Subscribe to our RSS feed A really interesting and enjoyable article, but I do have several reservations about it's line of reasoning - and indeed the HoL select committee's.
Firstly, at no stage is it made clear in concrete terms why it is preferable for parliament should be consulted before war or a troop deployment. It is just assumed that transfering power from the executive to the legislature must be a 'good thing', and therefore the current arrangement constitutes an abnormality. In fact, I would argue that the conduct of warfare is highly suited to executive decision making and highly unsuited to 'decision by committee' because above all, the prosecution of war needs timely, bold, decisive, and clear cut decisions. As Winston Churchill once said: 'Put the most gallant sailor, the most intrepid airman, and the most audacious soldier at the table together, and what do you get? The sum of their fears.' Gallant, intrepid and audacious are not words which spring to mind when thinking of our current crop of legislators, and quite frankly, I am concerned that the sum of their fears might well be so pusillanimous that we would soon cease to play an effective role in international affairs altogether.
But there is another problem. Governments like John Major's on very slender majorities are at the mercy of minority interest MPs. Suppose that a serious escalation in loyalist violence in Northern Ireland had occured during the 1990s. The Major government is briefed by military commanders and republican politicans that a drastic increase in troop numbers is needed to halt the crisis. But who is the government reliant on to support its domestic agenda?
Ulster Unionist MPs! There is a serious danger that Britain's responses to international events become pawns or bargaining chips in the domestic political game if parliamentary influence is increased, to the detriment of a consistent or appropriate foreign policy.
There is also the quality of MPs themselves. It has been frequently commented on that practically none of them have any real experience in foreign affairs, and only a tiny percentage have any experience of the Armed Forces or the events that they would be pontificating about. Whether from right or left, there is a tendency to sermonise, score party points and build careers. Fine when debating about the pros and cons of something relatively unimportant like hunting with dogs, less so when lives and the security of the nation may be at stake. From my point of view, the case has just not been made strongly enough about why parliament as an institution is the correct one to be making decisions about war fighting.
Secondly, these proposals relate to events and procedures leading up to the most recent invasion of Iraq which is generally judged to have been mis-managed. MPs and the Media have felt miffed that they were disregarded over the decision to go to war. However, regarding the MPs, the question really is whether they would have done anything different from the executive when the question: 'To go to War?' was put to the HoC vote on 18th March 2003. The rather embarrassing answer for MPs is actually, NO, in spite of a rebellion there was a crushing majority on favour of both motions on the war in February and March. From my perspective, this knocks out another prop from the parliamentary case, because in fact our legislators were shown to have no better judgement on troop deployment than the much criticised executive.
So, in summary I believe that Parliament has serious case to answer before it is entrusted with any fresh legislative powers, and that so far its powers of judgement have not been especially impressive.
In fact, for the reasons outlined above in point one, it may well be institutionally incapable of offering the kind of quality and speed of decision making that is so vital in the conduct of international affairs.
This was originally posted as a comment, but deserves a wider audience. I believe James posts on Inner West Central but it is a common name, I suppose).
There is a strong argument for executive discretion in this area of the Royal Prerogative - most of which you have outlined - but for my own part it comes down to legitimacy.
The executive of this country are still appointed by the monarch, not the legislature or the people*, so affording them the right to make a decision which for some of its citizens will be about life or death seems anomalous in a country which is meant to be democratic.
* I realise there is an argument that the executive are elected by the people - but I disagree with it: votes at a general election are for representatives to the Commons.
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The US has had this debate over Presidential powers to commit the country to war / leading to the War Powers Resolution.
I don't think it works very well. Sometimes the Executive "has" to send a gunboat. Having a debate about it might very well inflame a situation. And an accumulation of individually small executive decisions lead to a situation where war is likely.
But it is a long time since I studied ir. Things might have changed
Peter
I agree that there's a pretty tenuous link between the people, the legislature and the executive, but your argument is tantamount to government by referendum. Every day the government makes decisions that result in the deaths of some it's citizens - be that the proposed alterations in the speed limit, or even just setting a cap on NHS spending for that year. Are those decisions only legitimate if confirmed by a majority of citizens, or 66% of them, or does every single person have to agree to something before it is truly the will of the nation? How reflective is our voting system of popular will?
I agree that a vote in Parliament is 'slightly', and it really is just every so slightly in these circumstances, more representative than a decision taken by the executive. But I think that it is such a miniscule (and open to question at that) gain in legitimacy that the costs at which it comes (minority interests, indecision, delay, procrastination, half measures) out weigh it.
A you say, committing a country to war is traditionally the prerogative of the head of state who is also usually the titular head of the Armed Forces. In Britain this appears archaic because we still have a monarchy and professional Armed Forces who are not - as in many other countries such as the US and Israel - a true expression of the people in the form of a national guard or a citizens' army.
The people of Britain have generally enjoyed exemption from conscription or some form of national service, and throughout history our Armed Forces have generally been extremely discrete by comparison to other countries. I think this debate would be very different if we had conscription, but while every member of the Armed Forces remains a volunteer, questions of the legitimacy of the freedom action of the executive are not as pressing as would otherwise be.
From my viewpoint, the day on which general conscription is
re-introduced is the day on which troop deployment becomes a matter of general legislative interest. Until then, it's probably best left to the professionals unless others can catagorically prove that they would make better or more effective decisions. So far, I don't see any evidence of it.
"... your argument is tantamount to government by referendum. Every day the government makes decisions that result in the deaths of some it's citizens - be that the proposed alterations in the speed limit, or even just setting a cap on NHS spending for that year."
Except both the examples you outlined are taken with the statutory framework set out by Parliament - the decision to deploy troops is not. I'm not arguing for government by referendum, but government by legitimacy - that is to say its authority should derive from Parliament, not the Crown.
oberon2001.blogspot.com
uklawstudent.blogspot.com
There is something of a circular argument going on here.
I concede your point about the speed limit, however, decisions about health spending and prioritisation are also taken by Quangos and Hosptial Trusts which are completely outside any kind of parliamentary democratic framework.
When I said that your proposals are tantamount to government by referendum I did so because I was (and remain) curious about what is really meant by 'legitimacy'. What is government by legitimacy?
The most literal interpretation of it would be direct democracy via referenda. I accept though that we live in a 'representative democracy' where we vote for people to make decisions for us via a very unrepresentative system of voting, but who we can periodically censor every four or five years if they make a real mess of it.
Given that this is the case, I don't really see our legislature as being much more responsive to the wishes of the electorate than the executive. The safety valve is that if we decisively reject the members of the legislature in a general election, then the executive changes too. In the meantime though, with comfortable majorities and the Party whipping system, the legislature appears little more than a cipher of the executive.
I disagree. Legitimate government involves consent by the governed. Referendums are a means by which majorities impose their wills on minorities. Those in the minority cannot be said to have consented to the result of the referendum and to them the decision is not therefore legitimate.
In order to get consent we need localism. Where decisions are devolved to the lowest possible level (neighbourhood rather than town) there is a real choice for people - they can move a relatively short distance to find the type of government they like. Only this can give legitimacy to the decisions of the government.
James. "Gallant, intrepid and audacious are not words which spring to mind when thinking of our current crop of legislators, and quite frankly, I am concerned that the sum of their fears might well be so pusillanimous that we would soon cease to play an effective role in international affairs altogether."
"...cease to play an effective role in international affairs altogether"
"Effective role", James? I do not think that the UK any longer has an effective role in international affairs. We may tag along on Bush´s coat tails, or we may operate with our European partners. But an independent effective role? I think not.
I think it is high time we started to think about our real role in the world, and how we can possibly justify our place as a permanent member of the UN Security Concil.
"I would argue that the conduct of warfare is highly suited to executive decision making and highly unsuited to 'decision by committee' because above all, the prosecution of war needs timely, bold, decisive, and clear cut decisions."
I think that here, James, you are falling short of your normal clarity of thought. It is one thing to take decisions about the circumstances which justify or not a declaration of war.
And it is quite a different matter to prosecute that war and to take strategic and even tactical decisions.
I think that, even with their limitations (???!!!), our elected representatives are quite capable of taking decisions about the former.
John and Rosemary, I'm going to have a crack at answering your points.
I think it's interesting that you assumed that an effective role automatically means an effective 'independent' role - something that I did not actually mention. However, since you bought it up, recent events in Sierra Leone show that Britain can still operate more or less independently on a small scale, although I accept that in the vast majority of cases we operate as part of a coalition.
The question you pose is whether we do so 'effectively' - which is a word open to interpretation, but I take to mean as to whether we play a role in events proportionate to our international weight in successfully fulfilling our missions or not.
It's been quite fashionable to run down the importance of the UK on the global stage for many years now, and it can't be denied that UK has declined relative to its early 20th century position. But you only have to put all the nations of the world on a sliding scale from Andorra to the United States to see that in terms of resources and fighting power we come pretty near the top. Does this engender a proportionate responsibility to be a 'force for good' in the world? Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. But we certainly have the resources to be one of the bigger influences in the world, for better or worse.
My query about MPs is how wisely they might manage those resources - or indeed whether they would use them at all given the a)Potential savings to be made by not using them b)Potential for electoral punishment if things went wrong c)MPs general lack of experience/interest in foreign policy affairs. Personally, I think it's a case that MPs still have to prove to us, given such embarrassments as their voting record on the invasion of Iraq.
On the argument that MPs will vote only on the issue of a general declaration of war rather than voting on strategic or even tactical decisions, I think that the real issue is whether MPs will be content to offer a 'carte blanche' and then stay out of the way. I suspect that when considering the go ahead for general war, they would soon start to hedge their bets by demanding a say in rules of engagement, level of cooperation with allies (for example the Black Watch's move to support the US attack on Falluja in 2004) and what threat level was required in order to either send more or withdraw troops.
These are highly sensitive tactical decisions - and ones that have a large electoral impact. I can't believe that MPs would waive their motives to intervene during subsequent developments and key decision making points in campaigns so as to ensure their own electoral survival. Dull as this sounds, I think that there is a built in 'slippery slope' to micro management in this proposal that could so easily be disasterous.
Even if we assume that MPs are able to limit themselves to just giving the go ahead for war in general, we still have to examine their actual capacity and record on this issue alone.
You say that: 'MPs are quite capable of taking decisions about the former' Are they? What evidence do you have to back this up?
The evidence from voting records in the most recent run up to conflict in Iraq shows unequivocally that MPs offer no better scrutiny or analysis of the situation than the executive.
The most acute and accurate protests, ironically, largely came from the professional cadres of the executive, the FCO and the Armed Forces. Food for thought for legislators?
Yesterday's comments by General Danatt prove in my opinion that the most accurate, credible and potentially damaging check to a government's activities in the field of warfare come, surprise surprise, from the branches of the executive itself which are actually charged with doing the dirty work. No MP, Select Committee, Public Enquiry or even Minister (except perhaps Gordon Brown) would be able to voice such clear cut and most importantly, credible, critque of how events are unfolding.
The fact that such immense pressures have built up within the Armed Forces themselves that these 'leaks' are bursting out under pressure is indication of how badly let down the public and Armed Forces are by current legislature which should be voicing these concerns. For constitutional reasons Generals should not be speaking out on these issues - but when MPs fail to do so over many years, they are left with few other options.
Although one may be inclined to agree with the comments outlined here, it seems as if the action in one moment should be held in isolation. Although the legislature is indeed not able to deal with matters of conflict, the declaration of war has inevitable history to it. thus those in parliament will be aware like the public of the state of affairs. if the executive sought the view of the nation then surely this is the will expressed in the parliament? The executive in my opinion can only react instantly to those events the affect the country directly, outside of this the use of MILITARY resources is ultimatley an issue to be addressed to the representatives of the populace.
I agree largely with the writer. I also think we can take this "democracy" thing too far. Oh, yes we can! We are not a nation of referendum decisions and rightly so. The idea of asking the voter every time the government thinks we might need to go to war smacks of innocence and even bumbling incompetence. Who wants THAT weak a government?
And to defer to MPs on such big decisions as war would also make a laughing stock of the executive. Decision-making would grind to a halt. Apart from that, democratic decision-making is based on the votes we cast at general elections. Then the executive are put in charge. Armchair strategists or pub talking-pools only allow us to give vent to our wealth of thoughts and frustrations.
We need to learn to trust our government's executive to be informed by the experts in the field. I am sure their decisions are. For instance in the present Iraq and Afghanistan debates we only hear about those who differ from the government's stance, not those who agree with it. That's because controversy is considered newsworthy and/or adds credibility to a particular newspaper's editorial and political position.
And this whole question of whether or not MPs should have a greater input into the initial decisions and ongoing tactical decisions is a result of dissatisfaction with the current progress.
This raises three questions:
1. If progress had been good - quick and surgical - would the government and the PM be taking this criticism? Or would we all be basking in the warm glow of British success on the world stage?
2. If MPs had been asked whether they thought it was a good idea to go into Iraq, and with Tory support the answer would have been "yes", what would we have gained by their consent? Probably nothing but we would have lost time and momentum. The naysayers would have had a noisy platform from which to keep up their lack of support, so possibly damaging the forces' morale and the government's international and diplomatic relationships at a delicate time. And the process would have slowed down hugely, whilst other countries would have seen and heard much of our planning aired in public in our open parliament and press.
3. Because of the initial involvement of MPs in the decision, there would be an expectation that there should be a continuation of MPs' involvement. War by Committee writ large.
I think it is too easy to criticise the government and particularly the Prime Minister. These decisions cannot have been easy and there may be harder ones yet for them to take.
It may be an unpopular stand to take but I support the government's efforts in the present war theatres, notwithstanding the question of whether the right decision was made in the first place.
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