Postliberal Britain, Postliberal Europe

In the debate surrounding the nature both of the United Kingdom and of each of its constituent parts’ relationship with it, which is the question of what it is to be English, Scots, Welsh or Northern Irish, there is a total absence of any profound attention to the nature of the identity that civil and political institutions are supposed to express.

Any such attempt must draw on resources philosophical and theological, ethical and aesthetic, historical and literary, natural-scientific and social-scientific, “religious” and “secular”, spiritual and humanist, Medieval and Early Modern, Biblical and Classical.

Therefore, let the Members of the House of Commons elect, from outside their number, 12 guardians of religious and spiritual values, and 12 guardians of secular and humanist values. In each category, each MP would vote for one candidate, with the 12 highest scorers elected at the end.

Furthermore, from each of the 12 regions (which, for all their other imperfections, have nothing to do with the EU; several, including here in the North East, literally seem to have been invented by ITV), let some means be found of appointing a leader of the largest community of the religiously observant, and a leader in secular thought. In all of these cases, a 10-year term would be appropriate.

Nothing requiring Royal Assent could be submitted for it, nor could any Supreme Court ruling have effect, unless approved by a simple majority in each of the four categories: religious and spiritual, secular and humanist, elected by the House of Commons, and appointed from the regions.

No legislation to apply only in England could be submitted to the monarch unless already approved, both by the majority of the religious and spiritual leaders from the nine parts of England, and by the majority of their secular and humanist counterparts.

In this age of electronic communication, costs would be minimal. As they would be in similarly addressing the utter lack of any depth in the debate surrounding the nature both of the European Union and of the United Kingdom’s relationship with it.

Each of the member-states ought to nominate for life one guardian of the religious and spiritual roots of its culture and polity, and one guardian of their secular and humanist roots. In addition, each of the Europarties ought to nominate for a 10-year term one guardian of the religious and spiritual roots of its ideology and support, and one guardian of their secular and humanist roots.

Nothing requiring a Qualified Majority could proceed to the Council of Ministers without the prior approval of the simple majority in each of the four categories: nominated by the member-states, nominated by the Europarties, guarding religious and spiritual values, and guarding secular and humanist values. Nothing requiring unanimity could proceed without the prior approval of all four of the two-thirds majorities.

Nothing requiring a Treaty change could proceed to the European Council without the approval of all four of the three-quarters majorities. No ruling of the European Court of Justice could have effect, nor could any ruling of the European Court of Human Rights have effect within the EU, unless ratified by all four of the simple majorities.

All of this could not be more in accord with the spirit, not to say the letter, of Lord Glasman and Blue Labour as they call Labour out of the Blairite desert and back to the wells, streams and fountains of faith and reason, family and community, ontology and epistemology, ethics and aesthetics, the fine arts and the humanities, the social sciences and the natural sciences, Early Modernity and the Middle Ages, Classics and the Bible.