How it works: the birth of our democracy
Back in the 19th century, British democracy evolved from our instinct for freedom, combined with a respect for the rule of law
I sent my post-election summer holiday, as one does, in bed with a broken hip, with a copy of Walter Bagehot’s The English Constitution by my side, salvaged from a hospital waiting room.
Fate works in mysterious ways. I had vaguely intended to read this Victorian classic, but never managed to do so. I had neither the time nor the inclination, as Big Ben said to the Tower of Pisa, but, suddenly, both came together. Every other book was out of my reach. The TV set failed to function. The eminent pollster, Sir John Curtice, was on holiday. Labour had won a famous victory, and great changes were on the way, but were yet to arrive.
Meanwhile, there was Bagehot, like an elderly companion on a long journey, sharp-witted and sceptical, who knew how it all began. He wrote his columns for The Fortnightly Review in the years between the first two Reform Acts in 1832 and 1867, which set the pattern for the later Reform Acts, and thus the electoral system, as we know it today.
The roots of English democracy
“Our freedom”, he concluded, “is the result of centuries of resistance, more or less legal, or more or less illegal… to the established executive”. The first requirement of a democracy was to fight against dictatorship, which, if taken to an extreme, might prevent the country from being governable at all. Fortunately, the English, whose “natural impulse is to resist authority”, shared other qualities. They were polite and deferential, “civilized” in Bagehot’s term, and the Reform Acts combined the instinct for freedom with a respect for the rule of law.
The 1832 Reform Act was an example. It could have been worse-tempered than it was. The incoming Whig government under Earl Grey sought to re-draw the electoral map to redress the balance in Westminster between the industrial north and Tory shires of the south. Some ‘rotten boroughs’ had more MPs than electors, whereas Manchester had no MPs at all.
Confronting the House of Lords
Unfortunately, the House of Lords had a Tory majority, which threatened to veto such a bill. Grey proposed to elevate more Whigs to peerages to alter the balance of power. The king, William IV, hesitated, until the Lords themselves gave way. They conceded the rights of government to the Commons, and the first reform bill was passed without further obstruction. Some 67 new constituencies were brought into being, with similar sized electorates. In addition, 56 boroughs in England and Wales were disenfranchised, and 31 others were restricted to only one MP each.
Wiser heads than mine have questioned the radicalism of the 1832 Reform Act. They have pointed out that power was kept in the hands of the better-off middle classes, despite the working-class Chartists. The ghosts of the French Revolution stalked the corridors of power, acting more as a deterrent than an incentive to revolt. Nobody wanted that kind of upheaval.
I am still awestruck, however, by the sheer scale of the reforms. Medieval fiefdoms were turned into modern-looking constituencies. The size of the electorate was doubled. The balance of power between the Upper and Lower Houses tilted sharply towards the Commons, and even the king, middle-aged but recently anointed, was forced to give way before the demands for a more democratic form of governance.
Further reforms untainted by civic revolt
This Act prepared the ground for the later Reform Acts – in 1867, 1884, 1918, 1928 and 1969 – which extended and clarified the right to vote. They represented transferences of power handed over without too much fuss, a process which in other countries led to riots, revolutions and civil war. They absorbed change without resisting it. The outlines of the modern constitutional map, even the blue and red wall seats, can be traced to the legislation drafted nearly two centuries ago.
The powers of enforcement, once retained by the monarchy, were dispersed among lower levels of authority; until they came closer to reflect public opinion through carefully calibrated constituencies. ‘Barbarous civilizations,’ according to Bagehot, ‘are full of distrust’, but, fortunately, the English middle-classes could read and write, were informed by reliable newspapers, and well equipped to run their own affairs.
He was careful to stress the limitations placed upon power. The role of Queen Victoria as head of state was mainly theatrical. She could appoint peers, army generals and declare war, but nobody expected her to do so on her own account. The Upper House was a monitoring chamber, sparsely attended, while the back-bench MPs could elect the government and dissolve parliament but expected to obey the party whips.
Harnessing and limiting executive power
In theory, the government held vast executive powers – who else appointed the Viceroy of India? – but its term of office was limited by the electoral cycle. Her Majesty’s Leader of the Opposition held it to account. After an election, there might be a new cabinet, and a fresh team of ministers, who would become overnight the Secretaries of State for War, Foreign Affairs, Trade, the Exchequer, the Colonies and Poor Law etc., tasks to daunt even those who had been to Eton and Oxford. Fortunately, those who had received the benefits of a first-class education knew how to delegate. Never open a door by yourself. Let others do so for you.
The day-to-day management of the country, the nitty-gritty of government, was left in the hands of civil servants. Bagehot, a businessman and son of a banker, held much respect for civil servants. They knew what they were doing and, like true Englishmen, did not bother with intellectual theories. They solved problems as they cropped up, the secret to success.
Constitutional evolution
The French might jeer that we were a ‘nation of shopkeepers’, but this was more of a compliment than an insult. Shopkeepers believed in trade, which implied peace and prosperity, the defining features of good government. Our democracy was not the product of an uprising, an assassination or a consultation among lawyers to produce a document of inordinate length. It stemmed from how we behave. ‘Custom is the first check on tyranny’.
The English Constitution was the result of an evolutionary process, which, like an oak tree, had survived many winters, canker and plague, storms and hurricanes, until, strengthened by adversity, it flourished as the matriarch of the forest, the mother of all other parliaments. Its roots spread deeply into the soil of British life, the countryside as well as the industrial cities, the sea as well as the land.
Those who enter political life with schemes for national revival are usually frustrated. There are too many checks and balances, too many awkward lawyers, and, when all these have been swept away in a burst of populist rhetoric (‘Get Brexit Done!’), there remains a stubborn core of voters who still err on the side of caution.
Looking to today
Who won the general election on 4 July? Starmer’s Labour, despite its majority in parliament, polled fewer votes than Corbyn’s Labour in 2019. The verdict was not for one or more political parties, but against Rwanda, against isolation, against pollution, against quick-rich schemes, against inflation and against the privatisation of the Royal Mail. Most of all, it was against mismanagement of the schools, the health service and the prisons.
The public behaved as Bagehot might have predicted. It must have something to do with our temperate character. Even I, lying in an NHS bed, well nursed and doctored, am reassured that a new government is in charge, which must be better than the last lot, and that my hip will be mended by Christmas.
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