George Kerevan: Don't hold your breath for any new revolution

Published on Wednesday 20 May 2009 21:36

FOLLOWING the resignation of Michael Martin as Speaker, the London press was full of headlines promising a "Very British Revolution".

The subtext being we were now headed towards some glorious constitutional future where the Commons would recover its ancient role as defender of civil liberties; a new Speaker (elected for the first time by secret ballot) would bring the executive to heel; and MPs would deserve the title of "Honourable Member".

Don't hold your breath.

Some of you might remember a book entitled A Very British Coup. It was authored by Chris Mullin, the maverick Labour MP who, coincidentally, is a likely candidate for the new Speaker. In Mullin's political fantasy, written in 1982, a reforming government is swept to power led by Harry Perkins, a cross between Tony Benn and a saint.

The fictional Perkins takes on the British establishment but his popular revolution is quietly subverted by the powers-that-be. The City sabotages government finances. A subservient BBC destroys the reputation of ministers, using information supplied by MI5. A broken Perkins is forced from office by threats to expose his sex life. The coup in the title is an ironic reference to the fact that the British Establishment (in which I include the "gentlemen's club" at Westminster) has a way of heading off political upheavals without calling in the military. I suspect the new British constitutional revolution will suffer a similar fate.

If you don't believe me, consider the rows of Labour MPs who queued up to shake Michael Martin's hand after he resigned. Mr Martin's crime, you will remember, was to do everything in his power to hide MPs' expense claims from public scrutiny. If you expect those back-bench Labour MPs to use their secret ballot to reform Parliament, you are very much mistaken.

A genuine reform of the Westminster Parliament would have to start by giving the House of Commons the power to hold the executive to account. As is the case at the Scottish Parliament, back-bench committees would have to be given greater scrutiny powers. Committee chairs would be appointed by secret ballot of the House and not at the behest of the whips. The Lords would either be elected or abolished, to reduce the power of political patronage. Parliament would have a fixed term. When a new prime minister was appointed, an immediate general election would be mandatory.

I'm not convinced we will see these reforms. In the first place, the executive – be it Labour or Tory – has little incentive to give up power once in office. Second, the super-centralised British state predominantly serves the needs of the Greater London economy and City financial institutions – which helps explain why the government stoked the credit bubble rather than restrain it. Reforming Parliament would mean dismantling this centralised state machine in favour of a more equitable distribution of power and resources across the UK. That challenges too many vested interests.

What is changing in British politics is not Westminster but the role of the Labour Party. The current crisis is not so much a crisis of the corrupt Westminster model as it is the end of the New Labour "project". Old Labour was based on the votes of the manual working class. De-industrialisation eroded this voting base. Mrs Thatcher – a right-wing radical rather than a conservative – was quick to realise she could marginalise Labour by forging a new political coalition involving aspirant blue-collar workers and their white-collar, professional offspring.

Tony Blair and Gordon Brown invented New Labour to steal Mrs Thatcher's clothes. Low income taxes would win over both the aspirant working-class and middle-class voters. Light-touch regulation and low corporation taxes would satisfy City bankers. A contrived housing boom would make everyone feel affluent – for a time. As the economic elevator headed skywards, there would be sufficient Treasury revenues to flood the NHS and education system with cash, much of it used to increase wages. No wonder Tony Blair won three elections in a row.

But the wheels have come permanently off the New Labour bandwagon. As the unsustainable boom came to an end, Gordon Brown had to put Britain into hock for the next 50 years to pay for the party. The New Labour voting block has shattered.

The City is miffed it is getting all the blame and that income taxes are going up. Rising unemployment and falling property values have sent middle-class voters back to David Cameron's de-Thatcherised Tories. Many working-class voters in England, scunnered by the revelations about MPs' expenses, are turning to the BNP. Labour is split between the Blairites – who want to win back middle-class voters – and those of Old Labour who want a return to the class war.

In this situation, Alan Johnson is best placed to replace Mr Brown. A Neil Kinnock with brains, the personable Mr Johnson is the first trade union leader to become a Cabinet minister since Frank Cousins in 1964. He could straddle the class war and Blairite wings of the party. But keeping Labour united is a different thing from building a winning coalition of voters. Without the boom to provide the revenues to placate the Left, Johnson is in no position to cut taxes to placate the Right. Austerity looms for at least a decade.

The collapse of the New Labour project, hastened by the global economic meltdown, has robbed Gordon Brown of his political authority. A series of mini crises which, in normal times, he (and certainly Tony Blair) could have seen off has turned toxic for the government: the Damian McBride e-mails, the Gurkhas, and now the expenses scandal. The Prime Minister may be tired and defensive, but his real problem is that the ideological glue that held New Labour together has come unstuck. Without an effective political rationale, Labour could be in the wilderness for decades to come. This, not the Speaker's resignation, is the real British revolution.