Credibility

I am not entirely sure why the Church of England can be bothered to attack David Cameron's absurd non-veto, about which most people have rightly forgotten. But Cameron is preparing to banish the Lords Spiritual from Parliament as if neoliberal economic policy, liberal social policy and neoconservative foreign policy were still going strong on their shared basis of uncritical, self-negating secularism. In which case, those about to be reformed out of existence might usefully be looking for a platform elsewhere.

There should be a European Senate, with the power to propose amendments which the European Parliament would then be obliged to consider, and with the power, both to refer back the final text with the requirement of a two-thirds majority among MEPs, and before that text went on to the Council of Ministers to require that it be subject to unanimity there rather than to Qualified Majority Voting. The Senate would also have the power to initiate legislation which would then pass to the European Parliament and thence (including back to the Senate) as if it had been initiated there.

Each member-state would name two permanent offices the occupants of which would always be European Senators, one representing the country's secular and humanist sources of moral sense and cultural identity, and the other representing the country's religious and spiritual sources of moral sense and cultural identity, with neither office able to be changed except with the approval of all of the other Senators in the same category. All very Blessed John Paul the Great.

The former offices are far easier to identify, but they could both be done, especially in academia: the Professor of Moral Philosophy at the ancient seat of learning, that sort of thing. In either case, which office it was could not be changed without the consent of all of the office-holders in the same category. Half overall, or two thirds in either category, would have the power to require unanimity in the Council of Ministers.

At present, there would be 15 Catholic hierarchs (16 once Croatia joins), six Lutheran ones of considerable diversity, four Orthodox, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and someone Dutch Reformed, again most obviously drawn from the ranks of senior academia rather than from among those who changed every year. There would be those who would argue that the Catholic Church ought these days to have the British, Dutch or German place, but that would only antagonise those whose support we needed.

And each of the Europarties would nominate a further two Senators, at the same time as its other appointees on whom see below, one representing the secular and humanist basis of its philosophy, policies and support, and the other representing the religious and spiritual basis of its philosophy, policies and support. Quite an eye-opener, not least in view of quite how many of those figures might very well be British, and quite who those Britons would be.

Each of the Europarties, currently 11 in number, would also appoint one Senator from each member-state at the same time as the elections to the European Parliament; as much as anything else, that would be a powerful insight for British and other voters into who has always been legislating for us at EU level and always will be.

I would rather like the European Free Alliance to nominate a member of Mebyon Kernow, because I think that it might be fun, perhaps even illuminating. But just imagine if at least the more politically aware people in this country were confronted with the figure of David Irving, or of someone who held equally noxious views about the gulags, the Holodomor and the Cultural Revolution. Imagine those potted newspaper profiles of our 11 new European Senators.

Hell, why not make them all members of the House of Commons, and allow each of the Eurofoundations to nominate a Crossbench Peer? No, probably better not to, home though that would certainly bring the point. Their numbers might turn out to be just enough to stop anything from being done about it.

Speaking of national parliaments, each member-state needs a European Legislative Council elected by and from among those national parliamentarians who owed their positions to direct popular election. Each of the European Legislative Councils would have the power to propose amendments which the European Parliament would then be obliged to consider, and half or more of them would have the power, both to refer back the final text with the requirement of two-thirds majority among MEPs, and before that text went on to the Council of Ministers to require that it be subject to unanimity there rather than to Qualified Majority Voting.

Seat-taking MPs would organise themselves into caucuses. The largest caucus would elect five by voting for one candidate and with the top five getting in, the second-largest would thus elect four, the third-largest three, the fourth-largest two, and the fifth-largest one. All of the seat-taking MPs would then elect a further 10 by each voting for one candidate and with the top 10 elected at the end. Giving 25 members in all. Any tie would be settled by a run-off ballot.

And from 1st April, appropriately enough, we are now subject to the regime of European Citizens' Initiatives. Any committee of seven, each from a different member-state, can, as it were, initiate such an Initiative calling for legislation. On securing one million online signatures, it will be presented to the European Commission. Which will presumably place it in the round filing cabinet in the corner, insofar as even that is necessary in this digital age. But that is hardly the point.

Except from Malta or Luxembourg, can there be a Member of the European Parliament with fewer than one million constituents? So, why not permit any MEP to do this thing? Or any government of a member-state? Or a resolution of any national parliament? At least the second and third of those ought certainly to be the case.

All within a context of domestic primary legislation restoring the supremacy of British over EU law, using that restoration to repatriate agricultural policy and to reclaim the United Kingdom's historic fishing rights (200 miles, or to the median line), requiring British Ministers to adopt the show-stopping Empty Chair Policy until such time as the Council of Ministers meets in public and publishes an Official Report akin to Hansard, disapplying in the United Kingdom any ruling of the European Court of Justice or of the European Court of Human Rights unless and until confirmed by a resolution of the House of Commons, and disapplying in the United Kingdom anything passed by the European Parliament but not by the majority of those MEPs certified as political acceptable by one or more seat-taking members of the House of Commons.

A further clause might provide for a referendum on continued membership of the EU, but only if the preceding clauses would all come into effect regardless of the outcome of any such referendum, indeed would all come into effect at the same time as the provision for any such referendum to be held at all.

That would be a start, anyway.

Ed Miliband and Jon Cruddas, over to you.