English Votes For English Laws

Just a quick point. While the Tories have a majority of up to 12 if you remove the Speaker, Sinn Fein etc, or 5 to be exact, their majority in England over Labour is 113. There are then 6 Lib Dems, 1 Green and 1 UKIP, but that still leaves Cameron with a margin of over 100. So watch for more devolution to Scotland and Wales, and an English votes rule, followed by a lot of England only legislation, because here Cameron is unstoppable. His wafer thin majority is only vulnerable on full UK issues. One of those issues will be passing the English only rule.

In every other democracy in the world a constitutional change of this magnitude would require a referendum, but in the UK those who govern control the unwritten constitution, rather than those who are governed. This is why I refuse to describe our country as a full democracy. But if Labour were able to rally all the other parties to block the measure and a bit of Tory conscience produced a few rebels, this fundamental change could be blocked until a wider constitutional structure for a federal United Kingdom is agreed, as this may now be the only route open to preserve the Union in the long term.

Comments are closed.