of inequality if we can. This way people can decide for themselves if they wish to pass on their wealth more widely and if they do, it will not be taxed. Until now we have expected individuals to accumulate and the state to redistribute. Now, we will encourage individuals to distribute their wealth for themselves.
On education, health, and the training of young people so that they get into work, we are already working hard to create practical improvements. Many of these are detailed and will be set out in our manifesto. The headings are, as I said, to be modern, sustainable and fair. There are two aspects of this I want to mention now. The Conservative Party has made great emphasis on what it calls our "broken society". I do not think that our entire society is broken. I do agree that there is a problem with respect to clusters of communities where there are deep, dangerous and intractable problems, where the loss of a decent family life is creating damaged children who grow up to become a threat to themselves and those around them. I welcome especially the Conservative leader's emphasis that these problems need long-term solutions and a steady focus. This really is an area where we can be working together and I want us to do so.
But I think he went too far and was sensationalist by alleging that there is "anarchy" on our streets. A society which can argue about - because it is indeed important to our lives - whether our local governments should collect household waste once a week or once a fortnight is not one where anarchy rules.
This kind of language creates unnecessary fear. But this brings me, finally, to what fear is necessary. It is odd to denounce anarchy yet refuse the basic measure needed for security, identity cards.
And this also brings us back to the question of trust. ID cards are now being described in the most alarmist ways as a mechanism of total government oversight and spying, the creation of a database state founded on the governments distrust of its citizens. We have to trust ourselves. But we also have to trust our police and allow them to ask us to identify ourselves if they think this is necessary. This is especially important in an age of illegal migration and terrorism.
This also is a constitutional issue, but it is one that cannot wait. The government will proceed with ID cards but I want to make it clear that these will be like an enhanced form of a passport only. They will be a biometric identity secure against forgery for you to use when you want to confirm your identity or when this is asked of you. It will not be a catch-all device. It will not create a central database of personal records. We will not create a surveillance state. No government which so distrusts its citizens can expect them to trust it in return.
It has become a more dangerous world. We can deal with the dangers without endangering or own liberties. I hope you will give me the privilege of serving you as prime minister in this cause, proceeding to protect the growth and improvement of our way of life while at the same time launching a democratic process to recast the framework of our government to preserve our liberties, extend our democracy, and renew our institutions in the age of globalisation.
