Taspher's Proposal for a British Basic Law - Other Organs of State

[Dr_Taspher]

Taspher’s Constitution Proposal
This is part of a series of threads I am making which cover the constitution of the UK and how we can fix it. You can find the main page for these threads here.

The Proposal

Explaination

Part X(A): As a Christian country with two established churches, it is important to mention the Church in the Constitution. This entrenches the religious settlement of the country and re-establishes the Church of Wales as a third archbishopric in the Church of England. The CoW was disestablished by Welsh Nationalists and we ought to undo it.
This also established the Prime Minister’s ability to select bishops. Since (I believe) Blair, the PM has given up the right to select Bishops and as aquiessed to the Synodd. If we are to revive the CoE, we need the power to select its Bishops.

Part X(B/C): Mostly self-explanitory.

Part X(D): This bit can maybe go. The reason I add it is because under the Conservatives, they allowed Universities to be set up by anyone and for teaching therein to be of dubious quality. This follows on from the Labourite reforms, making all of the ex-polytechnics universities, and encouraging every Tom, Dick, and Harry to go there. British Universities are fast becoming worthless. Additionally, the title of Professor is being given out too freely and easily these days. As such, it becomes a less valuable title which infers a quality that just isn’t there.

Because I see Universities as vitally important, especially in STEM fields, I think that a tightening of terms and a restriction in the number of universities is good thing. But it may not belong in the constitution.

The other reason for this is to act as an alternative for advisory groups like SAGE. Instead of the Government or Civil Servants selecting who they consider to be experts, allowing all of the peer professors from across the realm come together to give advise seems like a better system.

[NebulousJellyfish]

Reasonable outlines, however I take specific issue with Articles 124 & 125.

1. Police and crime commissioners should be abolished entirely. The police (until David Cameron) were entirely independent of politics and answerable only to the Crown, de jure. Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 is a David Cameron abomination.

2. Chief Constables and the Commisioner should only be answerable to the Crown, de jure, and a lesser extent the Home Secretary de facto.

3. Again, same argument for National Police Forces. The police at every level should be totally separated from politics, as it was, until 2011.

4. “The objectives” enumerated I believe are insufficient. They should be the Peelian principles.

Ultimately, I think it’s best to leave this to the Metropolitan Police Act 1829, and subsequent acts (not the 2011 act) and potentially only have a very light reference to the police, in the context of individual liberties/freedoms.

We need to return to a time when the Commissioner of the Metropolis could defy the Home Secretary facing a news camera, whilst standing in front of the New Scotland Yard spinning sign.

[Dr_Taspher]

@NebulousJellyfish

• Police and crime commissioners should be abolished entirely. The police (until David Cameron) were entirely independent of politics and answerable only to the Crown, de jure. Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 is a David Cameron abomination.
• Chief Constables and the Commissioner should only be answerable to the Crown, de jure, and a lesser extent the Home Secretary de facto.
• Again, same argument for National Police Forces. The police at every level should be totally separated from politics, as it was, until 2011.

On this, it’s something that I am willing to compromise on, but would point out that if the police become apolitical, they become another quango subject to political capture (some might say that they have already been captured). I do fully understand the desire to have apolitical institutions which only look out for us, but I find the argument that if you want to be protected from state overreach, then politics, rather than apolitisation, is the answer.

@NebulousJellyfish

“The objectives” enumerated I believe, are insufficient. They should be the Peelian principles.

Happy to change.

@NebulousJellyfish

We need to return to a time when the Commissioner of the Metropolis could defy the Home Secretary facing a news camera, whilst standing in front of the New Scotland Yard spinning sign.

Yes and no… A subordinate ought to be able to defy their master when they are right, but not when they are wrong. Who decides the correctness of the Commissioner’s actions is a question of the utmost importance, for if he is not answerable to any man, and the process to remove him is hard, then it means that the police are given carte blanche to tyrannise the people.

[NebulousJellyfish]

@Dr_Taspher

Who decides the correctness of the Commissioner’s actions

The Crown. The Monarch shall be the head of Police. As is the Monarch to the Armed Forces.

[NebulousJellyfish]

@Dr_Taspher

for if he is not answerable to any man, and the process to remove him is hard, then it means that the police are given carte blanche to tyrannise the people.

This is addressed by the principle of “Policing by Consent”, which is almost universally misunderstood.

Policing by Consent is the principle that a subset of a population is entrusted with policing the entirety of the population, only by the consent of the population as a whole and near total adherence to law.

The mechanism that makes this so, is that it would be impossible for a subset of the population to police the entirety of the population, due to numbers.

170,000 police officers are only able to police a population of 70 million, because the 70 million allow it to be so. This is Policing by Consent.

An example of the opposite of Policing by Consent was the Stasi, where there was a spy for every 7 people in the population. This is what people misunderstand. The opposite of Policing by Consent is not chiefly a brutal form of policing, it is first and foremost, policing through mass surveillance, with small scale short sharp brutal correction to in-still fear in the wider population, committed against the small number that drift out of line.

Therefore, the true control we should concern ourselves with, is making it impossible for the police to conduct mass surveillance, either through mass-population-level human intelligence sources or technology. Thereby cutting off the means of a tyrannical policing system from ever emerging.

[Dr_Taspher]

@NebulousJellyfish

The Crown. The Monarch shall be the head of Police. As is the Monarch to the Armed Forces.

Within the context of the wider proposal here, would you accept the High Sheriff of the Shire for local police forces?
I guess that there is also a question about who appoints them…

EDIT: I’ve just re-read when I wrote and realised that this is basically what my proposal was. The PCC for the local police force is appointed by the High Sheriff (who is the representative of the crown), and serves as his pleasure. It’s not an entirely political office, just someone appointed by politicians (which needs to be the case)

@NebulousJellyfish

This is addressed by the principle of “Policing by Consent”, which is almost universally misunderstood.

Policing by Consent is the principle that a subset of a population is entrusted with policing the entirety of the population, only by the consent of the population as a whole and near total adherence to law.

The mechanism that makes this so, is that it would be impossible for a subset of the population to police the entirety of the population, due to numbers.

I understand what you are saying here, but I don’t think that you are missing the point slightly. You don’t need a large police presence to tyrannise a population, especially when police tyranny can come not from action but from selective inaction. If the police (as we know that have done) decide that for certain elements of the population, crime is legal, and that they will only police the elements which allow themselves to be policed, then you still end up with a form of police tyranny. Your answer might be that the populous ought to stop consenting the the police when they decide to police in this way, but at that point, law and order break down.

@NebulousJellyfish

An example of the opposite of Policing by Consent was the Stasi, where there was a spy for every 7 people in the population. This is what people misunderstand. The opposite of Policing by Consent is not chiefly a brutal form of policing, it is first and foremost, policing through mass surveillance, with small scale short sharp brutal correction to in-still fear in the wider population, committed against the small number that drift out of line.

Therefore, the true control we should concern ourselves with, is making it impossible for the police to conduct mass surveillance, either through mass-population-level human intelligence sources or technology. Thereby cutting off the means of a tyrannical policing system from ever emerging.

See above. I agree with you that mass surveillance is a very worrying phenomenon but it is not the only one. There are problems on both ends of the spectrum.

[NebulousJellyfish]

@Dr_Taspher

EDIT: I’ve just re-read when I wrote and realised that this is basically what my proposal was. The PCC for the local police force is appointed by the High Sheriff (who is the representative of the crown), and serves as his pleasure. It’s not an entirely political office, just someone appointed by politicians (which needs to be the case)

I understand what you are trying to achieve, but I believe you may be viewing this upside down. The police service is in total collapse because of politicisation of senior officers. The Home Office and politics has utterly corrupted the police service, which is what we are seeing today. The police has gone from right-coded to left-coded because of the 2011 act.

On a finer point - if the PCC is appointed by a High Sheriff, and the High Sheriff is the representative of the Crown, then how is there democratic accountability? Also why have a PCC at all, just have the High Sheriff appoint the Chief Constable.

I strongly recommend looking at how Chief Constables and the Commissioner were selected pre-2011.

[NebulousJellyfish]

@Dr_Taspher

I understand what you are saying here, but I don’t think that you are missing the point slightly. You don’t need a large police presence to tyrannise a population, especially when police tyranny can come not from action but from selective inaction

I agree, a softer tyranny can emerge from selective enforcement. However a democratic lever would not address this. Removing senior officers would not change the behaviour of rank and file directly. Unless it was systemic. That said, it becomes systemic precisely because of politicisation of the police service.

The mechanism that (since 1829 until recently) prevented this was the Oath of Attestation, chain of command and prosecution for misconduct in a public office.

What we are seeing as selective policing today is already illegal, it’s misconduct in a public office - which senior officers and the IOPC are actively choosing not to enforce in some circumstances which align with their political ambitions. The problem is politicisation. Remove politics and this goes away.

[NebulousJellyfish]

@Dr_Taspher

The PCC for the local police force is appointed by the High Sheriff

I just want to make clear - Police and Crime Commissioner’s do not command police forces. Chief Constables do (and the Commissioner in the Metropolis).

PCCs are a redundant political add-on so the state can encroach further into British life. They are frequently entirely ignorant of policing, with no policing experience whatsoever.

This stems from the perception that policing is “simple”, it is not. It is extremely complex, requiring career long commitments to master even a segment of it.

PCCs make as much sense as having a democratically elected official to oversee aircraft manufacturing.

I do not blame individuals for having this perception of simplicity, as the media and politicians have entirely misrepresented policing for decades. For another analogy, it would be like watching a BBC Bytesize mathematics YouTube video and thinking it represents anything like a professional mathematics career. Although, at least the Bytesize video would be accurate in mathematics it showed.

[Dr_Taspher]

@NebulousJellyfish

The police has gone from right-coded to left-coded because of the 2011 act.

The grooming gangs and their coverup started in the 1980s. That is to say, the police in the 1980s were already worried about political correctness and were selectively enforcing the laws. You are probably correct that the coding has changes, but that is just because pre-Blair, everything was right-coded and it takes time for the systems to update.

@NebulousJellyfish

On a finer point - if the PCC is appointed by a High Sheriff, and the High Sheriff is the representative of the Crown, then how is there democratic accountability? Also why have a PCC at all, just have the High Sheriff appoint the Chief Constable.

If this is a point Re: PCC vs. CC, I’ll admit that I saw them fulfilling a similar role (overseeing the police for the executive).

@NebulousJellyfish

The mechanism that (since 1829 until recently) prevented this was the Oath of Attestation, chain of command and prosecution for misconduct in a public office.

Out of interest, have you read the oath as it was changed in 2002?

@NebulousJellyfish

I strongly recommend looking at how Chief Constables and the Commissioner were selected pre-2011.

As far as I can tell, from the (now repealed) Police Act 1964, the Chief Constables were appointed by a committee of the County Council which consisted of two-thirds councillors, and one-third local magistrates. The said committee could also force the Chief Constable out (after giving him a hearing). Sadly, I cannot tell from a cursory reading of the other Police Acts how it was done before this.

If you want something more like this than executive appointment, I would consider that to be reasonable.

@NebulousJellyfish

What we are seeing as selective policing today is already illegal, it’s misconduct in a public office - which senior officers and the IOPC are actively choosing not to enforce in some circumstances which align with their political ambitions. The problem is politicisation. Remove politics and this goes away.

I think that this is one of the problems that we have. You cannot remove politics, and I don’t think that you want to. The police ought not be mindless automata, arresting people left, right, and centre for petty offences. They should be people of the community who share the values of the community and understand that some things which are technically against the law should be left alone. If two men get into a bar fight, it is better to give them a night in the clink than to try to send them to jail for 5 years. But that is a political decision, it is saying “I see that you have broken the law, but I am choosing not to punish you for it”.

[NebulousJellyfish]

@Dr_Taspher

The police ought not be mindless automata, arresting people left, right, and centre for petty offences.

The police were not like this until relatively recently. Essentially it’s very convoluted and extensive, and too much to fully explain here but the recruitment process and training of police officers dramatically changed under Cameron. It was effectively destroyed. We have since had direct entry for graduates to senior positions and direct entry detectives. The recruitment focus from 18.5 year olds of good standing and military leavers to graduates only.

The combination of the recruitment focus to graduates, direct entry and the nature of training (now shorter and non-residential) has shifted the net quality of police officers to the negative and means wronguns aren’t weeded out in training school during 24/7, fully residential courses where there is ample opportunity to identify them.

Well selected and trained Police Officers were not automata. They were individual legal entities, with the power of discretion, which is exactly what you are aiming at. The problem is, unskilled, low effort cops do not use discretion, because it requires full knowledge of the law to know how to use it and justify it. The same is true of the use of force and many other police powers. Which we now see routinely miss used or not used.

None of this was the choice of the police, this was forced by Cameron and May to start, through massive funding cuts and sheer political force, the 2011 act and the dissolution of ACPO, removal of the SEARCH selection process, the mass sale of police estates, the removal of supporting roles, the destruction of police pay and pensions and, and, and… it goes on. At the time (2010s) the police were so disturbed by this that they came extremely close to striking, which is significant, as (you may know) the police cannot legally strike due to the Police Act 1919. What we are seeing in policing in the UK today was directly caused by the Conservative Party, under Cameron and May, and has got worse since then.

What I am getting at with all of this is the police has been in decline of decades now, totally destroyed by a multifaceted politically motivated wrecking ball. Fixing it will take huge political will and a team of talented cops and former cops to restore it to what it once was, with the tiny estate and resources that remain. This is a multi-year task. It will not be fixed through a statutory instrument or instruments alone, not by a long shot.

I think what you seem to be indicating you want from the police, is what it was and what it is still meant to be. We need to restore it.

[NebulousJellyfish]

@Dr_Taspher

The grooming gangs and their coverup started in the 1980s. That is to say, the police in the 1980s were already worried about political correctness and were selectively enforcing the laws.

This is not quite right, the watershed moment that triggered this was the 1999 Macpherson Report, that’s when this really started to take hold. That’s not to say some of the recommendations were not valid, but it did trigger a compounding effect and caused the police to align with the broader escalating PC narratives in politics and society, well beyond what the report originally recommended.

[Dr_Taspher]

I agree that we probably want the police to be vaguely the same, but I think what we disagree on is the following:
You seem to think that being apolitical is not a political position in its own right. We can create institutions which are designed to be apolitical, but that means that should they ever be politically captured, it becomes hard to remove the politics from them. Indeed, being apolitical, treating all people equally, policing communities who are more likely to commit crimes more than those that aren’t, etc. are political positions these days. Some people genuinely believe that black communities ought to be less policed and not have the same laws enforced against them.

The question when it comes to this bill proposal is “what are the essential elements of policing which ought to be entrenched?” This is why X(C) is so bare-bones; it’s trying to say that you cannot abolish the police. The more general form ought to be in a separate bill, which is more easily amended.

In general, I would say that politically neutral institutions only work as long as everyone believes that they ought to be neutral. When they don’t, you necessarily get your institutions politicised.

[NebulousJellyfish]

@Dr_Taspher

The question when it comes to this bill proposal is “what are the essential elements of policing which ought to be entrenched?” This is why X(C) is so bare-bones; it’s trying to say that you cannot abolish the police. The more general form ought to be in a separate bill, which is more easily amended.

In that case it should be more barebones than it is. It entrenches PCCs which are an aberration in British policing history. I would then recommend something like the following:

(a) A police force for each shire shall be maintained.
(b) A police force for the metropolis shall be maintained.
(c) Police forces shall consist of individuals attaining at least 18.5 years of age, free from convictions, derived from the populace.
(d) All members of the police force shall be British citizens, and resident in the United Kingdom for no less than 90% of their lives at the time of appointment (other than recruits previously serving abroad as part of the British military).
(e) No serving member of the police force shall serve in the military or any other public office.
(f) Territorial and national police forces shall not number any greater than 0.3% of the population, in aggregate.
(g) National police forces may be created by Parliament, which also adhere to (c), (d), (e) & (f).

[Dr_Taspher]

Sorry it has taken me two weeks to reply to this! I’ve been exceptionally busy.

I was thinking a fair bit on this, and I feel like this discussion is incomplete (and this is why I wrote and published this as an entire proposal rather than small bits). I will start off by saying that when we talk about how things ought to be created or the form that things ought to take, that is dictated by the function of the thing. I think that this is a fairly uncontroversial statement, albeit it isn’t something that is always properly implemented.

What I am getting at is that when writing this all out, in my head, it makes a hell of a lot of sense for police forces, firefighters, and maybe even health services to be constituted under local government rather than national government. This is one of the main reasons that I considered a county shire system better than local government districts (and the fact that county shires are more identifiable with and have a long history). As such, I suspect that we probably ought to have a much longer discussion about the very nature of what functions of the state ought to be at what level and how they ought to be distributed in order for everything else even to make sense.