A Green transformation requires a new constitutional settlement

At a public launch on Thursday 14th January 2021, Wales’ First Minister Mark Drakeford gave introduced a new report calling for radical constitutional reform in the UK.

The report We the People,The case for Radical Federalism, prepared by a voluntary and independent think tank of Labour Party and independent members from Wales, Scotland and England, sets out some of the reasons for reforming the UK, the principles on which reform should be based and the process for getting there.  It may be read in full here.

It calls for the UK to become a voluntary association of nations where sovereignty is held by each nation and then pooled for common purpose, a fair distribution of resources and a guarantee of common basic socio economic and environmental standards.

It promotes the necessity of a new constitutional settlement, devolution for England, a continuation of the decentralisation of power across the UK and a recognition of the vital importance within this process of the role of local government.

One of the authors, Alan Simpson, says “I don’t think it is possible to deliver a Green transformation without a democratic one too”.

 

 

 

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Accountable Care Organisations in the NHS: a privatising mechanism?

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On 1 April 2018 the government will introduce the first Accountable Care Organisations (ACOs), which are to act as partnership bodies incorporating hospitals, community services and councils into the NHS in England. 

The Health Service Journal reports that ACOs organisation, a corporate joint venture with GPs, will bring together most of a local area’s NHS services under a single budget, run directly by one big organisation – the ACO. which are to act as partnership bodies incorporating hospitals, community services and councils

Government intends to pass laws allowing ACOs to be set up (see above) without an automatic vote in Parliament.

The Accountable Care Organisations Briefing may be downloaded here

A BBC website reports that campaigners has been given permission to challenge a government health policy in the High Court. They will pursue a judicial review against Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt and NHS England over plans to create ACOs. Campaigners say it risks privatisation, but this is denied by ministers. The group bringing the case to court says an act of Parliament would be needed for the changes.

The DHSS said the claims would be resisted and it is irresponsible scaremongering to say ACOs were supporting privatisation. A spokesman said: “The NHS will remain a taxpayer-funded system free at the point of use; ACOs are simply about making care more joined-up between different health and care organisations. “Our consultation on changes to support ACOs is entirely appropriate and lawful”.

Dr Kailash Chand, an honorary Vice President of the British Medical Association, claimed ACOs could be a “Trojan horse for privatisation” adding:

“At worst, they are the end game for the NHS.”

The British Medical Association union warned: “Combining multiple services into one contract risks the potential for non-NHS providers taking over the provision of care for entire health economies.”

And the Commons Health Committee chair Dr Sarah Wollaston (Conservative) said: “There is a great deal of anxiety out there that this is going to be a mechanism for privatising the NHS.”

 

 

 

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Scots voting no to independence would be an astonishing act of self-harm

England is dysfunctional, corrupt and vastly unequal. Who on earth would want to be tied to such a country?

Edited extract from Guardian article

To vote no is to choose to live under a political system that sustains one of the rich world’s highest levels of inequality and deprivation. This is a system in which all major parties are complicit, which offers no obvious exit from a model that privileges neoliberal economics over other aspirations. It treats the natural world, civic life, equality, public health and effective public services as dispensable luxuries, and the freedom of the rich to exploit the poor as non-negotiable.

Points made by the author, George Monbiot, include:

• Its lack of a codified constitution permits numberless abuses of power.
• It has failed to reform the House of Lords, royal prerogative, campaign finance and first-past-the-post voting (another triumph for the no brigade).
• It is dominated by a media owned by tax exiles, who, instructing their editors from their distant chateaux, play the patriotism card at every opportunity.
• The concerns of swing voters in marginal constituencies outweigh those of the majority;
• the concerns of corporations with no lasting stake in the country outweigh everything.

Broken, corrupt, dysfunctional, retentive: you want to be part of this?

Independence, as more Scots are beginning to see, offers people an opportunity to rewrite the political rules. To create a written constitution, the very process of which is engaging and transformative. To build an economy of benefit to everyone. To promote cohesion, social justice, the defence of the living planet and an end to wars of choice.

The currency debate

The Scots are told they will have no control over their own currency if they leave the UK. But they have none today. The monetary policy committee is based in London and bows to the banks. The pound’s strength, which damages the manufacturing Scotland seeks to promote, reflects the interests of the City.

To deny yourself independence, to remain subject to the whims of a distant and uncaring elite, to succumb to the bleak, deferential negativity of the no campaign; to accept other people’s myths in place of your own story: that would be an astonishing act of self-repudiation and self-harm. Consider yourselves independent and work backwards from there, then ask why you would sacrifice that freedom.

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