The UK currently has no written constitution, which allows for flexibility and evolution, but also means that there are limited ways to protect against a government elected by a minority of the population from making sweeping (and even effectively permanent) changes to foundational elements of our society.

The nature of our electoral process also means that a political party can come to power based on a manifesto that is (a) necessarily incomplete as it would be impractical to list positions on all potential policy areas; and (b) not enforceable by the electorate once the party is in Government. 
 

These two factors allow for a party to enact legislation that was not debated or communicated during the election process and therefore for which they cannot meaningfully be said to have an electoral mandate.

In an extreme case it would be possible for a party that is acting in bad faith to come to power and enact legislation that was deliberately concealed from the electorate, and was never desired or expected to be enacted by them.  

 

In theory, a party could introduce legislation that curtails public and press freedoms in such a way as to make the future election of an opposing party significantly harder, and the only barriers would be the House of Lords, which itself has only limited power to prevent government backed legislation, and the conscience of the party’s MPs (the impact of public protests and marches on political decisions has historically been limited unless also supported by the media and press, and the current Conservative government has already introduced police powers to further neuter the power of public protest).

A more likely scenario, and one that we have seen on many occasions in the past, is that a governing party implements changes in tax structures or in the status, funding, scope, structure or purpose of publicly funded institutions and services that will have a fundamental long-lasting impact, or may waste significant amounts of public funds, without having a mandate to do so.  

 

Recent examples include the unfunded tax cuts of the 2023 Conservative “mini-budget” that ultimately led to Liz Truss’s resignation, the scandal of COVID-19 contracts, the HS2 railway debacle and the £500m+ cost of the Conservative’s Rwanda plan to deter illegal immigration. Longer term examples are the part-privatisation of the NHS by stealth, the selling off of school paying fields, and the damage to numerous public services caused by the austerity policies of the Conservatives since 2010.

We propose that there should be a mechanism to protect core elements of the UK’s public structure and social fabric, so that there are certain institutions, services or practices that cannot be materially impacted without clear public support.

Under this approach, we propose the protection of the following:

• The core rights of use by the public and the funding formula of the NHS (including dentistry).

• The status, structure and funding formula for Schools and Tertiary Education.

• The status and obligations attached to existing National Parks and Nature Reserves.

• The status and obligations of any nationally owned services (including any that are currently privatised and may subsequently be re-nationalised).

• The obligations and funding formula for the provision of Judicial Services and Prisons.

• The transparency, format and availability of information relating to public expenditure and procurement processes.

• The transparency, format and availability of information relating to the funding of political parties and their campaigns.

• The status, structure and funding formula for the BBC.

• The funding model, protections, obligations and scope limits for the combined Armed Forces / military.

• Core rights, protections and obligations for journalists.

• Core rights, protections and obligations for protesters.

• Limits on police powers.

• Limits on government powers, and the primacy of law and the courts over the government.

• Minimum levels of service and the funding formula for social care (care of the elderly, the long-term sick, children’s homes).

• Rights and structure of devolved government (Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Mayoralties).

• The voting and electoral process (e.g. introduction of voter ID, Proportional Representation vs. ‘First Past the Post’).

• The management and uses of the National Wealth Fund that we would create.

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In so doing, we believe that public, personal and commercial investment decisions can be made with greater certainty and more efficiency, that policy churn can be minimised reducing waste, and that effectively irreversible decisions cannot be made on the back of temporary parliamentary majorities.

The protections we would put in place would be sufficient to prevent core changes in these areas without true public consent, whilst still allowing the government of the day meaningful room to manage public finances and make strategic decisions.

In order to manage this, we would need to consider the use of public referenda to enable adjustments to the protected characteristics, unless the governing party held a significant majority AND the proposed adjustments were unambiguously part of the manifesto on which they were elected.  

 

To reduce costs and disruption, there could be an annual referenda day where all proposed amendments to protected areas being considered were voted upon at the same time, but we believe that if the areas were correctly defined such referenda would not need to be held so frequently.