Believed to be arriving at Tiverton Parkway rail station at 1.10 pm. Lunching at the Tiverton Hotel.
Category Archives: Democracy
Parliament: new inquiry into implications of leaving the EU announced today
“In the light of the outcome of the referendum on EU membership, the Foreign Affairs Committee is launching a rolling inquiry into the Government’s handling of the process of departing the EU and the ongoing implications of the decision for the UK’s role in the world. This will build on the findings of the Committee’s report, published in April 2016, outlining both the short- and long-term implications of the vote for the UK’s global role.
Inquiry: Implications of leaving the EU for the UK’s role in the world
Foreign Affairs Committee
Terms of reference
The Committee welcomes written submissions which address in particular:
The type of relationship that the UK, its Crown Dependencies and its Overseas Territories should seek to pursue with the EU in future
The implications of the decision for the UK’s strategic orientation, global posture, alliances and international trade.
The Government’s management of negotiations to determine the terms of the UK’s exit from the EU, including their political direction and the structures and resources to be put in place to orchestrate the transition.
The work of the FCO in the transition process, both in negotiations with the EU and in managing the UK’s broader global role including trade agreements
Because of the rapidly changing situation and the rolling nature of this inquiry, no deadline is being set for written submissions. However, submissions received by 30 September will inform the Committee’s work in October.”
The Jo Cox Fund
The Jo Cox Fund is currently around £47,000 short of its £1.5m target to fund charities concerned with combating loneliness and alienation, hate crimes and life-saving help for ordinary citizens trapped in the Syrian fighting. Donations are slowing down.
Surely, our Parliament and House of Lords could make up this shortfall?
It would be a generous and compassionate gesture from all sides of the political spectrum.
And what about a few of those ultra-rich donors to ALL political parties donating what, for them, is small change? And there are a good few millionaires in Parliament and donations would surely be tax-deductible.
This transcends party politics – or should do.
Perhaps Hugo Swire could donate another pot of honey – after all, the last one, auctioned for Conservative Party coffers, fetched £15,000.
Political paralysis – and no plan, or at least not a viable one
” … The root problem here, and the real reason why Britain looks increasingly ungovernable, is that the referendum allowed the public to give the thumbs down to the status quo, without providing assent for anything to go in its place. Indeed, if there was a “leave proposition” it was mendacious, involving the pretence that we could simultaneously, bolt the door, stop paying all EU fees, but continue to trade with it as advantageously as now. In the days since the vote, Angela Merkel has confirmed that it is simply not possible to have all three at once. One way or another, Britain is going to have to choose here, and it may very well be that there is no majority – among the public, or in parliament – for any of the realistic options.
If so, the UK will be snookered – condemned by the referendum to being out of Europe, but without any agreement on a way forward. It is a situation that cries out for serious leadership, to win popular assent for one imperfect path or another. Without it, the country could end up paralysed, and the people feeling betrayed. At Westminster, however, many politicians seem too consumed with betraying each other to care.
The current political situation explained
Benjamin Timothy Blaine – Facebook post
“So, let me get this straight… the leader of the opposition campaigned to stay but secretly wanted to leave, so his party held a non-binding vote to shame him into resigning so someone else could lead the campaign to ignore the result of the non-binding referendum which many people now think was just angry people trying to shame politicians into seeing they’d all done nothing to help them.
Meanwhile, the man who campaigned to leave because he hoped losing would help him win the leadership of his party, accidentally won and ruined any chance of leading because the man who thought he couldn’t lose, did – but resigned before actually doing the thing the vote had been about. The man who’d always thought he’d lead next, campaigned so badly that everyone thought he was lying when he said the economy would crash – and he was, but it did, but he’s not resigned, but, like the man who lost and the man who won, also now can’t become leader. Which means the woman who quietly campaigned to stay but always said she wanted to leave is likely to become leader instead.
Which means she holds the same view as the leader of the opposition but for opposite reasons, but her party’s view of this view is the opposite of the opposition’s. And the opposition aren’t yet opposing anything because the leader isn’t listening to his party, who aren’t listening to the country, who aren’t listening to experts or possibly paying that much attention at all. However, none of their opponents actually want to be the one to do the thing that the vote was about, so there’s not yet anything actually on the table to oppose anyway. And if no one ever does do the thing that most people asked them to do, it will be undemocratic and if any one ever does do it, it will be awful.
Clear?”
A Progressive Alliance?
Letter in Guardian from Caroline Lucas, Green Party MP:
“Is there any waking up from this nightmare, a glimmer of light,” asks Polly Toynbee, at the end of her searing examination of the pent-up “seething anti-Westminster wrath” which found its expression last week, and which helps to explain the victory of the leave campaign (Dismal, lifeless, spineless – Corbyn let us down again, 25 June).
If there is to be any hope for progressive politics, the answer has to be yes – and the solution lies in Toynbee’s own analysis. As she acknowledges, our electoral system is responsible for the fact that the concerns of vast numbers of people routinely go unheard, while parties fight for the swing voters of the centre ground. That’s precisely why we urgently need to build a progressive alliance for electoral reform.
Having lost control in Scotland, and with constituency boundary changes on the way, it must be increasingly clear to Labour that they cannot win an outright majority at the next election, no matter who their leader is. Instead of indulging in months of introspection and infighting, this is their opportunity to recognise that a more plural politics is in both their electoral and political interests. And with the growing likelihood of an early general election, the importance of progressive parties working together to prevent the formation of a Tory-Ukip-DUP government that would seek to enact an ultra-right Brexit scenario is ever more pressing.
It’s no surprise that leave’s message to “take back control” stuck. Many people do indeed feel powerless. Ensuring that everyone’s voice is heard in our political system is the first step towards healing the deep divisions that this referendum has revealed. I call on other progressive parties to join us in fighting to achieve that.
Caroline Lucas MP
Green, Brighton Pavilion
And/or an Independent Alliance?
Brexit: The law of unintended consequences strikes again
“Brexit will be biggest ever task for Whitehall, even though staffing is at lowest level since 1940s after redundancies”
” … Huge swaths of policy and legislation will need to be reconsidered and decided upon by ministers, government and parliament. All of this is required whilst maintaining our public services and carrying out business as usual.
“Many of our members have serious concerns about how we will implement this at a time of political and economic uncertainty. Many of these questions cannot be answered right now.”
The civil service is now at its smallest size since the second world war, employing about 392,000 full-time staff, according to the latest figures. It represents an 18% drop since the coalition government came to power in 2010. The government’s spending review has meant that departments have drawn up further staff cuts.
Lord Kerslake, the former head of the civil service, has called on the government to begin a rethink of government cuts to staffing levels because of Brexit.
“If they’re going to get through this mammoth negotiation, they are going to have to increase resources for a period of time – and they ought logically to put a stop on haemorrhaging people,” Lord Kerslake told the publication Civil Service World.
Senior officials believe the untangling of 40 years of EU legislation as the biggest task the civil service has ever faced. This will include deciding on what to keep, amend and reject from EU-related laws and around 13,000 regulations.
At the same time, the British government will be negotiating any new deals with the EU and the rest of the world.
Oliver Letwin, the prime minister’s close associate, is expected to coordinate the unit’s work across Whitehall.
However, former head of the civil service Lord Turnbull told the Treasury select committee on Tuesday that Letwin was “completely unsuitable to do that job in the longer term” because “he has been a kind of consigliere to the prime minister”.
Hannah Williams, the programme director from the Institute for Government, said that the government has failed to explain how the work will be completed. “The announcement today gives no further detail of how this new unit will be run, the expertise it will draw from, or how it will coordinate Whitehall’s Brexit efforts,” she said.
Olly Robbins, the civil servant who is currently responsible for policy on immigration, has been given the job of heading the new Brexit unit.
Robbins, 40, was the UK’s deputy national security adviser to the cabinet office. He told the high court in 2013 that the Guardian’s Edward Snowden revelations could lead to “widespread loss of life”. The government has not yet released proof to back up his claims. Robbins, who is second permanent secretary at the Home Office, was also accused of giving “extremely unsatisfactory” answers on the funding of the Border Force when he appeared before the Home Affairs select committee in April.
Keith Vaz, committee chairman, had asked him repeatedly whether Charles Montgomery, Border Force director-general, had been told what his budget was to be for the year ahead.”
Post-Brexit devolution: an end to the “gift from Whitehall” model?
“… Last week’s referendum was a turning point for the devolution agenda. Just as Scotland’s near miss on independence sparked the current round of devolution deals, so the decision to Brexit could spark a new wave of demands for change: and this time, the calls for more local and regional autonomy are likely to be sharper and angrier.
Commentators are rushing to point out that an out-of-touch London elite has not listened to the cries of pain from suffering regional towns and cities. Any plan to address the underlying reasons for the Brexit vote must start by recognising that the British model of economic development is not working for most people. While the capital and wider south east have boomed, regional centres like Birmingham have fallen catastrophically behind. The idea that our economic model can be fixed by the national elite that broke it in the first place seems fanciful. Politically, it will be hard to ignore the need for economic reform.
The need to fix regional economies will be compounded by the deep social divisions that the referendum has painfully exposed. Look at the map of the Brexit vote and London sticks out like a sore thumb; an island of Remainers in a sea of Brexit. Some will say that the capital’s sense of anger and grievance is due payback for decades of ignoring the rest of the country. This attitude will hardly reduce the emotional shock that many Londoners currently feel, an experience that will be replicated in cities like Bristol, Cambridge, Liverpool and parts of Manchester. At the same time, the shires are clearly on manoeuvres to ensure that they translate their political power within the Conservative Party into a more generous approach to devolution to counties, ideally without the troublesome requirement for a mayor.
There are two ways to make devolution happen. For the past few years we have been following what might be termed the Whitehall gift model. Local leaders negotiate with George Osborne and, if he likes what he hears, he passes them down a package of new powers. It is a model that is unlikely to work very effectively in a post-referendum world. Mr Osborne is arguably already a lame duck chancellor. Parliament and the civil service face years of Brexit-related legislative congestion. Why would devolution deals be high on their agenda?
If we stick with the gift model, then devolution will stall. Greater Manchester might have enough momentum to carry on, but places like Merseyside and the West Midlands may find themselves struggling to win more powers. The counties may find it even harder to make progress, especially if they remain mired in complex debates about local government reorganisation.
But Scotland did not win its devolved settlement by waiting for Westminster’s beneficence. Its political class mobilised the voters and civil society to forge a consensus for change, before steadily campaigning to make it happen. The SNP went even further, demanding the right to declare independence unilaterally though their referendum last year. The decision to leave has unleashed a sense of grievance across the country that will be hard to put back in the bottle. Local leaders have an opportunity to channel that feeling in the direction of greater local autonomy. The difficult truth is that leaving the EU will not in itself do much to address grievances rooted in two generations of de-industrialisation, especially if the process of leaving brings a recession with it. Parliament may be preoccupied with Brexit, but the country as a whole will be worried about jobs.
The time for gifts may be over, but the moment for building a genuine movement for constitutional change might just be arriving.”
http://www.publicfinance.co.uk/opinion/2016/06/brexit-turning-point-devolution
OK Hugo, who is your choice for PM? And Neil, what about you?
Will it be an old Etonian (Boris), a woman (May) a bloke from the working class (Crabbe) or Hunt – that chap you say you talked to a lot about our NHS but who doesn’t seem to have helped much?
How long will you sit on the fence? Or might you stand yourself? Or will you be campaigning to see which one will give you another ministerial post? Or the one offering you a peerage, perhaps?
Oh, the irony if you end up as just another common or garden constituency MP – who doesn’t have even a second home in it.
Owl feels your pain.
And Neil – now presumably so disliked by your Minister George Eustace for batting for the wrong side. And no hope of going back to the European Parliament!
Will the A303 now ever be completed … Will animal welfare continue to be protected by Brexiters? And forever destined to live with the fact that you were one of the 79 MPs who defied your party whip to force this Referendum.
But at least you do live in YOUR constituency.
Oliver Letwin (2) – privatise, privatise, privatise – including the NHS
The man David Cameron just put in charge of the government’s Brexit policy (see post directly below)
Oliver Letwin books andpamphlet:
Oliver Letwin and John Redwood. (1988)
Britain’s Biggest Enterprise – ideas for radical reform of the NHS
“… four out of five main recommendations made in the 20-page pamphlet are already being put into place.
Britain’s Biggest Enterprise :
– calls the NHS “a bureaucratic monster that cannot be tamed”.
– says the NHS needs “radical reform” and “revolutionary ideas”.
– claims waiting lists were caused by the “system itself” rather than a lack of funds, and that spending more money would simply increase waiting lists.
It makes these five recommendations:
1) Establishment of the NHS as an independent trust.
2) Increased use of joint ventures between the NHS and private sector
3) Extending the principle of charging
Oliver Letwin (1988)
Privatising the World: A Study of International Privatisation in Theory and Practice
Amazon Books 1 star Review:
This is the well spring of what they are doing to our country. The owners of the snouts in the trough that cannot bear to think of any money, any transaction happening without a profit being made for a shareholder or a bank, or Letwin’s friends like Cameron, Osborne and Hunt. An appalling treatise on how greed is right and the public interest is wrong. How to dismantle the stuff that glues us together and sell it off to corporate cartels – the failure of the fuel market, the chaos of our “privatised” railways, the reluctance of bus companies to run unprofitable routes, zero hours contracts – all of these should be warnings of where this sort of poisoned, anti social thinking can lead. Read this book and be afraid.
“Progressive Alliance”
“… the best or only prospect for victory in the onrushing general election could be a broad progressive alliance or national unity platform of citizens and parties from the centre to the left. Such an idea has been floated before, and usually founders on the rocks of party tribalism. But the stakes have never been this high, and the Achilles heels of the status quo parties have never been so spotlit.
Such an alliance could only succeed if it embraces the lessons of new politics and establishes itself on open principles. A coalition of sore losers from Westminster is unlikely to appeal. But if an open primary was held in every constituency to select the best progressive candidate, that would provide unprecedented democratic legitimacy and channel a wave of bottom-up energy into this new alliance as well as its constituent parties.
In England, such an alliance could gather together many of those who have campaigned together for Remain in this referendum and opposed Tory policies, from Labour to Greens and Liberal Democrats. It might even appeal to Conservative voters or politicians who are disenchanted with the Leave movement. In Scotland and Wales too, some form of engagement with the SNP or Plaid Cymru might be possible.
An electoral alliance built on open and democratic foundations would provide a new entry point to politics for the millions of young people who voted to stay in the EU and today feel despairing and unheard. Vitally, it could also make a fresh offer to Labour heartland voters, enabling them to elect candidates who are free to speak to their concerns on immigration as well as economic insecurity. I believe it could win a thumping majority.”
Claire Wright: even more important that MPs represent their constituency
“Brexit: It is now more important than ever that this country has MPs who will represent the people
Tuesday, 28 June 2016 1 Comment by Claire
Since Friday events have moved so fast I haven’t even written a blog as each time I think of an angle it gets superseded by another major news story!
The only clear thing among all the chaos and confusion, is that this country has probably never been more divided – politically and socially – and in my view, more in peril than at any other time in living memory.
The party system seems to have totally fractured. Not only has the Conservative parliamentary party become bitterly broken, the Labour party is also at war.
Last Friday morning I felt shellshocked and upset that we had left an institution I believed worked for the greater good, despite its many faults. Since then I have watched fascinated as the subsequent dramatic events unfolded.
The economic fallout came swiftly and is very worrying. The value of the pound has plummeted to a 31 year low, we are told that the UK’s credit rating has been downgraded from a triple A to a double A rating, we have dropped from being the fifth largest economy in the world to the fourth and the Bank of England is on standby to pump £250bn of public money into the markets to reduce the jitters currently reverberating across the globe from our EU exit.
More than £200bn has been wiped from the value of the UK stock market – equivalent to 24 years worth of EU contributions.
A general election is now looking possible in October, to tie in with the selection of a new prime minister.
Lies and exaggeration were undoubtedly the order of the day for both the Leave and Remain campaigns, but what is really galling to me is that the Leave movement won people over on false pretences. On the NHS and immigration in particular – two major planks of their operation, their claims have been found to be resoundingly untrue.
The Remain campaign focused too much on scaremongering and too little on how the EU helps us, which only riled people and forced them into entrenched positions , setting family member and friend against one another.
The conservative IN bandwagon, seemed to be blinkered on issues mainly linked to the economy and immigration, discounting all the positive things that the EU does for us, for example on employment, the environment and human rights for example. I believe that this was because these are the issues that are not valued by the right wing political elite that we currently have governing this country.
David Cameron’s supposedly one nation conservative cabinet, which campaigned WITH big business against a ban on bee killing pesticides, has already scrapped or weakened as many environmental protections as it can get away with. Planning regulations are now as relaxed and in favour of developers as they have been since the introduction of the Town and Country Planning Act in 1947.
With a future hardline right wing government on the cards, possibly led by the current favourite Boris Johnson, the likelihood of the current protections remaining for our seas, clean air, recycling, waste and for rare species, landscapes and plants – the Habitats Regulations – is remote.
Over the past few years the Conservative government has lobbied to scrap the EU Habitats Regulations – tough laws which protect some of our most precious landscapes here in East Devon, such as Woodbury Common, Aylesbeare Common, the Exe Estuary, as well as large swathes of Dartmoor.
However, despite the Habitats Regulations protecting our most rare and precious species such as the dartford warbler and the nightjar, our government announced the laws were “gold plated,” and lobbied the EU hard to get them scrapped.
The EU has so far held firm to these regulations, which also mean strong planning rules in these areas , as well as the surrounding countryside.
But I now can see on the horizon an inevitable and horrible ‘bonfire of red tape’ as a new right wing conservative leadership sets about dismantling anything that it views as in the way of “growth.”
So what is the future of East Devon now most of the country has voted to leave?
In my own council ward of Ottery, there must now be question marks for a controversial quarry proposed at Straitgate Farm, which was quietly looking less likely, due in part to the strict Habitats Regulations Protecting Woodbury Common, where Blackhill Quarry is based and where stone and gravel processing currently takes place. It was due to cease as of the end of this year because of these laws.
What will Brexit mean for East Devon’s two biggest industries? Agriculture and tourism? And what will it mean for education? What does it mean for our cash strapped NHS and our local very much at risk
community hospitals?
What will it mean for the most vulnerable people in the constituency and those on low incomes?
Certainly, both agriculture and education are forced to rely on EU subsidies and grants.
Prolonged economic hardship will surely mean even deeper public spending cuts, yet deeper cuts to public services, which as always, will have the biggest effect on those people who have the least.
If a general election does take place in October, the future of our district – and the rest of the country – rests with those politicians examining thousands of pages of EU law and policy with a view to changing, scrapping or tightening it.
The future of our vulnerable residents also rests with MPs who have a duty to stand up for people who need help and support.
East Devon’s MP needs speak and vote in favour or against new laws and policies based on how they affect local people. That’s voting FOR the people of East Devon, not his party.
Each MP has a duty, in my view, to be a diligent scrutineer of this process.
What laws or policies do we want in East Devon that will benefit us, our communities, our wildlife and our businesses? Now is the time to consider this very carefully.
If democracy is working effectively people in East Devon should have the opportunity to influence such discussions through our MP.
And our MP has a responsibility to stand up for the people of East Devon and what they see as their priorities, especially at this very turbulent time.
The question has to be as ever. Is Mr Swire up to the job?”
Dear Next Prime Minister
OK next PM, let’s make it simple. You now have three choices:
1. Invoke Article 50 the day you become PM
2. Invoke Article 50 soon after you become PM
3. Find an excuse not to invoke Article 50
If you settle for (1) or (2) it is probably not a good idea for you to go for the Norwegian model – they pay to be in the EU but they don’t get any voting rights AND they have to accept free movement. Either (1) or (2) means LOTS of negotiating (by lots of extra civil servants you need to recruit NOW, by the way) as, if it takes more than 2 years, you walk away with nothing or whatever scraps the EU chooses to throw at you on the way out. And if it is (1) or (2) why wait? Just do it.
If you settle for (3) you pee off A LOT of the English and Welsh, but you make a lot of people in Northern Ireland and Scotland (and the EU) very happy. And you can blame LOTS of people for having had to take the decision, though your career might be rather short-lived. Good to have a Plan B with this one – maybe a job with an EU bank in Frankfurt.
So, if you still really haven’t decided what to do by this point, sit down with the people you trust, lock the door and don’t come out until you have made a decision. If you are still there after 24 continuous hours, it is an automatic (3).
Owl is glad to have helped.
Jo Cox fundraising
The fundraising for murdered MP Jo Cox is attempting to raise £1.5 million for causes which were dear to her, including those for reconciliation and aid for refugees. As of now it is only £69,000 short of this target.
Donation via:
Will the demand for ” sovreignty” mean an end to secondary legislation?
This was published by the Daily Telegraph a few days ago, and now Brexit is a reality it should be read with new eyes:
“Perhaps the most powerfully held aspiration for Brexiteers is to restore UK parliamentary sovereignty: in the words of Michael Gove, to “take back control” and, of John Redwood, for Britain to “be a democracy again .
But what would this “taking back control” mean in practice? Brexiteers imply that while EU legislation is “imposed”, Westminster parliamentarians control non-EU law-making through active debates and votes.
Except they don’t, because for voters what impacts on their lives most is not primary legislation – Bills – on which parliamentarians can vote, but the meaningful detail of the Bills, which Whitehall civil servants and ministers increasingly choose to hide in secondary legislation (sometimes called delegated legislation of Statutory Instruments – SIs).
The scale of this was estimated for the Lords by former minister Baroness Andrews:
“80 per cent of the laws as they impact on individuals are transported through statutory instruments, whether that is welfare benefits, food safety, planning requirements or competition across the NHS…”
Essentially Whitehall civil servants and ministers are defining important laws as “secondary legislation” in order to subvert the ability of parliament to choose whether to pass or not to pass laws.
Brexit is no guarantee of British control of its own destiny or of parliamentary sovereignty because our parliament is not in control.
SIs are rarely debated, and historic Westminster procedure means they cannot be amended. The idea that parliament meaningfully votes to “pass” them is no more real than the idea that the Queen gets to decide the content of the Queens Speech.
The problem is not new. An official Parliamentary report published in 2011 found that the last time the House of Commons rejected a SI was in 1979; it appears from the Hansard record that the rejection of this SI may have been a mistake.
The House of Lords, despite a 1994 resolution affirming its ‘unfettered freedom to vote on any subordinate legislation’, has voted down secondary legislation on only three occasions in the last half-century.
That one reason why the Lords’ hard line on the tax credits SIs in October 2015 caused such consternation in government and David Cameron to appoint Lord Strathclyde to review Lords powers and recommend further action.
The erosion of parliamentary sovereignty by the growing use of secondary legislation and “Henry VIII clauses” (which give ministers powers to change primary legislation through Statutory Instruments and thereby bypass the need for parliamentary votes) to reduce the parliamentary accountability of ministers and Whitehall civil servants was dubbed “The New Despotism” in a book by Lord Hewart of Bury, Lord Chief Justice of England and former Attorney General, published as long ago as 1929.
This would not change outside the EU. The problem was just as real before Britain joined the European Community.
Labour MP Willie Hamilton told parliament in the 1971 European Community accession debate:
“A great deal goes on even now under our own eyes that we do not know about… some 2,000 Statutory Instruments, which have legislative effect, go through this House every year and only a handful of them are debated. This is already government by default. In that sense this House, voluntarily and negligently, has surrendered a large part of its sovereignty to the Executive…. Much play has been made of the decision-making by the bureaucrats in Brussels. Things are not as simple as that. What about our own faceless bureaucrats in Whitehall? What part does this House play now in making policy decisions and in framing legislation? We have none at all. Everybody is consulted except us. Therefore, let us not pretend there will be any serious derogation there when we get into Europe.”
Some Brexiteers, notably Douglas Carswell, have a track-record of championing democratic accountability in Britain’s Westminster parliament. But they are the exceptions. Most are happy to indulge a Westminster parliamentary processes and rules more akin to Mornington Crescent than to cricket. Westminster “parliamentary sovereignty” would be no more certain of “returning control” to British voters, than a sovereign British space programme would be of sending a union-jack adorned rocket to Mars and getting it back in one piece.
That is nothing to do with the EU – if voters do back Brexit to “take back control” they could find themselves holding a political pudding whose democratic promise has been significantly over-egged.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/19/brexit-wont-return-power-to-mps-in-parliament-because-parliament/
And the first devolution worries appear …
“The devolution genie is out of the bottle. As we debate our future sovereignty there needs to be a strong role for local governance.
So now we know. Or do we? The UK faces months of uncertainty as the consequences of the Brexit vote, followed by David Cameron’s own exit, play out.
As all eyes turn to messy wrangling at Westminster, where does this leave local government? At this moment, the sector needs its voice heard, and clearly.
As a priority, local government needs a seat at the table as the financial and legal implications of Brexit are considered. The sector needs clarity over the replacement of nearly £6bn of European Structural Investment Funds invested in regional infrastructure, skills and youth unemployment schemes across the country. These funds play an important but largely hidden role in community infrastructure, with little public understanding of them. A Leave-led government will need to commit to continuing these or face huge local disruption. Beyond that, the practical implications for local government in legal and regulatory terms over huge swathes of activity – procurement, waste collection and disposal, energy efficiency – will need to be understood by those navigating the consequences of working outside EU directives.
Secondly, the future of devolution is by no means certain. George Osborne’s political future remains as bound to Cameron’s as it has ever been and so is now in serious doubt. Since devolution to date has been driven by a chancellor who invested his personal political capital in the agenda, local government now needs to make the policy resistant to personnel change at the Treasury. Whatever happens at Westminster and Whitehall, the impending invocation of Article 50 and ensuing trade negotiations will consume the energy of SW1 – so new and deeper devo deals will be much harder for the foreseeable future.
Thirdly, the repatriation of powers from Brussels to the UK will strengthen the supremacy of Parliament. It is likely that Scotland and Northern Ireland’s Remain majorities raise questions about their future within the UK. Local government in England needs to make sure any constitutional discussion does not stop at the national level and addresses how we are governed more fully. The Referendum vote lay bare the geographical divides within England and the alienation of swathes of the country from the Westminster establishment.
It is clear that representative democracy as we know it is in crisis – to ensure legitimate government in the future we need a serious discussion about where power lies and how our communities can have more influence in their own future. For those of us who are localists this is a given – but the terms of the national debate are not yet set in this way and they need to be. Local government needs to be heard.
Over the coming months there will be more opportunity for this. Continued dysfunction at Westminster, with both main parties divided from the Referendum fallout, gives an opportunity for local leadership to stand out on the national stage as never before. By the end of this year, candidates for new directly elected mayors will be in place and many of our city and county regions will have the opportunity to decide the future of their places. Will this help to shift the centre of political and constitutional gravity away from Westminster? Can we breathe new life into our struggling national democratic culture? Time will tell, but it is likely that the politics and kinetic energy generated by the referendum will continue and may influence these elections in ways we cannot yet foresee.
As we continue a national discussion over what sovereignty looks like, we need to make sure there is a strong local dimension which gives life to the rich diversity of our nation of cities and shires. The devolution genie is already out of the bottle and even as the Westminster bubble bursts, stronger local governance has the opportunity to take on a new life of its own. The future legitimacy of our democracy may well depend on it.”
http://www.publicfinance.co.uk/opinion/2016/06/brexit-raises-questions-about-osbornes-devo-push
And it begins already
“The Local Government Association has called for councils to be given “a seat around the table” when decisions are taken over how to replace EU laws as part of the UK’s exit negotiations.
In a statement issued in the aftermath of the vote for the UK to leave the EU, the LGA said: “It is vital that local government is part of the team. EU laws and regulations impact on many council services, such as waste, employment, health and safety, consumer protection and trading and environmental standards.
“There cannot be an assumption that power over these services is simply transferred from Brussels to Westminster. If services are delivered locally, then the power over how to run them should rest locally too. Decades of centralised control over funding and services has distanced our residents from the decisions that affect their everyday lives. With greater control in our areas we can improve services and save money.”
The LGA also called on the Government to protect the “vital” £5.3bn of EU regeneration funding allocated up to 2020. This was necessary, it said, “to avoid essential growth-boosting projects stalling and local economies across England being stifled”. …
Former editor of “The Independent” thinks party politics is dead and democracy is broken
“So here is the checklist: Conservative Party: split; Labour Party: in disarray; Liberal Democrats: severe losses.
That isn’t the end of it. There is another serious development running in parallel: the decline in people’s trust in their political leaders. Which is cause, and which is consequence, it is impossible to say.
What is certain, however, is that the systematic, shameless spinning and fear-mongering of the Remain and Leave campaigns has further reduced the respect in which our aged political system is held.
The truth is that the party system – a part of our everyday lives since Labour formed its first government in 1924 – is tottering and will soon collapse. …
… I hope myself that the ‘new’ would have three characteristics. First, the political process would be more consultative than it is at present. To this end I would favour a further expansion of the work of the parliamentary select committees. These are the bodies that have recently held Mike Ashley of Sports Direct and Philip Green, the former owner of BHS, to account. They should hold hearings in regional centres as well as in the Palace of Westminster.
Second, MPs should be subject to term limits, which would mean that they could not stand for re-election to the House of Commons more than, say, twice. This would prevent the creation of a political class. Politics would no longer be a lifetime career but a public duty.
And third, citizens who have done something with their lives other than politics should be willing to stand for Parliament knowing that with term limits, it would not be a job for life.”
Latest information on EDDC and devolution – done deal
Pages 104-116 here:
Click to access 280616-overview-agenda-combined.pdf
NOTE: THERE HAS BEEN ABSOLUTELY NO CONSULTATION WITH RESIDENTS ON ANY PART OF THIS DEAL WHICH IS BEING RAILROADED THROUGH EACH MEMBER COUNCIL
A summary:
“Our Prospectus for Prosperity was submitted to Government at the end of February 2016. Since then the Partnership has pressed the Secretary of State to enter into discussion with its negotiation team to secure a deal for the Heart of the South West.
Following an invitation from the Secretary of State, on the 25th May 2016, leaders from the upper tier authorities met with the Greg Clarke, Secretary of State for the Department of Communities and Local Government to seek his view on our next steps forward.
The Secretary of State made the following comments:
Geography – the Devon and Somerset area is agreed as the appropriate scale. The proposal must clearly demonstrate why this is the right geography for the Devolution agreement and all councils and MPs must support the proposal.
Combined Authority – the Partnership will move forward into the negotiation process based on a Combined Authority model. The Mayoral issue may be considered at a later stage, within the timeline agreed by our Partnership. A Mayor will not be imposed or be a pre-condition of any initial deal.
Extent of the deal – areas that have agreed to have a Mayor will get more powers than a non-Mayoral Combined Authority deal. However, the negotiation process will be an opportunity to push the limits of this initial deal, and the process should be viewed as being incremental.
Timeline – we will still work towards an Autumn Statement timeline for the announcement of an initial deal.
Growth Deal 3 – the LEP would not be penalised in Growth Deal 3 negotiations because the area does not have a Devolution deal with a Mayor. The decision for allocation will be based purely on the quality of the Growth Deal bid.
The Secretary of State went on to advise that if the Partnership, backed by each Council and MPs, would sign up to the principle of creating a Combined Authority by the end of July 2016 he would arrange for the Treasury to open up negotiations towards a deal.
This report seeks approval to sign up ‘in principle’ to the pursuit of a Devolution Deal and the creation of a Combined Authority for the Heart of the South West sub-region to administer the powers devolved through the Deal.
An ‘in principle’ agreement from all of the authorities, partners and MPs involved in the Heart of the South West devolution process will open up negotiations with Treasury to work towards a deal.
Any final devolution deal with government will be subject to further approval/ratification by all partners individually. A Heads of Terms document will be used as a negotiating tool to seek additional powers and funding to accelerate the delivery of 163,000 new jobs, 179,000 new homes and an economy of over £53bn GVA by 2030.
It should be noted that there is no intention for the Combined Authority to take existing powers or funding from local authorities, or existing city deal governance structures, without the explicit agreement of those constituent local authorities. More detailed work will be undertaken to identify the decision-making powers and the constitution of the Combined Authority, and all partners will be fully involved and consulted on these arrangements as they develop.”
Political spending US-style
Remember £15,000 for a jar of Hugo Swire’s honey in 2014:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/citydiary/10944187/City-Diary-After-dinner-auction-could-turn-into-a-honey-trap-for-the-Tories.html
and Hugo’s remarks about people on benefits at the auction he chaired in 2015:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/citydiary/10944187/City-Diary-After-dinner-auction-could-turn-into-a-honey-trap-for-the-Tories.html
Owl, having read below about how Donald Trump manages his election expenses, wonders how much of the battle bus expenses ended up back in donors pockets.
“Donald Trump loves to brag about his wealth. But as he heads into the general election in November, his campaign’s bank account is almost empty (for a presidential candidate) — he has just $1.3 million on hand, nearly 40 times less than presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
And a lot of the money the Trump campaign has spent is going directly back to Donald Trump. In May, according to Federal Election Commission filings, Trump spent about $1 million of his campaign’s funds on products and services from business he owns, including:
$423,372 to rent out Mar-a-Lago, his Palm Beach club
$349,540 to Tag Air, his fleet of private jets
$29,715 to rent out the Trump International Golf Club
$35,845 to rent out the Trump National Golf Club
$72,800 in rent on Trump Tower
Earlier this year, the Trump campaign spent thousands to stay at Trump hotels, eat at Trump restaurants, and serve Trump bottled water at their events. The Associated Press calculated that, in all, $6 million of Trump campaign money has gone back to the Trump Organization.
Campaigns are required to pay the fair market value for the goods and services they purchase, even if they’re paying a company owned by the candidate. (Otherwise, Trump’s companies could give him a big advantage by allowing him to use facilities for free, while Clinton, who is not a real estate magnate, has to pay for venues where she holds her events.) Trump, naturally, wants to host events at properties he owns.
Since Trump’s campaign funds still mostly come from a loan from the candidate himself, a lot of this spending is just passing Trump’s money around. But as the campaign goes on and Trump seeks out more donations, some of the money from his supporters will end up flowing right back to him.”
http://www.vox.com/2016/6/21/11988298/trump-campaign-spending-trump
East Devon Watch 