The Time is Ripe for ‘Delectable Disputations’

The UK is in Lockdown2, the economy is suffering a severe battering, and parents from the four corners of the United Kingdom are worrying about whether they can put a meal on the table tonight.
So why would anyone want to raise the question of a written constitution at this time? In the words of our Prime Minister, “What the people of this country want, rather than delectable disputations on a written constitution, is to defeat the coronavirus.”

The PM is right. Defeating the coronavirus is a priority.
But the Government’s handling of Covid19, whether from a constitutional or organisational viewpoint, is causing many to speculate about whether now is precisely the time when these delectable disputations should commence.

Take Sir Charles Walker, a senior Conservative MP. It was his intervention in the PM’s recent COVID-19 update that triggered the PM’s alliterative response.

Sir Charles said [1],
“I will not be supporting the Government’s legislation on Wednesday, because as we drift further into an authoritarian, coercive state, the only legal mechanism left open to me is to vote against that legislation…
“Given that the people of this country will never, ever forgive the political class for criminalising parents seeing children and children seeing parents, does the Prime Minister not agree with me that now is the time for a written constitution that guarantees the fundamental rights of our constituents…”

Sir Charles’ concerns, and that of many of his colleagues who rebelled or abstained in the vote over Lockdown2, are linked to the Government’s increasing willingness to impose harsh restrictions on UK citizens, with little notice, questionable evidence and perfunctory parliamentary scrutiny. Hence his musings aloud over the role a written constitution could play in safeguarding fundamental rights.

I do not know Sir Charles’ views on Home Secretary Priti Patel’s demand that demonstrations should be restricted to two people. But that also sounds authoritarian and coercive and deserves to be subject to the proper checks and balances embedded in a constitution, not a process that amounts to little more than policy review and implementation by press release.

If the Government’s autocratic legislative approach to Covid reinforces the case for a written constitution, so does its over-centralised handling of Coronavirus.

The BMJ published a paper on the 25 June entitled ‘lessons in contract tracing from Germany’ by Ralf Reintjes, Professor of Epidemiology and Public Health Surveillance.[2]

The paper explains ‘Germany is organised into 16 federal states, which hold responsibility for health. Outbreak investigation and management, including contact tracing, is the responsibility of local health authorities at city or county level, with support from state health departments and the national institute for public health, when necessary’.

It further explains that ‘disease notifications from clinicians and laboratories primarily go to local authorities, where most of the practical work in infection control takes place and that in April both federal and state governments agreed to provide additional investment to strengthen local public health authorities’.

Finally, it sets out how ‘Germany built on existing infrastructure and experience from the outset, unlike England, where local public health departments were overlooked in favour of a centralised system run by outsourced companies’.

Germany’s experience of tackling Covid19 underlines how much more effective a federal system which placed real power in the hands of our four nations, combined with genuine devolution guaranteed by a written constitution, would have been at tackling this pandemic.

It is not just the way our Government is managing Covid that makes talking constitutions feel timely and pertinent. So is its treatment of Brexit. Nobody will forget the PM’s insistence on shutting down Parliament at a critical stage of the first Brexit negotiations. But the approach to Brexit2 and specifically the Internal Market Bill is similarly ringing alarm bells. According to Lord Neuberger, former President of the Supreme Court, this is driving the UK down a “very slippery slope” towards “dictatorship” or tyranny”[3] threatening international law and UK citizens’ access to the law.

Whilst a written constitution is not an impregnable defence against a concerted and coordinated attempt at demolishing our values and long-held principles, it does provide safeguards against accidental erosion of our liberties. There is mounting evidence these liberties are under pressure. That is why those delectable disputations cannot be delayed.

[1] https://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2020-11-02a.24.0&s=%22written+constitution%22#g30.0
[2] https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m2522
[3] https://www.theguardian.com/law/2020/oct/07/brexit-strategy-puts-uk-on-slippery-slope-to-tyranny-lawyers-told