"Maybe, just maybe, PopCon’s call for a thoroughgoing restoration of the British constitution is finding support in unexpected quarters." Read the latest column from PopCon Director, Mark Littlewood.
Maybe, just maybe, PopCon’s call for a thoroughgoing restoration of the British constitution is finding support in unexpected quarters.
Robert Jenrick’s campaign against two-tier justice is already achieving results. Surely, the government will now at least clip the wings of the Sentencing Council. If they have any sense, they will abolish it altogether.
Wes Streeting has already decided to do away with the absurdity of NHS England, the world’s largest and probably most ridiculous quango.
These may just be isolated, individual instances rather than part of a grander plan by the government. But in today’s Times, Patrick Maguire reports that a wider and more strategic assault on the out-of-control Whitehall bureaucracy might shortly be under way.
A memo circulated in Downing Street last month by Starmer’s director of strategy, Paul Ovenden, apparently proposes an “empowered, uninhibited executive”. Several regulators have apparently been “earmarked for deletion”.
Jonathan Hinder of the new Blue Labour caucus has reached the conclusion that, “The British government does not run this country.” The fact that such thoughts are being expressed by those on the red team is an encouraging development.
We will see whether Labour really has the inclination - or the party unity - to take on the bureaucratic machine. I suspect they will flounder, perhaps trimming a little here and there as the politics of the moment determine.
That makes it even more important for the Conservatives – and others - to find their feet when it comes to a plan to reassert Parliamentary sovereignty. Robert Jenrick’s efforts need to be repeated across all major portfolios.
Rupert Lowe – now cast aside by Reform UK – has become an impassioned advocate for a Great Repeal Act. Nigel Farage and others are surely sympathetic to the idea but have yet to fully articulate the case.
The Conservatives’ policy review process should focus in on the legislation and state infrastructure that needs to be removed. Precise questions around sequencing and methodology can be thrashed out later, but the discussion around the need for a great restoration and national renewal should start now. There is a danger that the party is getting bogged down in consulting about much more nebulous and generic “values”. That has its place, no doubt, but is unlikely to generate any immediate cut through.
It might be four years until the next election, but there is no time to waste.
Keep the flag of freedom flying.