Opinions are divided on the matter of the British constitution. On the
one hand, the politicians, the civil service and the judiciary, along with
their allies and dependents in the financial sector and the serious media,
take the view that the place has, and is lucky to have, an uncodified
constitution. In this they side with Edmund Burke, the father of modern
conservatism, who famously wrote that without "the prudence and
uprightness of Ministers of State… your Commonwealth is no better than a
scheme upon paper; and not a living, acting, effective constitution".
Peoples are governed, said Burke, "by a knowledge of their temper
and by a judicious management of it". The constitution may have written
elements but its most important passages are inscribed in the minds of both
the rulers and ruled.
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Prudence
and uprightness, managing the temper of the people… It is an idea of the constitution
as appealing to newspaper proprietors and intelligence officials as it is to
politicians.
Their critics, on the other hand, side with
Burke's great opponent, Paine, and insist that a constitution "has not an
ideal but a real existence; and wherever it cannot be produced in visible form,
there is none".
A constitution, wrote Paine, is the means by
which the people determine the nature of the government that they will set over
themselves, it is "to a government what the laws made afterwards by that
government are to a court of judicature".
This is a notion that has become self-evident
almost everywhere in the world, apart from England, the country of Paine's
birth. Here the Burkean idea of a constitution encoded in hearts and minds
survives, a living fossil in a world overrun by formally constituted republics.
Exotic though Britain's arrangements are, they
largely pass unremarked. Ministers and editors assure the English that the rest
of the world has had to adopt formal constitutions because they lack the
singular genius that inhabits these islands. Well-meaning outsiders like Larry
Siedentop might point out that, by seeking "unity in manners rather than
ideas", British society has left itself with "no intelligible model
of ambition".
He has a point. Consider how the appearance of
timeless solidity in the City of London obscures the reality of breakneck
criminality. It takes only a moment's thought to connect the inscrutability of
public life to the troubles and confusions of the private sphere. So, for the
most part, the English have preferred not to think about it at all.
On matters
constitutional
But the party of Burke in England have run into
a problem: The Scottish independence referendum. The second largest country in
the United Kingdom will vote on September 18 this year on whether it wants to
strike out on its own as an independent country. That's worrying enough in
itself. But the debate in Scotland prompted by the referendum threatens to
shake the English out of their torpor in matters constitutional.
The devolved government in Edinburgh has
produced a book, "Scotland's Future", which sets out its proposals
for an independent Scotland. Independence, they write, "provides an opportunity to
modernise Scottish democracy on the basis of a written constitution". It,
therefore, wants to hold a constitutional convention. The idea of a
constitutional convention, in an English-speaking country, next door to
England, as Adam Ramsay has pointed out, this is surely something
the English will notice.
There are also devils in the details of "Scotland's Future" to
torment Burke. The Scottish government wants to establish a currency union with
England in which "monetary policy will be set according to economic
conditions across the Sterling Area with ownership and governance of the Bank
of England undertaken on a shareholder basis". This is something the three
main Westminster parties have united to reject, and one can see why.
After all, if Scotland can have a share in the Bank of England, then the
rest of the UK might start to ask questions. Should they not also have a say
"on a shareholder basis"? Mark Carney, the Bank's current governor seems very relaxed
about another massive expansion of credit. The Midlands and the North of
England, who are paying the price of the last one, might have other views.
These are only the proposals of the Scottish government. The debate is
also creating an opportunity for others to set out what they think a modern
constitutional democracy looks like.
"The debate is also creating an opportunity for others to set out
what they think a modern constitutional democracy looks like."
The world has moved on since Paine helped persuade the Americans to risk separation from Britain. Taxation is no longer a straightforwardly national matter. The power to adequate revenues taxes in one country has unavoidably global implications. We now rely on digital technology, not pamphlets, for our political information.
If the Scots are to be truly self-governing, they will have to update
18th century notions of a free press to address this new reality. Almost
everywhere money is created and distributed by what Geoffrey Ingham calls a
"public-private
partnership" of technocratic central banks and a
profit-driven financial sector. Perhaps the Scots will bring it into the
daylight of the constitution and under effective democratic control.
Already the debate is giving all the British an education in the
assumptions and habits of mind that underpin our current arrangements. When
asked whether it was a good idea to play on fears about Scotland's status in
Europe after independence, an unnamed Scottish MP in the Westminster Parliament
replied
that "they need to be told. It's like a child saying they want to play in
the rain. They can do if they want but they need to know that they'll get
wet."
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He or she has a point. In the
absence of a written constitution those of us who are not let in on the
mysteries of public life are a lot like children.
The Scots are slowly turning away
from the ambiguities and consolations of Britain. There is now at least a
chance that their turning will wake the English. If it does, America, the
most venerable of the revolutionary republics, will be presented in turn with
the spectacle of English-speaking peoples designing modern constitutions.
Through the NSA-GCHQ system, the
British and the Americans currently belong to the same transatlantic empire of
knowledge. No wonder the politicians in Westminster are worried. Their
partners in Washington will not thank them if the Scots, and then the
English, take up the great cause, Paine's cause, the cause of liberty.
Dan Hind
is the author of two books, The Threat to Reason and The Return of the
Public. His e-book, Maximum Republic is published later this month.
The views expressed
in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al
Jazeera's editorial policy.
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Source: Al Jazeera
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