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Moving to a written constitution would be difficult but help to restore trust in politics, Ed Balls tells the Fabian fringe.
A written constitution would be difficult but healthy for our democracy, Fabian Chair Ed Balls told the Fabian Question Time fringe debate in Bournemouth.
"I do not underestimate how difficult it is. It would take years and be hard', said Balls. With the issue currently being debated within government, Balls said his personal view was that they should take the plunge and embark on a written constitution.
"My instinct is to think that if you want the public to trust government to take difficult decisions in the face of changing events, the right way to do that is to have a clarity of objectives and a division of responsibility which everybody understands, and that certainly takes you in the direction of a written constitution," said Balls.
Linda Colley, leading historian of Britishness, told the meeting that there was a "vacuum" around citizenship and supported a written constitution as helping to provide the "glue" of a shared society. Colley also argued that the party conferences should move around the nations and regions of the United Kingdom "to help to make a British conversation".
Former Home Secretary David Blunkett told the meeting he was "agnostic about a written constitution until he could be convinced it would make a real difference to people's lives. "My greatest worry is that citizenship is not being taught properly in schools - it is not being brought to life," he said.
Fabian General Secretary Sunder Katwala said: "If this is all about values, we will never get anywhere. If it is about citizenship, we will have to disagree and then decide, because that is what you do politically."
Extract from the discussion
Question: How can we make Britishness is not just about who we were but who we want to be?
Linda Colley: "How long have you got? Look, the debate on Britishness is huge and it is going to be ongoing. One of the ways we can make sure it is about who we are going to be not just who we were is really to take the United Kingdom seriously.
Let me just give you a topical example: why are party conferences always held in English seaside towns? If you put that question, well people say it is the accommodation factor. As far as I know, there is accommodation in Glasgow, there is accommodation in Bangor, there is accommodation in Belfast, there is accommodation in Newcastle,. It just seems to me that this would be one way in which we could make a British conversation – a United Kingdom conversation – by moving the political debate, by moving the party conferences, to different parts of the UK.
What we have also got to do – and I am very pleased that Gordon Brown is moving on this and really takes this seriously – is to get the concept of citizenship advanced in these islands.
One of the glues for these islands used to be the Monarchy – we were all subjects. And subjecthood was quite an effective glue as long as the Monarchy retained its charismatic power but, whatever you think of the Monarchy that time has gone. We have got something of a vacuum here. I think Britain has fallen behind in that respect.
We do need to do more work on citizenship – whether you think that means a Bill or Rights, a new Bill of Rights, or whether you think it means, as I probably do, a new written constitution, that is a matter of debate. But citizenship has got to become much more of a buzzword – much more part of the political vocabulary we take for granted, And it has got to be something that we live."
Mary Riddell: "Could I ask you, Ed Balls, to pick up on the constitutional points – the Bill of Rights, or Bill of Rights and Duties as it is now called I think. The possibility of written constitution. Are we going to see these things –and when – and what will they do to give us a better sense of who we want to be?"
Ed Balls: "I think that there are a number of different issues which that constitutional debate is trying to address. One of which is whether people feel, because of the way that decisions are made, that they can see that decisions are being made in the right way and in an open way that they can trust. Part of the issue about constitution making and codifying how we make decisions – whether it is in a small example in the case of the Independent Bank of England, or in issues of how we choose whether to go to war – people seeing in legislation how we make these decisions, and that we are required to take them for the right reasons in a long-term way, that helps us to build trust so that we can make difficult decisions and people then understand them.
There is a second set of issues in constitutional reform, which is whether people feel that we have the right protections for individual liberties and individual rights relative to the needs of the wider community, and whether we are striking the right balance of rights and responsibilities. That is where the issue of Bill of Rights, and its relationship to the European Convention, and how we choose to incorporate that into our law arises.
And there is a third set of issues which is, as Linda said, about citizenship and our sense of identity. I think that is partly about Scotland and Walles. But it is actually from my point of view as much about Morley and West Yorkshire, where we have a BNP Councillor, we have a lot of people voting BNP, we have a lot of immigration into our area economically, we have the diversity of Leeds and Dewsbury just down the road.
And in order that we can isolate and expose the racism and fascism of the BNP, the right way to start is first of all for us as a society to have a sense of who we are and what we stand for, and what kind of place we want to be, and to use that to expose the fact that racism and intolerance have never been part of what it is to be British and won't be part of the kind of society that we want to live in in the future.
I think the debate about what it is to be British, what we stand for, what are our values and how we put that into practice on a daily basis, through our laws, through our bill of rights, through our governance. I think that is tbe best way to expose the minority racism of groups like the BNP, who actually I think stand outside the value set which makes us as a country what we are. So Jack Straw is taking forward the constitutional reform proposals, the bill of rights proposals, we are running our consultation on citizenship.
The constitutional reform agenda is trying to achieve a number of different things. But an important part of that is the sense of identity which Linda asked for, which enables us to face up to some big issues for our country, one of which is seeing off the kind of racism and discrimination which people campaign on daily in my constituency."
Mary Riddell: "You have done some things very fast – abolishing the Royal Prerogative powers. Terribly simple but for years it couldn't be done or wasn't worth doing. But how much further? Briefly, are you in favour - yes or no - of a written constitution?"
Ed Balls: "The European Constitution, which was rejected by the French and the Dutch two or three years ago, started in 2000 in Nice with people saying: 'Don't you think we should we just write down what we have already agreed' – that is what they tried to do and it turned out to be rather difficult."
MR: "So, shall I take that as a no?"
EB: "No. So there are risks in this. But personally, actually, I think that codifying in a way which everybody can understand and see, the way in which we as a society make decisions, the balance of power, the rights and responsibilities of different institutions, different levels of government, individuals versus the state, I actually think that is a healthy thing for modern democracies to do.
But I don't underestimate how difficult it is. And part of the consultation is for people to understand the nature of the decision to move towards a bill of rights or a written constitution, and to work out whether this is a process which we really want to go through, because it would take years and be hard, but I personally think that in areas where we have tried to do it, and done it well, it has been to our benefit as a government and as a society."
MR: "So beyond the bill of rights and duties, the British Constitution would be difficult but it would be a goal worth aspiring to and trying for, and that would be your aim?"
Ed Balls: "Personally, we already have a number of ways in which different parts of our constitution are already written down. I think the question is are you simply trying to bring them into one place and to codify, or are you trying to do more than that. And I don't know that I know the full implications of trying to go that extra step but my instinct is to think that if you want the public to trust government to take difficult decisions in the face of changing events, the right way to do that is to have a clarity of objectives and a division of responsibility which everybody understands, and that certainly takes you in the direction of a written constitution."
Mary R: "And that would go for Europe too?
Ed Balls: I think the problem with the European Constitution was that two or three years ago is that it rather gave the impression that it was doing something different – that it was building a state, it was building a nation. I think we can have a discussion of our sense of Britishness. But I don't think that a discussion of our sense of Europeanness is really at the constitution-making stage, and I am nor sure whether it will ever be."
Further comments from the event
David Blunkett
"I am agnostic abot a written constitution and a bill of rights. All I know is that without a change in the equality of practice in the community and in people's lives it would be a complete irrelevance to the Yemeni, Pakistani, Sikh and white working-class constituents that I have the privilege of representing. It would not make one iota of difference to their lives or to their perspective of the future and their sense of belonging unless something changed in their own lives and their own experience."
"The reason we introduced citizenship into schools was to give people a feel not only of our own history in Britain but of the history and the contribution made by people who have come here over the years. What struck me that Daniel Defoe once described us as a mongrel nation, and that was all those centuries ago, and we remain so in the nicest possible way. We are part of and have absorbed that history of inward migration over centuries, and we benefit from it."
"My biggest worry is that citizenship is not being taught properly in schools - it is not being brought alive. 15% of schools aren't teaching it at all and many others haven't got the message."
Linda Colley: "I want to see a document on every school wall about what Britishness means, or what the British constitution is. I work in the United States. I know how valuable it is. It is like a secular version of the ten commandments."
Fabian General Secretary Sunder Katwala: "David is right that it is a mongrel nation. That is very important - because this is a civic identity, it has always been plural, and so this can be about the future. But I think there is a real problem, especially in England, where people do not know their own history.
"It is worth codifying the Constitution - not so lawyers in Oxford can write down what already exists but so that people can be involved in it. That gives a focal point. If we make this about values, it will never get anywhere, because we will all disagree about it. If it is about citizenship, we will disagree and then decide, because that is what you do politically. I think it is a fantastically important thing to do."
"But what Ed Balls said is important, because they haven't decided yet. They know they should do it. But they know it is one of those too difficult to think about things. If the pressure isn't there, then it could just slip away. And I think if we do not do it, we will never resolve this debate."
The Fabian/Observer Question Time debate took place in Bournemouth on Sunday 23rd September. Kindly supported by VirginMedia.
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