Cogito Ergo Non Serviam

Queen's Speech Lays Out Tory Agenda

Queen Elizabeth II read out the speech written for her by the Conservative government yesterday, informing the world of Prime Minister Cameron's intentions now that he has a majority of seats in Commons. The program, as laid out, is unabashedly Tory, and it underscores the Conservative penchant for austerity. However, the EU referendum, Parliamentary boundary reform and the devolution bills are the most important.

The austerity that has shackled the British economy since Mr. Cameron moved into Number 10 remains in place. He insists that there will be no increase in income taxes, VAT or contributions to national insurance in the life time of this parliament. He wants to lower the cap on welfare benefits from £26,000 to £23,000, and freeze working-age benefits, tax credit and child benefit for two years. Then, he proposed to reduce red tape in order to let small British businesses take off. It is hard to imagine the Tories doing anything else.

Where this government is truly shaking things up is in Britain's relationship to Europe, the size of the House of Commons and its own constitution.

Mr. Cameron has already started talking to other European leaders about the reforms he wants to make in Britain's relationship to the EU. He has told the Europeans that the UK will leave if he doesn't get what he wants. That's probably posturing, and whatever he negotiates will be hailed as a major success -- he does not want to be the man who took Britain out of the EU if he can avoid it. A referendum in which the UK votes to stay in will settle the hash of UKIP and his own Eurosceptics for a decade or two at least. While he has promised the referendum by the end of 2017, it could come as soon as this autumn.

Next, the coalition government failed to change the number of members in the House of Commons from 650 to 600, as the Conservatives wanted. Without the LibDems to stop him, Mr. Cameron can go ahead and do this. Since primary legislation is not required to do this, the changes could happen quickly. The upshot is that Labour will have a tougher time winning seats once the boundary changes go through.

Then, there are three bills on devolving power from Whitehall. Cities that have opted for elected mayors will be given the power to control certain facets of their local government: housing, transportation, planning and policing. Greater Manchester will serve as the blueprint. In addition, Mr. Cameron has promised "English votes on English laws," as part of the Scottish independence referendum campaign last autumn. He will now have to deliver on that.

As for Scotland, Her Majesty's Government will offer further powers to Edinburgh as per the Smith Commission, mainly new tax and welfare authority, as part of a "a strong and lasting constitutional settlement." Leader of the Scottish National Party and Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said, "The bill has been published within the last hour or so and from my glance at it, I think it falls short in almost every area. The bill, for example, doesn't contain the full welfare powers recommended by the Smith Commission and in some key powers it retains, unbelievably in my view, given the amount of concern that was expressed about this, it retains a veto for the UK government on key policy areas." There will be more of a fight over this in the coming months.

The Wales Bill also offers some further devolution to that nation. The BBC says the bill will include "a new reserved powers model to clarify the division of powers between the Welsh Assembly and Parliament. The assembly will also be given more powers over energy, transport and local government elections in Wales." Plaid Cymru's parliamentary leader Jonathan Edwards called the bill a "toothless package of powers" and "tinkering around the edges" of devolution rather than a "meaningful deal."

© Copyright 2015 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.



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