The Bubble Will Hate It, but Moving the Lords Makes Perfect Sense
If the Government is to go ahead with these (admittedly early stage) plans to move the House of Lords up north, then my heart goes out to Blackrod, who faces a two hundred mile walk at state opening. I hope she has a pair of good walking boots!
Alas, even the greatest of plans has its obstacles, and Blackrod’s journey (alongside legitimate practicalities surrounding future openings of parliament) is not a reason to discard these plans.
A founding premise of Blue Beyond is that the youth wing of the party often feels out of touch to those without an SW1 postcode, but the same is true of politics in general. We have, right now, a power triangle, three key points of power in Westminster, namely: the Supreme Court (the Judicial), Downing Street (the Executive), and the Palace of Westminster (the legislative).
Often described as the “Westminster bubble”, it is symbolic of the divide between general public opinion and that of our lawmakers. Our still being in the EU, of course, is symptomatic of this.
As we saw last month, many northerners are not happy with their politicians. Of those dozens of seats our party took from Labour, swings were caused not necessarily by substantial rises in the Tory vote, but rather by catastrophic falls in the Labour vote. Take Hull East, for example, a working-class seat that we were fewer than 1300 votes from gaining. Yet we only picked up 515 votes compared to last time, the Labour MP meanwhile shed 8,642 votes. Turnout fell to a shocking 49% - in a general election! This shows a clear disillusionment in politics. While this constituency is one of the more extreme examples that I could have picked, this was an issue that was seen across the north. Hull East is less than an hour away from York, what better way to counter this disillusionment than to bring half of our parliament to the middle of the north.
A further effect of the ‘Westminster bubble’ is that those within it simply don’t have to face many of the problems outside of it. Take transport in the North for example. Politicians and Beurocrats in London have spent over a decade debating whether to build a high-speed rail line connecting the North and South. In that time, services in the North have suffered; with only half of Northern Rail’s services running on time. Think about how quickly these problems could be solved if Ministers were forced to use services between London and the North.
It’s a two-way street however, this ‘Westminster bubble’. For many, the House of Lords is shrouded in a sort of mystery, many not knowing what it does. This is dangerous, and makes the Lords an easy target, with prominent campaigns - both left and right - calling for its abolition. Any such abolition would be a real tragedy, our system is precious, and the lords is the finest chamber of revision in the world: it is filled with experts on all matters, with the government not commanding an overall majority. This makes for fantastic checks and balances, so pure abolition is out of the question. Replacing our second chamber with a senate, on the other hand, would challenge the democratic supremacy of the Commons, and make for disastrous periods of cohabitation (alongside more elected politicians). I would urge anyone who takes the latter proposal seriously to take a look at the situations that arise across the pond.
Returning to my point, moving the Lords would put it in the spotlight, more people would come to understand its role and function, and more people could come to appreciate the fantastic work that it does. Something that could perhaps save the house of lords.
With that argument having been made, what better seat for our second chamber than York? Aside from my personal bias, living a mere forty minutes from the would-be site of our second chamber, York is a beautiful and historic place - serving at various times as the capital of Viking held England and a capital of the Kingdom of Northumbria. York, of course, has been locked out of government since its tenure as the seat of the Northern Council during the Civil War.
Many of those against these proposals have argued that York is one of the richest northern cities. While this argument may factually correct, it misses the point. For many in the North, Westminster is this sort of ‘other’, it can feel like an entirely different planet: totally inaccessible to many. Moving half of our parliament would completely change this, people who don’t even understand the role of the Lords could visit it and see it in session.
For the next five (and in all likelihood the next ten) years, our party will be in power, we must not forget why this is: the Northern working-class voters who turned their back on the Labour party in their droves. Dozens of last month’s tory gains are within an hour’s drive from York. This, alongside a broad-ranging devolution of powers, is what is needed to level up the regions.
Moreover, the Prime Minister has pledged to lead a One Nation Government. What move could symbolize this better than bridging the North and South through the use of our Parliament? Parliament would still be one entity, its components would just sit a couple of hundred miles apart, forming a metaphorical bridge between the North and South.
We have an 80 seat commons majority, this Government cannot cower away from policies just because they are unpopular with the bubble. Architects of New Labour often admit that their biggest mistake was not taking advantage of their honeymoon period. This government must be bold as we enter the first full year of this term. We must not only use Brexit as an opportunity to bring powers back to this great nation but also to shift them away from Westminster.
Adam Roberts
"House of Lords Chamber" by UK Parliament is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0