The National Party and Constitutional Reform

Author(s):  
Keith Jackson ◽  
Alan Mcrobie
2019 ◽  
Vol 71 (015) ◽  
pp. 8-8
Author(s):  
Yelena Mukhametshina

Author(s):  
Stephen Tierney

The chapter examines Brexit and the English question, arguing that Brexit should be understood as a result of the ongoing demotic process in England. As Tierney explains, the UK is an asymmetric system. England alone constitutes population-wise almost four-fifths of the UK. This has influenced devolution: while since the 1990s power has transferred outwards towards the devolved nations, England herself has never received equivalent constitutional autonomy, or recognition, within the UK. Proposals for regional devolution within England, transferring powers to nationwide cities, have also failed. the recent introduction within the House of Common of the principle ‘English Votes for English Laws’—allowing only MPs elected in English constituencies to vote on laws concerning England alone, thus overcoming the well-known West Lothian question—is also an inadequate response to ever-increasing nationalistic views. To address this situation post-Brexit, Tierney concludes that constitutional reform is necessary, entrenching a coherent system of intergovernmental relations.


2010 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-74
Author(s):  
Malcolm Saunders ◽  
Neil Lloyd

Probably no one who has entered either federal or state Parliament in Australia departed from it as loathed and despised as Malcolm Arthur Colston. A Labor senator from Queensland between 1975 and 1996, he is remembered by that party as a ‘rat’ who betrayed it for the sake of personal advancement. Whereas many Labor parliamentarians – most notably Prime Minister ‘Billy’ Hughes in 1917 have left the party because they strongly disagreed with it over a major policy issue or a matter of principle, in the winter of 1996 Colston unashamedly left it to secure the deputy presidency of the Senate and the status, income and several other perquisites that went with it. Labor's bitterness towards Colston stems not merely from the fact that he showed extraordinary ingratitude towards a party that had allowed him a parliamentary career but more especially because, between his defection from the party in August 1996 and his retirement from Parliament in June 1999, his vote allowed the Liberal-National Party government led by John Howard to pass legislation through the Senate that might otherwise have been rejected.


2009 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-198 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Hopkin

This article addresses the relationship between political decentralization and the organization of political parties in Great Britain and Spain, focusing on the Labour Party and the Socialist Party, respectively. It assesses two rival accounts of this relationship: Caramani's `nationalization of politics' thesis and Chhibber and Kollman's rational choice institutionalist account in their book The Formation of National Party Systems. It argues that both accounts are seriously incomplete, and on occasion misleading, because of their unwillingness to consider the autonomous role of political parties as advocates of institutional change and as organizational entities. The article develops this argument by studying the role of the British Labour Party and the Spanish Socialists in proposing devolution reforms, and their organizational and strategic responses to them. It concludes that the reductive theories cited above fail to capture the real picture, because parties cannot only mitigate the effects of institutional change, they are also the architects of these changes and shape institutions to suit their strategic ends.


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