The Post-Revolution British Constitution

To reverse the Brit slide into fascism, the people of the United Kingdom must retake their ancient liberties from the EU and Brit elites.

Why

For several decades , Brit politicians have – without the consent of the people – progressively given others the right to govern the UK. About 90% of new Brit laws are now made by foreigners

To make matters worse, they’ve tied Brits to a corpse – the undemocratic, weak, and divided EU. This has chosen to depend on the Russian dictatorship and can’t defend itself now the American legions have left.

So Brits have to reestablish self-government and look to their security.

How

The Brit state is vulnerable to armed overthrow. Its army has good reason to hate its political masters and is anyway struggling to control an Iraqi city the size of Manchester. Its police forces are heavily bureaucratized and rarely venture on the streets.

So it’s tempting to push it over. However that would be wrong, since violent revolutions just propel the most violent to leadership positions – Lenin, Hitler, Mao, Castro et al.

Instead Brits should follow the example of the Velvet Revolution set by the Eastern Europeans who now throng their cities. In practical terms that involves massive civil disobedience and the use of numbers to non-violently depose the elite.

When

Revolutions happen when living standards drop fast, and that’s likely soon because the UK is the world’s sub-prime borrower. Its external debt is second only to the US, and adjusted to population they’re about the same.

But unlike the broad-based US economy, the UK depends on its financial sector, which is bound to be whacked by the next recession.

Problems The New Constitution Must Solve

Brits are now thinking about the same problems the US Founders grappled with, notably:

• All political systems tend to despotism.
• Politicians tend to be incompetent, dishonest, or both.
• Centralized power leads inevitably to dictatorship.
• Mob rule is not democracy.

The Solution

In spite of the many problems we see in the US, its people remain freer than most, because the founders were smart enough to diffuse power across competing institutions. Other nations get the same result in different ways – Switzerland’s federal constitution enables its citizens, uniquely within Islam-penetrated Europe – to elect pols committed to fix that problem.

An advantage of Federal polities is in providing stepping stones of experience for aspirant pols. Many of the UK’s current problems stem from none of its pols have ever having done a proper job, or had to meet payroll, or had to battle in the commercial world.

So the UK needs to move from a situation in which one incompetent can dispose of their sovereignty, to one on which there are many competing centers of power run by competent people.

The Shape Of The Constitution

Devolving power isn’t easy – if you devolve too much, the state becomes inefficient and prey to internal and external enemies.

So the Brits should learn from the reasonably succesful US constitution. But not copy it – the two nations have different scales, somewhat different national personalities, and different recent histories.

Plus the Brits have institutions to build on that the US Founders lacked (or rejected) – the Monarchy, the House of Lords, and the newly devolved regions of Scotland and Wales.

Here’s what the new Constitution should look like.

1. Clarity

It will be as succinct as the US Constitution, which started out as just 4 pages and even after 27 Amendments fits into a slim pocket-sized book. That makes it accessible to We The People.

An example of how not to do it are the original EU Constitution with its hundreds of pages, and its current manifestation as an edit to existing treaties – both designed to baffle We The People.

2. Four State Federation

English and Northern Irish parliaments are added to the existing ones for Scotland and Wales. These operate as US States and possess of all the powers they don’t explicitly grant to the Federal government.

The English state would be much bigger than the other three. But federal states can operate quite well with big disparities between their components – in the US tiny Vermont is (sadly) not swamped by Texas.

Taxation operates as in the US, with Federal, State and Local taxes.

All Chief Constables, magistrates, and local judges are elected on the US model and employed by the States.

Each state raises and equips its own Territorial Army.

3. Separation of Powers

That’s between:

Monarch

The monarchy’s discipline of service produces more robust individuals than the political process. So the monarch becomes the formal as well as ceremonial head of the armed forces, with power to veto changes made to their establishment, equipment, and deployment.

That should prevent a repetition of the abuse inflicted on our forces by Blair/Brown.

Executive

Elected by simple majority of a nationwide popular vote and subject to a limit of two 5 year terms – all pols get stale after that, even Mrs T.

Judiciary

Headed by a Supreme Court, appointed by the Legislature, but – unlike the US – with term limits.

Legislature

With a federal solution, this shrinks to about 100 members, comprising a House of Commons in which the electorate for each seat is about the same, and a House of Lords in which equal numbers of voting members (say 5) are elected by each region: England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The balance of power between the Commons and Lords is the same as that between the US House and Senate.

The Commons and Lords have different election cycles.

All have term limits – a maximum of 12 years, to avoid the despotism of the US Senate.

To avoid gerrymandering, the boundaries of House of Commons constituencies are set by an independent Electoral Commission that reports to the monarch.

4. Essential Freedoms

Right To Bear Arms

This re-balances power between the citizenry and the criminal, and will require reasonable background checks, a waiting period, and be limited to personal side arms.

Primacy of Common Law

English and Scottish common law apply within their own States – Wales and Northern Ireland may choose to define their own.

That’s it.

In future posts we’ll look at how the newly free UK is likely to behave.