15.10.1998

Lords a-leaping

Labour’s Lady Margaret Jay, leader of the Lords, strongly hinted on BBC1’s Breakfast with Frost last Sunday that a royal commission would soon be set up to deal with reform of the House of Lords, where she sits as a life baroness.

Tory peers are incensed. Their constitutional powers are to be taken away from most of them - ie, those who inherited their titles due to dubious connections with centuries-dead royalty or the patronage of Lloyd George and his like. Many hereditary peers thus want to delay any reform, ostensibly only until there is a consensus amongst Westminster parties. According to the Tories, reform must go beyond mere abolition of the ‘hereditaries’. Tory constitutional spokesman Liam Fox is quoted as saying: “The government is still asking us to buy the removal of the hereditaries without setting out details of its stage-two reform” (The Observer October 11).

Labour is out to abolish the second chamber as a house of hereditary privilege with an inbuilt Tory majority. But this does not represent a blow for democracy. Blair wants to create a house of patronage with an inbuilt Labour majority.

The proposed royal commission will only start its work once a bill to abolish the right of hereditary peers to speak and vote in the House of Lords has been passed. This bill is to be introduced in the next queen’s speech. Labour’s ideas have included nominees from institutions like the Royal College of Physicians, as well as religious groups in addition to those of the ‘established’ Church of England.

The Tory line is of course completely hypocritical and opportunistic. Having consistently opposed any reform of the aristocratic side of the constitution, they now say the proposals do not go far enough. Nevertheless, their changed position is an indication of the extent to which Blair has been able to gain hegemony for his agenda of far-reaching constitutional change from above.

However, New Labour favours a gradual pace of reform of the House of Lords. In that way the sight of Tory peers defending their indefensible rights can be exploited by New Labour to the full. The royal commission is not even expected to report until mid-2000. According to The Guardian, once the hereditaries’ powers have been removed, the government “would hold off further changes while other constitutional changes ‘bedded down’” (October 12). And The Observer (October 11) reported that Jay wanted the new chamber’s role considered

“in the context of an evolving constitutional settlement, including devolution, possible reform of the voting system for the Commons, increasing legislation from Europe and the growth of regionalism”.

In complete contradistinction to Blair’s repackaging of the United Kingdom constitution, communists insist that the constitutional monarchy system, however it is reformed, must go. It can never provide for genuine self-determination for Scotland, Ireland and Wales. People are not citizens, but subjects of the crown. The Blairite reforms are certainly not designed to change that basic situation. They are intended to shore up the monarchical UK state.

However, his reforms will inevitably call into question the foundations of the constitution - most notably that of the monarch. Once the disgusting spectacle of those holding inherited parliamentary positions, the hereditaries of the House of Lords, is removed, there can be no logical basis for the monarchy. The Tories are right to warn of a Pandora’s box.

Unlike some who consider themselves revolutionaries and refuse to address constitutional questions in the here and now, preferring that they be left until later (during the revolution or maybe after it), communists insist that all democratic questions are the concern of our class from this moment. Partisans of the working class need to be clear: we are in favour of a real democratic challenge to the royal status quo, not bogus reforms. We need to raise the banner of republican democracy at every opportunity.

We are for the complete abolition of the House of Lords and are opposed to the ‘checks and balances’ on democracy through any second chamber. We stand for a federal republic of England, Scotland and Wales.

Tom Ball