This month’s rather unexpected political debate over the causes of the first world war (unexpected, because I never previously thought of the conduct of Kaiser Wilhelm as a ‘wedge issue’, nor did I expect to hear Cambridge historian Richard Evans call Michael Gove a donkey) gave politicians a chance to talk about history. It’s an opportunity most find hard to turn down, myself included.
Allow me, then, to dwell for a moment on the impact of the second world war, and its political implications. As the late British historian Tony Judt argued in his 2005 masterpiece Postwar, it was, in Keynes’ words, a war-weary nation’s ‘craving for social and personal security’ that produced the British welfare state, ushering into government Clement Attlee’s Labour party. This in turn, with the establishment of institutions like the NHS, benefitted the left and its governing philosophy, popularising the notion that radical government intervention could help achieve a fairer, more prosperous society.
It is this trust in government, and in politics, its ability to intervene and govern effectively, which is currently under threat. It is primarily imperilled by a political system which is seemingly incapable of providing comfort, identity, and economic security in face of the challenges and disruptions brought about by globalisation, including increased competition in the labour market, greater cultural diversity, global economic interdependence, and an economy which ruthlessly consigns the unskilled to a life of low pay and financial hardship.
On top of this, politicians, who find it understandably difficult to deal with such issues, are seen as only being in politics for their own personal gain. Voters quite reasonably conclude that if elected officials are not helping us they must only be helping themselves, a sentiment reinforced by periodic scandals over party funding, donations, and expenses. Needless to say, such antipathy towards politics and government is particularly damaging to the left, which relies upon the public’s faith in the effectiveness, and fairness, of state intervention.
I have long believed the answer to both of these crises, that of left and of politics more broadly, is a greater decentralisation of powers: in short, a federal Britain.
We currently live under a surreal quasi-federal model whereby Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland (with a combined population of just over 10 million) have their own national parliaments, with their own exclusive competencies, as well as MPs that can vote on English matters in Westminster. In contrast, England, a country of 50 million people, is predominantly (local authorities aside) governed from Westminster.
This asymmetry is both undemocratic and an obstacle to effective governance.
Devolution, especially if enacted through powerful regional assemblies, with legislative and/or administrative powers, could, for instance, help make public services more accountable, responsive, and transparent. On education, for example, regional assemblies could help foster the kind of collaboration that worked so well in Tower Hamlets, or carry out a monitoring function which would allow problems at schools such as the Al-Madinah School in Derby to be detected and acted upon at an earlier stage.
This more federal approach to governance could also be of great economic benefit, with English regions, or an English parliament, along with every other devolved parliament, given substantial fiscal authority with which to target area-specific needs. Such decentralisation of spending power could, as noted by the Heseltine review, lead to more targeted investment ‘tailored directly to the individual challenges and opportunities of our communities’.
Brilliant city councils like Manchester have already shown what can be achieved through strong leadership, long-term infrastructure planning, and collaboration between local businesses, government, and universities. Under some sort of federal arrangement, less prosperous regions like the north-east could finally be given the policy tools with which to tackle economic stagnation instead of waiting and relying on sometimes ill-fitting central government initiatives.
In short, something like the metropolitan revolution occurring in some of America’s great cities and states (brilliantly documented by Bruce Katz and Jennifer Bradley in a book of the same name) could be transplanted to Britain, hopefully increasing political participation and, if we’re lucky, restoring some of the public’s faith in politics and government (preferably a Labour government).
What precisely would such a federal settlement look like?
Personally, I am in favour of having strong regional assemblies with administrative powers, alongside an English parliament with legislative powers. Alternatively, both administrative and legislative powers could be dispersed among regional assemblies. I do, however, believe that the issue should be settled by a constitutional convention which looks at the balance of powers throughout the United Kingdom as a whole. This means also considering a greater devolution of powers to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, as well as finally reforming the House of Lords.
In The Federalist Papers, a series of essays that convinced a disparate set of American states to become the United States, James Madison wrote ‘if men were angels, no government would be necessary.’ Until they are, I’ll continue to hope and argue for a federal Britain.
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George Foulkes is a member of the House of Lords. He tweets @GeorgeFoulkes.
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