I am a bit of a progressive traditionalist at heart. There is something quite comforting about having a House of Lords around: it provides a bit of cultural familiarity and that helps to hold society together, but even my trad side has to admit that it has become increasingly difficult to define the chamber’s democratic and legislative contribution to our contemporary society. We need a little more than a bit of comforting and now is the time to trigger change, which broadly speaking is where we have sat for some time with the reform agenda and the second chamber.
We are living in a world where the lines between citizen, government and nations is fast eroding and being replaced with networks of empowered individuals forming relationships and creating policy, and somewhere in this brave new world sits a redefinition of a constitution for the individual alongside a form of social leadership capable of legislating and collaborating rather than controlling. Of course we should insist that there should be a referendum on the future substance of a second chamber, a chamber that embraces this contemporary shift in social empowerment and adopts the strengths, and there are some, of what it is that we currently have. We should not let Clegg’s cohorts take the reform agenda away from us. OK, so his strategic advantage is he is in government, of a type, and we are in glorious opposition but we have not one option for the future of the Lords but three we are really going to be spoilt for choice and now I hear the PM saying we might not have a referendum after all – it’s evidently a bit expensive!
So back to our glorious opposition. Two points to mull over this week: first, now is not the time to take our foot off the pedal and get distracted from creating a contemporary Labour party capable of serving and providing the leadership for a motivated and mobilised society through a progressive form of governance and please don’t forget a good dose of traditionalism in that – it will be appreciated! Now is a good time for our frontbench to present a credible form of progressive constitutional reform through a referendum but it must describe a deeper philosophy beyond that of managing structures and membership, we must not let this moment go.
The second point is straightforward, delicious politics. Having described our credible and creative thinking from our frontbench we claim the progressive ground that will bring us support in the years ahead, it’s not Clegg’s cohorts who are the progressives – we are. We then sit back and watch the fight brought about by the impact of progressive ideas on both the Lib Dems and the Tories and their government. I say let Clegg’s cohorts run with their so-called reforming policies all of which are, not unsurprisingly for the Lib Dems, shallow and generally falling flat on their face as soon as they leave the starting block, much to the Tories’ delight. And let the Tory party unravel even more, driven by the simplistic predictability of the Tory right.
—————————————————————————————
Guy Nicholson is a cabinet member in Hackney council