What constitutes a constitutional crisis?
Apparently an unelected chamber saying no to a Government which won via a broken voting system does.
The Tories may have a majority but it’s a minority in Scotland, where they govern with just one MP. But that’s democracy folks.
The Tory Government announced a review of Lords’ powers after the tax credits defeat. Chancellor George Osborne says that being unelected raises “constitutional issues”.
The laugh is the Conservatives saying the tax credit vote is “about democracy” when David Cameron kept the issue out of his manifesto.
So hats off to the Lords for delaying tax credit cuts. It’s the best PR they’ve had in ages. It’s just unfortunate that we had to rely on the unelected upper house to do it and that it’s only a delay.
If Labour peers had all voted for the Lib Dem motion they would have blocked tax credit cuts full stop. I’m not sure how that’s going to square with Jeremy Corbyn’s anti-austerity narrative.
Let’s be under no illusion the cuts in the Welfare Bill are deeply regressive and the cost of this legislation to Scotland’s low-income families will be a whopping £3.2 billion by 2021.
Even Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson has called for a U-turn on the cuts. However, her predecessor Baroness Annabel Goldie undermined her by voting for them, as did Tory peer Michelle Mone, one of the many millionaires to do so.
So it was the deeply undemocratic House of Lords that sent a message to the Government to re-examine these proposals.
A chamber, as far as the Tories were concerned, that wasn’t a problem until it voted against the Government. Then it became unconstitutional.
However, the UK is one of the few countries in the western world without a constitution.
I don’t want to rely on a broken system to save us from Tories happy to attack the poor, remove Lords’ powers when it suits them and make Scottish MPs second class with EVEL alongside boundary and electoral registration changes.
Our democracy is turning sour and needs protected in a constitution.
It’s time to put it in writing.