Labour could axe all hereditary peers from House of Lords, reports suggest

Labour plans to axe all hereditary peers from the House of Lords, reports have suggested.

But the 92 hereditary lords who sit in Parliament’s upper chamber would still be allowed to retain their access to the Palace of Westminster as a sweetener, the Financial Times has reported.

This would allow them to still enjoy access to Parliament’s bars and subsidised restaurants.

Labour has previously vowed to abolish the unelected upper chamber of Parliament, with Sir Keir Starmer having branded it “undemocratic”.

maculata,

Good! Fuck’em. Spoilt shits. They all are Tories anyway.

mannycalavera,
@mannycalavera@feddit.uk avatar

Not going to happen. Use this line to draw in the last few far left hold outs that were on the fence for the election then quietly say:

Now is not the time. The country has bigger priorities. We don’t think the electorate care about this above a properly funded . Etc etc

Politics playbook 101.

frazorth,

The lefties want to reform the House of Lords.

We would like to pay for an incubation chamber for this dying baby.

Yep, they already trotted that out twice. It could easily come out a third time and the 51% wouldn’t even notice.

echodot,

You say this but I can’t see why they would need the votes. It’s not like this is going to swing anything so what would be the point in declaring it only to then not do it?

It’s entirely possible they might actually go through with it after all they’re only getting rid of hereditary peers it’s not like they’re completely reworking the entire thing. The Lords will still exist.

mannycalavera,
@mannycalavera@feddit.uk avatar

Labour are going to win, and they’ll have a large majority. But why, as a strategy for election, would you rest on your laurels especially when there’s rumblings of losing votes due to their inaction on the Gaza question.

A good election tactic is to identify something that appeals to the hardcore of their voters and promise to change it. These might have potentially not voted or voted Green (or George Galloway 😩) but this way you might save their vote and win a better working majority rather than a Theresa May majority.

I don’t think they’ll do it because it sounds like a last minute election line precisely to appease these voters. If they had a thoroughly thought out timeline and action plan rather than just Labour will eat the rich, who’s with me comrades? then fair enough, but I might have missed that.

Think about it the other way around, Tories looking to stave off election calamity and get their hardcore voter base to vote rather than not vote or vote Lib Dem (or Nigel Farrage): We will stop the boats, we will make criminals of people who don’t have the means to look after themselves, we will give old people ever increasing sums of money as a thank you for their service during the decades of peace after WW2 where they gave nothing and took as much as they could amassing wealth beyond your wildest dreams. You wouldn’t believe a word of that would you?

CascadeOfLight,

Labour could axe all hereditary peers…

lets-fucking-go

…from the House of Lords

sadness

bishoponarope,

This is a pretty good april fools, NGL.

RobotToaster,
@RobotToaster@mander.xyz avatar

And replace it with what?

A second FPTP psuedo-democracy isn’t going to help.

NotACube,

I never thought of it before but your comment just made me realise this would be a great backdoor way to get the PR ball rolling. Make the lord’s elected with a full PR system. Maybe with half the seats going up for election every 7 years or something.

wewbull,

I which case it should become the primary chamber. Having the second chamber be more representative of public opinion would be yet another way the commons would repress the views of the people.

RobotToaster,
@RobotToaster@mander.xyz avatar

I’m pretty sure I’ve seen that suggested before, it would make a lot of sense, so obviously it will never happen.

gedhrel,

The issue with this is the same as with the mayoral system. The next tine the Tories get a turn, they replace it with FPTP and claim it’s “more democratic”.

Emperor,
@Emperor@feddit.uk avatar

It’s worse than that - they rowed back on fully reforming the House of Lords, this is just binning hereditary peers, all the others get to stay. So it’s the same mess, just with slightly fewer leeches hang off it.

They have the opportunity to make a sweeping change and show people there’s a different way of doing democracy. They aren’t taking that though.

Risk,

sigh

undergroundoverground,

It doesn’t need replacing. It just needs binning.

theinspectorst,
theinspectorst avatar

No, they're not even proposing to replace the House of Lords here. All they're proposing is to remove the remaining 92 unelected hereditary peers (out of around 800+ total unelected peers) who survived Blair's 1999 cull of most hereditary peers.

tla,

Reality suggests once in power, sod all will happen, as usual.

Emperor,
@Emperor@feddit.uk avatar

It’s a start but I won’t be happy with anything less than sortition - a true upper house of our peers.

Risk,

I’d like for it to be people with previous careers as well though, not career politicians. Which is what it would end up being if open to anyone standing.

Womble,

Sortition means you dont stand to get elected, instead you get randomly selected to serve, its how jury service works. That said I’d prefer 2/3rds sortition 1/3 appointed cross-bench experts, they are the only good thing about the current lords and it would be a shame to lose them.

Emperor,
@Emperor@feddit.uk avatar

That’s pretty much what it is - you can think of it like political jury service. It would be a cross-section of the population vetting laws with an eye on how they impact the lives of ordinary people. So you might get an NHS doctor pitching in on medical reforms but you also get a lot of people who use the NHS and are incentivised to improve it because it is life or death to them, rather than a politician who might be more interested in seeing what can be flogged off to their mates in return for a cushy non-executive position.

We largely only get a say in the laws during elections when we have to decide who we trust yo make the changes we want. With sortition in the upper house we get instant and fine-grained oversight of each individual law.

Risk, (edited )

Ah I’m so sorry - thanks for the TIL.

Yes, I very much agree with your idea then.

Edit: I also like what @Womble suggested of retaining 1/3 of seats for cross-party selected experts. Especially with sortition, it’s important to have the expertise to inform discussion.

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