News from Labour conference fringe event
The Commission held a fringe meeting at the Labour Party annual conference in Liverpool. We had booked a small room in an hotel close to the conference venue, not knowing what level of interest there might be. It was packed! So many people crowded into the room, standing at the back and sides and many people were turned away.
Polly Toynbee and Hardeep Matharu gave brief speeches based on our publications and I chaired it, introducing the work of the Commission. We opened the meeting to questions and discussion for the main part of the meeting and lots of ideas were proposed - these are some of them.
Predictably, proportional representation was raised by several people, including the suggestion that we look at the experience of New Zealand which transitioned from first-past-the-post to PR. I am not going into details about this as it is being well covered by other organisation.
How best to encourage people to vote was covered. It looks like Labour would bring extending the franchise for general elections to 16 year olds if it forms the next government, and one suggestion was that your first vote should be mandatory. The vision was for school students to be marched to the polling station during school time to embed civic responsibility. There does seem to be evidence that once you have voted, you continue to do so throughout your life.
Digital voting was something else proposed. We can run most of the business of our lives on-line, so voting should be added to the panoply. I think it would be optional.
A written constitution is the focus of campaigns. The Commission has previously suggested an Instrument of Government based on that introduced by Oliver Cromwell to circumscribe the power of the Protectorate in relation to Parliament which would be a first step https://commissionpoliticalpower.uk/publications/executivereform
There was deep concern at the lack of constitutional knowledge and education whilst at the same time participants at the meeting wanted to see greater public consultation. It is of course possible that more involvement of citizens in government decision making would in itself educate people about constitutional matters, or it might be that better education earlier in life would be a prerequisite for devolving power.
The over-centralisation of power was a theme of the meeting with a lack of clarity about where political power lies, for example there was concern about the opaque nature of the influence of the monarchy and land owners.
Finally, yes, Brexit did come up, although we all seemed exhausted by the damage it has inflicted on the country.
This is just a taste of the questions and discussion of a lively meeting. I hope we can have more public events as there is clearly interest in discussing constitutional issues. Thank you for everyone who came and took part.