Monday 10 January 2011
destroy-Parliament-replace-rule-judges-It-outrage-Mr-Cameron-stop-
it.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
The Lib Dems want to destroy Parliament and replace it with rule by
judges. It is an outrage, and Mr Cameron must stop it
By Bernard Jenkin on 9th January 2011
David Cameron used the promise of parliamentary sovereignty in order
to persuade a lot of Tory MPs to vote for him as party leader in 2005,
but now it is under threat
As a newly elected MP in 1992, I remember sitting in the Commons tea
room with fellow new boy Iain Duncan Smith. The crucial vote on the
Maastricht Treaty, that accelerated the transfer of power from
Westminster to Brussels, was looming.
Chancellor Norman Lamont's young and ambitious Parliamentary Private
Secretary came and sat with us to try to persuade us to vote for the
treaty. We refused. He looked stunned that two ambitious young MPs
would throw away their ministerial careers in such a way.
Today's Commons contains one of the largest intakes of new
Conservative MPs in history. They now face the same pressures we faced
then. The young man who approached me in the tea room, William Hague,
is now Foreign Secretary.
If there was one thing which David Cameron used in order to persuade a
lot of Tory MPs to vote for him as party leader in 2005, it was that he
was serious about the issue of parliamentary sovereignty. The
sovereignty of Parliament is the foundation principle of the United
Kingdom's democratic constitution.
But some of our judges openly question this. One, Lord Hope (Deputy
President of the Supreme Court, no less) said that "parliamentary
sovereignty is no longer . . . absolute'. He added that "step by
step' it "is being qualified'.
In his view, it is now the "rule of law enforced by the courts' that
is "the ultimate controlling factor on which our constitution is
based'.
The sovereignty of Parliament is not merely some arcane matter of
dusty constitutional curiosity. It is the very root of British
democracy and affects the daily lives of every citizen. It should be
the duty of MPs to protect it on behalf of our voters and for future
generations. Parliamentary sovereignty means that the last word in
determining matters of public policy lies with Parliament. A threat to
parliamentary sovereignty is a threat to democracy itself. Parliament
is an elected body. There is a chronic democratic deficit in the
European Union, and no one elects judges in this country.
Nor should they be elected: judges are appointed to determine
questions of law, not to govern us politically. This, constitutionally,
is what makes Britain a democracy.
Lord Hope, Deputy President of the Supreme Court, has said that
'parliamentary sovereignty is no longer ... absolute' Take it away and
you strike at democracy itself and the freedom of the voters to choose
who governs them and how. That is something for which people have
fought and died.
Before the Election, David Cameron promised a Sovereignty Bill. In his
speech entitled Giving Power Back To The People he said: "As we have no
written constitution . . . we have no explicit legal guarantee that
the last word on our laws stays in Britain . . . so, as well as
making sure that further power cannot be handed to the EU without a
referendum, we will also introduce a new law, in the form of a United
Kingdom Sovereignty Bill, to make it clear that ultimate authority
stays in this country, in our Parliament.'
Later, he promised "to strengthen the place of Parliament at the heart
of our democracy' and that he would make sure that "Britain's laws can
no longer be decided by unaccountable judges'. But, instead of a
Sovereignty Bill, on Tuesday, MPs will be asked to pass Clause 18 of
the EU Bill. Ministers claim that this will deliver the Prime
Minister's pledge to protect our sovereignty.
It will do nothing of the sort. Parliamentary supremacy, or
sovereignty, or primacy doesn't feature in it. As currently drafted, it
is so feeble it would effectively hand over control of parliamentary
sovereignty to unelected judges. To make matters worse, the Government
has explained parliamentary sovereignty as a "common law principle'.
This is just rubbish. Parliament claimed sovereignty when it cut off
the head of Charles I.
The Government is playing into the hands of the judges. The common law
is judge-made law. The judges are its authors and its guardians. They
may change it whenever they see fit.
Professor Adam Tomkins, of Glasgow University, the legal adviser to
the House of Lords Constitutional Affairs Committee, has warned that
Clause 18 could actually promote judicial meddling in parliamentary
sovereignty. He calls it "the proverbial red rag to the bull'.
This is why some of us are asking other Conservative MPs, particularly
newly elected ones, to vote for crucial amendments to affirm
parliamentary sovereignty. We are asking them: How much can each of us
afford to renege personally on the promises made to constituents and to
Conservative activists? Does integrity matter?
Before the Election, David Cameron, paraphrasing Winston Churchill,
said: "Country before party. I say to MPs, when you get into Parliament
you must vote according to your conscience and then your view of the
national interest and your view of your constituents' interests and
then your party.'
Needless to say, debate on the EU Bill is being severely limited by
the Government. It is no coincidence that Clause 18 is being debated on
Tuesday, the day after the House resumes after the Christmas break, so
there is as little time for discussion as possible and as few MPs as
possible will be present.
New MPs will be threatened, cajoled, promised preferment and the rest.
They will be assailed by whips, wooed by senior Ministers in the tea
room, just as I was when I was a new boy, and promotion will be dangled
in front of them. In this way, the Government hopes to contain the
rebellion. But does there not come a point at which the Conservative
Party must finally make itself felt in this Coalition?
It is tragic that a Conservative Prime Minister should be willing to
place parliamentary sovereignty in such danger.
The EU Bill may have been designed to look "Euro-sceptic'. But close
scrutiny shows that it is the opposite. It is a policy deliberately
devised to promote Liberal Democrat ideology – part of the disastrous
constitutional revolution which is under way. The Liberal Democrats
have never defended parliamentary sovereignty. They want to destroy it.
They seek not only a federal Europe but also a written constitution for
the United Kingdom.
This would be a legal document, enforceable by the courts, destroying
parliamentary sovereignty and replacing it with rule by judges. If Mr
Cameron and Mr Hague have the national interest at heart, they will not
let this constitutional outrage occur.
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