Interpreting EVEL: Latest Station in the Conservative Party’s English Journey?

2018 ◽  
pp. 117-136
Author(s):  
Daniel Gover ◽  
Michael Kenny
Keyword(s):  
Conservative Party ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
Political Debate ◽  
The West ◽  
Conservative Government ◽  
Scottish Independence

In October 2015, the Conservative Government introduced a reform to the procedures of the House of Commons known as ‘English votes for English laws’ (or EVEL). This chapter examines how the Conservative Party, which has historically been closely identified with unionism, became the architect of such a scheme. It documents how this topic emerged in political debate, following the implementation of devolution and, again, in the aftermath of the 2014 Scottish independence referendum. And it analyses EVEL’s operation at Westminster in 2015–17, uncovering tensions within it that point to deeper strains within Conservative Party thinking. It concludes that EVEL needs to be understood not only as a response to the ‘West Lothian Question’, but also in relation to a longer-term disjuncture in the Conservative psyche arising from two competing conceptions of the nature and purpose of union.

The British Elections

1952 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 102-120
Author(s):  
M. A. Fitzsimons
Keyword(s):  
Conservative Party ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
The Self ◽  
British Government ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
Popular Vote ◽  
Self Confidence ◽  
Conservative Government ◽  
Party Members

The british elections of October 25 gave the Conservative Party a small majority of 17 members in the House of Commons, although the popular vote provided a majority of 200,000 for the Labour Party. Parliament, however, is the supreme power in the British government and the discrepancy between popular vote and parliamentary results will not seriously shake the self-confidence of the Conservative Party. Members of the Labour Party, less sober and responsible in opposition, will doubtless characterize the Conservative government as a freak and an accident. But British traditions sanction the illogical workings of electoral machinery.

Brexit and Britain’s Changing Constitution

2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 400-417
Author(s):  
Rainer Grote
Keyword(s):  
Conservative Party ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Political Debate ◽  
Political Class ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
Conservative Government ◽  
Critical Junctures ◽  
The Government ◽  
Run Up ◽  
The Uk

The Brexit saga which culminated in the sweeping victory of the Conservative Party in the parliamentary elections of December 2019 and the British withdrawal from the European Union the following months caused a major upheaval in the relationship between Britain’s main constitutional actors, especially between the government and the judiciary. In the course of the long-winded and acrimonious Brexit debate, the courts were repeatedly asked to intervene at critical junctures of the withdrawal process, first to secure a central role for Parliament in discussing and approving the terms of withdrawal and then to protect Parliament against attempts by the government to curtail and render ineffective this role through the questionable use of its prerogative powers. This development reached its climax with the UK Supreme Court’s judgment of 24 September 2019 on the unlawfulness of the prorogation of Parliament decided by the Queen on the advice of the Prime Minister in the run-up to Brexit, an unprecedented interference by the courts with the exercise of prerogative powers in the name of a functioning parliamentary democracy. While the reasoning of the Court does not appear entirely convincing, there can be no doubt that the ruling was crucial in upholding the central role of Parliament in the Brexit negotiations and, by implication, of the authority of the courts which had defined that role at the beginning of the negotiations. That the Supreme Court felt it necessary to take the unprecedented step of confronting the executive over the use of its prerogative powers in a highly polarized political debate also demonstrates the extent to which the political consensus which in former times had underpinned the functioning of Britain’s flexible constitutional democracy has broken down as a result of the Brexit debate, and the divisions it has engendered within Britain’s political class and in the public at large. This gives rise to the concern that the reforms announced by the Conservative government following its sweeping victory in the parliamentary elections of December 2019 will destroy any progress which had been made in the UK prior to the Brexit referendum towards a modern practice of parliamentary majority government based on incomplete but genuine checks and balances.

scholarly journals The Meaningful Votes: Voting on Brexit in the British House of Commons

Public Choice ◽  
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Toke Aidt ◽  
Felix Grey ◽  
Alexandru Savu
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Conservative Party ◽  
Career Concerns ◽  
The European Union ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Conservative Government ◽  
Members Of Parliament ◽  
Party Line

AbstractWhy do politicians rebel and vote against the party line when high stakes bills come to the floor of the legislature? To address that question, we leverage the three so-called Meaningful Votes that took place in the British House of Commons between January and March 2019 on the Withdrawal Agreement that the Conservative government had reached with the European Union. The bill was defeated decisively three times following a major revolt amongst Conservative backbench Members of Parliament (MPs). We find that three factors influenced their rebellion calculus: the MP’s own ideological views, constituency preferences and career concerns. Somewhat paradoxically, the rebellion within the Conservative Party came from MPs who had supported Leave in the 2016 Brexit referendum and from MPs elected in Leave-leaning constituencies.

scholarly journals Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland (GERS): A look beyond nearly 30 years of controversy at what it does and doesn't tell us about Scotland

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 423-449
Author(s):  
Graeme Roy ◽  
Mairi Spowage
Keyword(s):  
Government Expenditure ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Debate ◽  
Public Finances ◽  
Scottish Independence ◽  
Over Time

Government Expenditure Revenue Scotland (GERS) remains a controversial statistical publication on Scotland’s public finances. We trace the evolution of GERS over time, and track how it has been used in political debate since it was first published in 1992. Now in its 27th edition, we review its ongoing role in informing constitutional and fiscal debate in Scotland. We dispel some of the myths about the publication, but also highlight legitimate criticisms, and explore how it is used by both sides in the independence debate. Our main contribution is to summarise what GERS tells us – and crucially what it does not tell us – about the state of Scotland’s economy and public finances. We conclude with an assessment of what GERS might tell us about the prospects for any future debate on Scottish independence.

IV. The Colonial Office and the Abolition of Slavery

1971 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 723-734 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Reckord
Keyword(s):  
West Indian ◽  
Slave System ◽  
British Government ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
The West ◽  
Reform Programme ◽  
Viable Solution ◽  
Indian Slavery ◽  
Slave Population ◽  
Colonial Office

Under pressure from the anti-slavery interest in the House of Commons, the British Government undertook, in 1823, to reform West Indian slavery and prepare the slaves for eventual freedom. This policy of amelioration was based on the assumption that the West Indian planters would co-operate with the British Government to improve slave conditions. As George Canning explained to the House of Commons, ‘The masters are the instruments through whom, and by whom, you must act upon the slave population.’ Ten years later the reform programme was abandoned in favour of abolition. This change of policy reflected, in part, the conversion of officials at the Colonial Office who began to urge the need for emancipation in 1831. For eight years the Colonial Office made persistent efforts to induce the co-operation of the West Indian planters; these attempts failed and a mass of evidence accumulated which suggested that the slave system could not be improved, it could only be abolished. This article demonstrates the efforts made by the Colonial Office to effect amelioration in the legislative colonies with particular reference to Jamaica and the nature of the evidence which demonstrated that emancipation was the only viable solution to the problem of West Indian slavery.

The Scottish Conservatives and Europe: The Reluctant Brexit Party

2020 ◽  
pp. 169-181
Author(s):  
Anthony Salamone
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Conservative Party ◽  
Political Context ◽  
The European Union ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
Future Prospects ◽  
Four Dimensions ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Eu

As Scottish Conservative leader, Ruth Davidson was a prominent campaigner for a ‘Remain’ vote in the European Union referendum of June 2016. Following the 2017 general election, meanwhile, Davidson repositioned herself as someone who could – aided by 13 Scottish Tory MPs in the House of Commons – influence the Brexit negotiations and nudge the UK Conservative Party towards a ‘soft’ rather than ‘hard’ deal with the EU. This chapter considers the impact of Brexit on the Scottish Conservatives during the leadership of Ruth Davidson in four dimensions: Brexit’s distinct Scottish political context, its electoral consequences, the conduct of Brexit within the UK, and the Brexit negotiations themselves. It concludes with reflections on the future prospects for the Scottish party in light of all four dimensions.

Revolutionary Angst

German Angst ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 195-241
Author(s):  
Frank Biess
Keyword(s):  
Student Movement ◽  
The Political ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Political Debate ◽  
The West ◽  
Student Activities ◽  
Student Activists ◽  
Private Lives ◽  
Emotional Culture ◽  
Fear And Anxiety

This chapter analyzes the impact of the West German student movement on the history of fear and on emotional culture more generally. The “68ers” propagated an expressive emotional culture that partly displaced the older repressive emotional culture. The student movement celebrated the public display of emotions and enabled a new significance of emotions within political activism and for individual subjectivities. The chapter brings into focus the specific role that fear and anxiety played in shaping the political outlooks and subjectivities of student activities. While historians have often emphasized the optimism that drove the student movement, activists’ fears and disappointments resulted, in part, from their far-reaching, even utopian, ambitions. Fears also resulted from student activists’ confrontation with police and popular violence. Students’ politicization of sexuality turned personal relationships into a source of anxiety because many activists found it difficult to reconcile their political views with their private lives. Finally, the chapter analyzes conservative fears of revolution, as they were expressed by the conservative Bund Freiheit der Wissenschaft that sought to contain the influence of left-wing forces within the universities. The dialectic of fear that had already shaped the interplay between democratic fears and fears of democracy in the earlier period intensified further. Revolutionary fears and fears of revolution structured the political debate in the West German 1960s and beyond.

British Policy and Spanish America, 1783–1808

1969 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Lynch
Keyword(s):  
West Indies ◽  
Military Intervention ◽  
Spanish America ◽  
Rapid Decline ◽  
Political Debate ◽  
The West ◽  
Potential Market ◽  
Official Policy ◽  
The World ◽  
British Policy

‘The liberation of South America’, wrote Castlereagh in 1807, ‘must be accomplished through the wishes and exertions of the inhabitants; but the change can only be operated…under the protection and with the support of an auxiliary British force’. The argument, familiar in political debate, was rare in official policy. Britain, it is true, had long regarded Spanish America as a source of strength for her rivals and a potential market for her manufactures. After the Peace of 1783 interest became more intense as British observers, impressed by the vulnerability of empires, claimed to see signs of rapid decline in the empire of Spain. Intelligence reports on Spanish America accumulated in government departments; plans for British attacks flowed from official and private sources; and a section of merchant opinion increased its agitation for military intervention in the area. Yet, apart from the conquest of Trinidad in 1797 and the attempted conquest of the Río de la Plata in 1806–7, British policy towards Spanish America was diffident in its approach and vague in its intent. There were, indeed, compelling reasons why Spanish America should remain on the margin of British policy. Britain's existing European and imperial interests necessarily dominated her policy and absorbed her resources. Until 1806, moreover, existing channels of trade in Europe and the rest of the world were sufficient to take the bulk of British industrial production. And military resources were usually insufficient to release troops either from Europe or the West Indies for major operations in a new theatre of war.

The Bishop of Jamaica and Slave Instruction

1975 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 363-378 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Turner
Keyword(s):  
West Indies ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
Anglican Church ◽  
The West ◽  
Religious Instruction ◽  
Reform Programme ◽  
Windward Islands ◽  
Moral Instruction ◽  
The Government ◽  
Future Condition

In July 1824 two new bishoprics were organised in the West Indies, the bishopric of Jamaica including Honduras and the bishopric of Barbados and the Leeward and Windward islands, to promote the activity of the Anglican Church among the slave population. A series of resolutions passed in the House of Commons in May 1823 committed the government to reforms intended to prepare the slaves for eventual freedom, and primary importance was given to their need for religious instruction. Knowledge of Christianity was regarded as an ‘indispensable necessity to…the foundation of every beneficial change in their character and future condition’. Most of the reform programme, which included the abolition of flogging for women, the admission of slave evidence in court and the improvement of manumission facilities, involved revision of existing slave codes and implementation, therefore, depended, outside the crown colonies, on the cooperation of the island assemblies. The imperial government, however, was free to promote religious instruction and chose to appoint the bishops. Under their supervision the Anglican Church in the West Indies was to become a missionary force. As the Secretary of State explained to the governor of Jamaica, ‘his Majesty's Government have been anxious to prove the deep interest which they feel in the encouragement of the religious and moral instruction of the Negroes, by at once taking upon themselves the whole charge of placing the Clergy of the West Indies under Episcopal control’. Funds were voted to pay the bishop of Jamaica £5,600 p.a. and salaries were also provided for six auxiliary curates and an archdeacon to help to supervise the clergy.

Terror: Measuring the Cost, Calculating the Response

2002 ◽  
Vol 101 (654) ◽  
pp. 184-186
Author(s):  
Frank C. Schuller ◽  
Thomas D. Grant
Keyword(s):  
Political Debate ◽  
The West ◽  
Economic Competition ◽  
The Cost

The perplexity for the West lies in dealing with aggressors who hold values contrary to its own…. Congruent with their own views but in jarring discord with the West, terrorists invoke eternity and apocalypse, rather than the language and tactics of conventional political debate or economic competition.

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