МОСКОВСКИЙ ГОСУДАРСТВЕННЫЙ ИНСТИТУТ МЕЖДУНАРОДНЫХ
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THE PEOPLE VERSUS THE CROWN
The Guardian, December, 2000
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. That's been the rallying cry of the defenders of our ancient,
unwritten constitution through the ages. Sure, say the old guard, our unspoken custom and tacit
tradition may not make logical sense when set out on a clean sheet of paper - that's one good
reason why we keep it unwritten. But, insist the keepers of the flame, our non-systematic system
has held up just fine for centuries. So long as it still works, there's no need to change it.
The trouble is, that's no longer true. The system is not working: it is broke - and we need
to fix it.
The British people woke up to this fact long ago, even if few dare say it. Polling data
consistently show a decline in esteem for our institutions and the system which links them
together. A European Union poll found that Britons had less faith in their parliament than the
people of any member country except Portugal. It all adds up to a growing loss of faith in our
system of governance.
These trends are not wholly new: reformers have seen the need for a radical overhaul of
our constitution for decades. But now there is an extra urgency. First and foremost, not only is
the old system not working well: it is beginning to come apart. Since 1997 Labour has
undertaken a raft of radical constitutional changes. Whether it's the rolling programme of
devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland or the partial reform of the House of Lords,
the current government has shattered forever the conservative conviction that the constitution has
remained unaltered for centuries - and therefore cannot be changed in future.
Specifically, Labour's changes have exposed to the light questions that had long been
buried - and which now demand to be answered. Take devolution. Until 1997 Britain had never
really come clean about its true nature as a multi-national entity: the four constituent nations
each had their own cabinet department, but Britain was essentially a unitary state governed from
Westminster and Whitehall. Devolution has blown that apart. It has forced us to recognise that
there are distinct countries within Britain, each with the right and ambition to govern itself whether through a parliament in Edinburgh or assemblies in Cardiff and Belfast.
There is one last factor which makes urgent our need for a new constitutional settlement.
Britain may be an island, but we are not alone. The changes inside the United Kingdom have
coincided with profound shifts outside it, too.
We are days away from a summit in Nice which will debate and decide the future shape
of the European Union. Who should govern? How should the peoples of Europe be bound
together? How should Europe declare its values? In other words, the European Union is in the
midst of constitutional upheaval, too.
What it all adds up to - the weaknesses of Britain's old system, the changes made by
Labour and the worldwide confusion over sovereignty - is a need: we are crying out for a new
constitutional settlement. We urgently require a new constitution that would work better than the
current set-up, improve the quality of our governance and yield better outcomes and better
policies that would affect all Britons' lives. A new constitution would also complete some
unfinished business left over from Labour's programme of constitutional reform, turning today's
"unsettlement" into a settlement.
We need to make a change. We need to replace an unwritten constitution which consists
of one abstract idea - the crown-in-parliament - with a settlement that fits the nation we have
become and the world that now exists. This is a new century and a new millennium: we need a
new constitution.