Take Back Control

For many Labour supporters in the Deep South or in the deep countryside, and for many Conservative supporters in very urban areas or in the old heartlands of heavy industry, a Member of the European Parliament is the only person whom their vote has ever elected.

Some will say that the solution is Proportional Representation for the House of Commons.

But the preposterously enormous constituency boundaries proposed for Scotland illustrate why many of us have never quite come round to that one. It could only be made to work in those very urban areas.

That, though, is an aside.

The main point is that the matter is finally about to come to a head, after at least 40 years, that we can have our national sovereignty, or we can have the House of Lords, but we cannot have both.

Tony Benn always said that the Lords would never permit withdrawal from what he always understood was really the European Union, and that was always his principal reason for wishing to abolish the Lords.

He is about to be proved right. Indeed, he is already being proved right.

“Brexit means Brexit,” says the Prime Minister. The democratic will must be respected, says the Leader of the Opposition.

They need to confront the mounting anger about the ballooning size of the unelected House of Parliament while the elected House is being cut, and that despite the growing population.

The powers of the House of Lords could be transferred to a new Senate, the members of which would be remunerated in the same way as MPs were.

Ministers would not be drawn from the Senate, but they would appear before it. Even the Prime Minister might.

The Senate’s term of office would be six years.

Each of the nine English regions would elect 30 Senators, namely six Conservatives, six Labour, six Liberal Democrats (which party would in return be banned from contesting elections to the Commons), six from other registered political parties that did not contest Commons elections, and six Independents to sit as Crossbenchers.

In the first three cases, any member of the relevant party who was a parliamentary elector within the region would be eligible to stand.

As electors, each of us would vote for one candidate, with the top six elected at the end. Casual vacancies would be filled by co-opting the next candidate down who was willing and able to serve.

The fourth category would use party lists, again requiring candidates to be from within the region. The fifth would replicate the first three, but for Independents.

Scotland and Wales would each elect 30 Senators.

Five each from the Conservatives, Labour, the Liberal Democrats, the SNP in Scotland or Plaid Cymru in Wales, other registered political parties that did not contest Commons elections, and Independents to sit as Crossbenchers.

Like the Liberal Democrats, the SNP and Plaid Cymru would in return be banned from contesting Commons elections.

Northern Ireland would elect 30 Senators.

Three each from the Conservatives, Labour, the Liberal Democrats, the Ulster Unionist Party, the Democratic Unionist Party, the Social Democratic and Labour Party, Sinn Féin, the Alliance Party, other parties that did not contest Commons elections, and Independents to sit as Crossbenchers.

The Conservatives, Labour, the Liberal Democrats, the UUP, the SDLP and the Alliance Party would be banned from contesting Commons elections.

The SDLP has three seats in the Commons and no real chance of any more, while such a figure is beyond the wildest dreams of any of the others.

Although of course, in Northern Ireland as anywhere else, parties that did not contest Senate elections would be free to stand for the Commons, as would Independents.

This would give 360 Senators, representing a very broad range of political opinion.

UKIP, or whatever came after it, would happily exchange the off-chance of one Commons seat for the effective guarantee of 11 Senators and the serious possibility of 12.

The same would be true of the three Green Parties in different parts of the United Kingdom.

The Liberal Democrats would always have 79 Senators.

And practically every elector would be able to point to at least one Senator for whom he or she had voted.