Taspher's Proposal for a British Basic Law - Home Page

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Hi all, this is going to be a little different to some of the other threads on this forum, so I beg the indulgence of the moderators and the casual readers as I explain what this is and what I am trying to do.

To start with, I think that we have seen over the past few years that the public at large does not understand our constitutional settlement, and that our constitution is incredibly vulnerable being partially un-codified and mostly unentrenched (there is debate about whether Royal Consent to bills being discussed is a form of entrenchment). I think that this needs fixing. My background is also as a mathematician. I have a PhD in mathematics doing complex systems modelling, and this background has taught me that the traditional view of policy or the constitution as being a bunch of small, individual platforms does not make sense. It is necessarily true that how we approach immigration for instance, impacts how the economy functions, and impacts social cohesion. These effects then go on to reverberate around our society writ large until you reach a new equilibrium. As such, I am not a fan of viewing policy in isolation but as part of a greater, collective whole.

Given this background, and my interest in constitutions, I am utterly dismayed at the state of the conversation around the constitution in the current political space. Labour, Lib Dems, Tories, and Reform (Farage) all want to butcher the constitution even further than it has been butchered already. As such, I have written a 70-page document which I consider to be a good starting point for a skeleton constitution, but it needs more work. That is where this thread comes in.

I am not going to post all 70 pages here; it would be far too much, and people would not engage. Instead, I intend for this to be a hub which will link to every other thread which contains the specific proposals organised by general area. In each thread, I will post pictures of my proposed document, and explanatory text as to why it should be this way.

In total, I will make 10 other threads and link them in this post (Which will be posted as and when I can make new topics.). I will not be posting the appendices (for now) as they are mostly immaterial. Though I can do so if requested.

The other threads will be on:

  1. Territory
  2. Citizenship
  3. Rights and Duties
  4. The Monarchy
  5. Parliament (The Common Council)
  6. The Great Council and the Shires
  7. The Privy Council
  8. The Judiciary
  9. Other Organs of State
  10. Amendments, Repeals, and other Miscellaneous provisions

Without further ado, however, I present you with the first parts of this proposal, the enacting words and the “statement of right”

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The Statement of Right is based somewhat on the Bill of Right passed after the Glorious Revolution. It doesn’t have any real effect in law, other than being a set of guiding principles which judges would have to refer back to, and which should inform politicians going forward.

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I was a bit alarmed to see similar thread titles initially, but on closer inspection I can see what you’re doing. You may want to do a summary at some point for people who don’t want to delve into the detail, but it’s good to have the detail available.

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Sure, I’ll try and cover everything here, but there is a lot so it might miss out some kep points!

TL;DR:
I will try to keep this brief, but as you can imagine, this sort of thing is hard to keep short.

The Cliff Notes version is that I propose a few key ideas, whilst mostly keeping the constitutional foundation the same. This is a constitutional bill which would be co-enforced by Parliament and the King, not a codified, entrenched constitution enforced by courts. I think that is a very important point because the nature of the UK is that the King-in-Parliament is sovereign. Ultimately, if the King, with the advice and consent of Parliament, wanted to do anything, he could. This is the nature of power, and it is through this nature that we seek to add a little guidance.

In order of appearance, this would seek to:

  1. Incorporate the British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies into the UK proper, seeing them being given MPs and paying taxes.
  2. Restate Parliamentary sovereignty.
  3. Make counties (called shires) the primary unit of local government, abolishing the devolved administrations.
  4. Make holding dual nationalities illegal.
  5. Add swiss-style naturalization requirements.
  6. Do some rights stuff (mostly stating the obvious.)
  7. Establish the idea that the monarchy is the primary protector of the people and defender of the constitution.
  8. Change the succession laws so that relatives who are too distant cannot inherit should the direct line of monarchs die out.
  9. Provides a mechanism for Parliament to try the King for breaking his coronation oath.
  10. Repeals the Parliament Acts
  11. Makes the House of Lords half hereditary peers, and makes the appointment of life peers require nomination from local government.
  12. Bans civil servants and MPs (other than former PMs and Speakers) from entering the HoL.
  13. Changes the election system to an AMS-type system based on counties.
  14. Creates a third house selected by sortation to approve MP salaries, establish electoral boundaries, and suggest that the other houses “re-think” legislation.
  15. Establishes hereditary peers who will ‘run’ local councils and act as a check on them.
  16. Lets shire councils choose to devolve power within themselves, so Parliament doesn’t need to pass bills to change local government.
  17. Eliminates directly elected mayors in favour of the Mayor being generally the leader of the largest group.
  18. Makes Secretaries of State enumerated positions, instead of the PM of the day deciding them.
  19. Abolished the Supreme Court and brings the ultimate appellate authority back to the House of Lords.
  20. Re-establishes the Church of Wales.
  21. Makes Police and Crime Commissioners appointed by the Mayor, rather than separately elected positions.
  22. Restricts the title of Professor to one given only by the state to reduce title inflation and poor quality academics getting good titles with which to trick the public.
  23. States that the King shall not, by good conscience and in-keeping with his coronation oath, repeal or amend this act unless it is passed twice in two successive parliaments with an election in between. Technically, the King can ignore this and it would be non-justiciable. It is included so that if it is ignored, Parliament has a reason to replace the King.

I do encourage everyone to read this and comment, but I know that it is a lot!

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An excellent start on a very difficult topic. I might suggest that the HoL could be split with Hereditary peers as was with a balance being drawn in the same way as jurors, having to be selected from a pool of volunteers who have an average or higher IQ, are able to read and write etc.
Any system of appointees is likely to result in more of the “false and designing men” under whom these isles have suffered so much.

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We need to seriously reign in and reduce the Civil service before this can be enacted. Otherwise the civil service will foul this whole operation up like a world war 1 tank in heavy rain.
The right to freedom of speach needs to be enshrined in imutable law with capitol punishment being the mandatory minimum sentence for any MP or PM who might suggest that there needs to be a change. Freedom is only free if we are willing to pay for it with blood. Global history has taught us that. It is also why all of our freedoms have been slowly eroded. It is because we have an apathetic nation willing to live in servitude with no responsibility rather than living free and responsible.
Nobody should ever be permitted to be arrested for what they say, Only for their acts.The same should be said for peoples thoughts. In recent years we have seen people go to prison for years for what they said on social media, and we have seen people arrested for silent prayer in the street. We need to do better as a society.

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I am wholly in accord with your view on this.

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I’ll give you a few examples of speech that I would argue should be criminal.

  1. The disclosure of state secrets, such as troop locations or technical details of our defence infrastructure.
  2. Taunting or goading another into attacking you (i.e. fighting words doctrine in America).
  3. Planning a terrorist attack by providing advice on how to carry it out and when, but providing no physical material support.
  4. Calling for Jihad/praising ISIS, Hamas, etc.

There are probably a few more examples I could give, but this will suffice for now. I generally agree with you, but I think that the need for at least these four speaking activities to be illegal means that it cannot be an immutable right.

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I thank you for getting in touch. It might be my Libertarian streak but I belive people are fundamentally responsible for their own actions. I fully agree with you disclosure of state sectrets and troup deployments reservation. So a distinction between military which would be covered by the military secrets act and the civil population would need to be required.
Fighting words, I dissagree with. In such situations the argument could be made that they asked for it and are therefore responsible for what follows. They’ll only do it the once.
I have to disagree with points 3 and 4 too. by giving these people the rope they need to hang themselves, be they extremeists of any mindset, we arm MI5 and Special branch with theopportunity to gather the knowledge they need to be able to prove conspiracy to commit acts of terror. Calling for Jihad and praising ISIS
 well there needs to come a time when people need to realise that it was hurty words that allowed Starmer to arrest people for expressing themselves. Where do we draw the line? I have friends from Northern Ireland who love to shout out “Up the RA” When they are drunk? Is that to become an arrestable offence?
The best thing about free speach is that it gives each of us the right to be offended. And frankly, British people have become so soft and middle class that a few hurty words might help shake us up a bit. Also, those who were arrested for what they said on Twitter. Many of them said things that were perhaps comparible but from a pro British citizen perspective.
People should be free to say what they chose and to take responsibility for their views. We are so keen to lock inconveneint people up in the UK. We need to stand for something else. We need to remind people of back in the 80’s when we all used to say, “It’s a free country.” No body noticed, but sometime during the Blair years, everyone stopped saying it at exactly the same time.
We need that obstinate sence of liberty to be returned. So I concede point 1 an absolutely essential point, but with one caviat to be left up to the wisdom of the Judges, that being the case of Edward Snowden. If there is corruption, it is better that it be leaked and exposed. If government tries to overstep and remove freedom’s that needs to be reported. Snowden was accused of sharing military secrets but he didn’t put a single opperative at risk as far as I can remember.
If a grown up is taunting and Goading, they should have learned to stop that the selfsame way they are likely to relearn it on the streets. 3 offers the opportunity to gather intel and we just need to suck it up for point 4. No matter what happens there will always be those who hate us.
Protection of the person should refer to physical protection. you should be free to talk yourself into as much trouble as you feel responsible enough to manage.

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If I might just beg for a post script. The thing I love about your basic law proposal is that it gives us an opportunity to debate, sit and consider what our fundamental freedoms are and what those should look like.
In my oppinion and it is only that, I agree, reservation of freedom of speach is a reservation of our most fundmentally basic freedom. The right to think and to say what we think should be protected by our laws and with the strictest measures possible. The first Ammendment of the USA might speak of freedoms of speach but it’s the second ammendment and the knowledge that rednecks will form a militia group that protects the first. I fully support what you are doing, I reserve the right to clash with you and argue vociferously with you over any or even all points, because I believe in what you are doing and fully support you. I have read the second linked to page so far and voted for your first one and for the whole basic Law suggestion. It would actually work really well with my policy suggestion that Civics should be taught in schools.
If your basic Law concept goes ahead, it will be compared to the US constitution and I want it to compare well.

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