MPs discuss English Labour party plans as Ed Miliband concerns deepen
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Version 0 of 1. A group of Labour MPs have met in private to agree plans for an English Labour party and a more distinctive voice for England in the Commons, amid deep concerns that the party leader Ed Miliband may have been manoeuvred into an anti-English position by the prime minister David Cameron. Simon Danczuk, the Labour MP for Rochdale, said he was surprised and disappointed with the slow response of the leadership to proposals for English votes for English laws in the Commons saying: “Why we couldn’t have had a good offer ready … just beggars belief in my opinion. If Ed Miliband doesn’t address it … [in his leader’s speech on Tuesday] then he’s got a real problem … then we are really on the back foot.” Labour has tried to park the issue through promising to hold a constitutional convention next year, but shadow cabinet members have struggled in media interviews to give a clear response. The English Labour group met in Manchester town hall, near the Labour conference centre, and included Ben Bradshaw, the former culture secretary, John Denham, the former universities secretary, and Steve Reed, MP for Croydon and one of the architects of Labour’s plans for devolving power. The group did not support Cameron’s plans for English-only votes on English laws, but Bradshaw said the party leadership was not speaking “clearly or loudly enough” on devolving power to England, adding that the party had to be “clear we are fighting for England”. Bradshaw said: “Our leadership has to be much clearer that there’s a problem that needs addressing. As long as we acknowledge that then we’ll have a licence to talk about what the solution is. “But I haven’t heard clearly or loudly enough from the leadership that there is a problem that needs addressing. They’ve very good at talking about devolution, they’re very good at talking about powers to communities and local government. We need to be absolutely crystal clear there is an imbalance and unfairness in our constitutional settlement. “What worries me is that unless we acknowledge the problem and are clear we are fighting for England, then that proper inclusive conversation with all parts of England will not take place effectively. “We have to acknowledge an unfairness where Scottish MPs vote on exclusively English matters. The question as to whether this is unfair has to be a yes. But … there are numerous ways you can address this, all very complex. You can’t do it in the way Cameron seems to want to do it on the back of fag packet.” The concern about the neglect of the English issue was echoed by Jamie Reed, the shadow health minister who wrote in Progress magazine: “It is in the peripheral areas outside of our major conurbations all over England where the next Labour government must concentrate its efforts.” An advocate of devolution of power, he continues: “England is beset by a toxic disconnection between the governed and those who govern them. Nowhere is this disconnection more keenly felt than in that forgotten England largely ignored by the political mainstream and the national media; those places people have heard of, but have never been to. In our rugby league towns, in our lower-league football cities, a crisis is taking grip that only a progressive government can solve. Right now, Britain’s peripheral economies are experiencing a collapse in their reserves of ‘social capital’. “Central to Labour achieving any of this is an understanding of how England currently is and not how we would want it to be. Some hard questions must be asked and these require detailed answers. English devolution must never fall victim to the same pitfalls of Scottish nationalism; in particular the self-delusional refusal to ask and answer the tough questions. “This means tackling the deep conservatism that exists in some ‘solid’ Labour areas. For local and regional economic growth to take off, attitudes of grievance and dependency need to be challenged. In Labour’s heartlands, even given the disproportionately levied misery of austerity , the party must seek to lead these regions with a vision based upon new ambitions, not by wallowing in historic industrial decline and injustice. Such an approach would place Labour firmly in the business of developing and implementing solutions.” |