A Very British Constitution

By Mandrill | Published April 20, 2007

There’s a discussion going on over on Samizdata during which I’ve managed to goad people into drawing up a constitution for Britain. Here’s what we’ve got so far (with some edits that I’d like to see):

  1. The powers not delegated to the State by the Constitution are reserved to the people. The State shall make no law amending this except by the will of the people expressed in a full referendum. In my opinion we should lose the bit about a referendum. An adept politician may be able to persuade the unwary into voting for almost anything.
  2. Parliament shall enter into no treaty, or agreement with any individual, group or state, that in any way abrogates or diminishes the sole sovereignty, or power, of the people of the United Kingdom, save with the full agreement of the people as expressed in a full referendum. Same edit as above.
  3. The State shall make no law concerning the establishment, elevation or imposition of any religion, or prohibiting the free peaceable exercise of religion. No person or persons shall have the right to impose any religion on any person by means of force or threat.
  4. The State shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, including the written word, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
  5. The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated. No warrants shall be issued, except on probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and precisely specifying the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
    Parliament shall have a duty and the power to enforce this by appropriate legislation. Replace the word parliament with “the state/government”. If the word parliament is included the implication is that we have to have one.
  6. All persons born, or naturalized, in the United Kingdom, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United Kingdom. The State shall make no law, or enforce any law, which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the State. Nor shall it deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. I suggest splitting this one into two parts, the first defining who is a citizen, and the second stating that all persons in the country are subject to the law equally.
  7. Neither slavery, nor any form of involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime where the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United Kingdom, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. Lose the exception.
    Parliament shall have a duty and the power to enforce this by appropriate legislation. Parliament replaced as above.
  8. The right of citizens who are over 21 to vote shall not be denied, or abridged by the Government or by any Local authority on account of race, creed, colour or sex. This right shall not be denied or abridged by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax. This right shall not be abridged or denied for any reason at all.
    Parliament shall have a duty and the power to enforce this by appropriate legislation. Parliament again.
  9. Parliament shall make no law interfering with the right of any individual, groups, or companies, to freely associate, or make agreements and contracts together, excepting where said are contrary to, or bound by the constitution of the United Kingdom.
  10. Parliament (the state/government) shall not pass any laws which infringe the rights of all citizens to keep or bear arms in personal and collective defence against enemies both internal and external.
  11. The citizen has an absolute right to protect their life family and property, also lives and property for which they may be responsible, against unlawful attack. The citizen may use reasonable force, up to and including deadly force, if necessary, in order to exercise that right.
    This right shall only be bound by the constitution of the United Kingdom. Parliament Nor any other governing authority, shall enact no law, and enforce no law, which shall abridge, abrogate, or diminish that right.
  12. And one of my own: The state shall have no claim upon the property of an individual or group of individuals, except where said property is voluntarily given without threat of force, imprisonment, abridgement of rights, or any other form of coercion on the part of the state.

Its still a work in progress, and the language is admittedly archaic but then it is modelled on the United States Constitution which was written more than 200 years ago. A good start I think.

Contributors: Phil A, Mick G, Tim C

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  • mandrill
    And I don't know how you got from me arguing for using precious metals and stones as a standard upon which to base our economy to endless growth.
  • mandrill
    Myth of endless growth? It is true that in our current situation, growth, be it economic or otherwise, is going to be finite. We live in a world of limited means but we exist in an almost infinite universe. Surely in such a universe growth can be pretty much endless. Why should we restrict ourselves to this planet?
  • You've pointed out ways in which a currency based the bread-standard would be different but not ways in which it would be worse. When bread is scarce, and therefore expensive, the currency deflates, and vica versa. That would create feedback tending to stabilise the economy at the point where bread itself would be neither too expensive nor too cheap. That would be better than the stinking myth of endless growth, wouldn't it?
  • mandrill
    you missed out the 'precious' Tom.
    A loaf of bread's value varies wildly depending on how much it cost to produce. The wheat costs different amounts to grow depending on where you grow it, it costs different amounts to buy depending on how much the farmer has grown. The lower the yeild that the farmer gets from his field of wheat the more expensive it will be to buy the wheat, and consequently the more expensive the bread will be. And thats not even taking into account the wages of the baker.
    The reasoning behind using precious metals or stones is that they don't go stale or mouldy like bread. The only cost involved in working out their value is the cost of extracting them from the ground. The other thing is (was) that their value/mass ratio is very high, making it easy to transport large amounts of wealth quite easily. Imagine having to cart a lorry-load of bread around with you if you...
    So metals and stones have a relatively stable value, are easy to store, don't disintegrate, and are easy to transport. Bread on the other hand, has a value which varies wildly from place to place and year to year depending on the weather, crop diseases etc. Bread is totally worthless after about a week (Unless you freeze it but that costs more than the bread did in the first place.), and costs a lot to transport and store.
  • If you anchor a currency to a basket of metal and stones, then the currency itself becomes redundant, you can just use the metal and stones. That would not eradicate inflation however, which inevitably would lead to greater quantities of lower value metal and stone having to be shovelled over the checkout at tesco. Using an ATM wuuld become increasingly dangerous and winning the lottery would be a slagheap in the street. How about anchoring the currency to a commodity value instead? If one euro was always worth five loaves of bread..
  • Do we need to consider a clause to protect the integrity of the money supply. Something to maybe anchor it’s value to a ‘basket’ of precious metals and stones possibly?
  • mandrill
    Ah but I'm stealing from the old lady, is that covered by the definition of molesting? You might say so, it could be argued that it doesn't. If the theft doesn't include some form of assault or threat of such. This is why, when you write a constitution you have to be as exact and specific as possible.The function of the constitution is indeed to limit the powers of the state. Which ultimately should only be concerned with national defence and law enforcement. No-one outside myself has a right to put limits on my behaviour, definitely not the state, and absolutely not a CCTV authority.
    in answer to your question: No. I have my reasons and it would take too long to explain just now. Maybe later.
  • the old lady is clearly covered by clause 1 "peacefully live out our particular lives unmolested by powers or by persons" 'cause you're a person. And the function of a constitution is to define tbe limits of the state, not the behaviour of the people. That's the job of the CCTV authority.
    So as a constitutionalist... did you vote?
  • mandrill
    Right, here we go.
    1) Nice in principle and basically covers alot of what the 12 in my post do but it leaves too much room for interpretation. To much wiggle room for the lawyers to argue over. What do you mean by co-operation? What do you mean by love? What are the powers that we should be free of molestation from? How are we to protect ourselves from said molestation? What if my particular life means that I go around stealing from old ladies? Should they co-operate with me? There is nothing in there to prevent the state from requiring my co-operation. What if I don't want to co-operate? Are you going to force me? Or would you get someone to force me on your behalf? Would you have me enslaved to your ideal of co-operation at gunpoint? That's communism, or collectivism, or socialism, doesn't matter what you call it they're all the same and they don't work. They're nice ideas on paper but as soon a people get involved everything goes to hell. You should read that Hayek book (and not just the synopsis, cheater :P) it'll clarify where I'm coming from.
    2) a)This should read "Lets all have nice things that don't endanger our place on the planet". Presuming that we're fucking up the planet is the height of human hubris, the planet can get along just fine without us. If we alter the environment sufficiently to wipe out all the higher life forms then all we've done is killed ourselves. Life will find a way back, it has done before, and more than likely it will again. We're not endangering life, just life as we know it. We have neither the understanding nor the capacity to destroy the planet, it doesn't need us to save it.
    2) b) What if my idea of nice things happens to be necklaces made from baby's finger bones? (hypothetically of course, I'm not an animal.) I think they're nice and they're biodegradable so they're not fucking up the planet.
    Again the language is too vague, the lawyers would have a field day with it (and would earn huge paycheques from it).
    3) This is not your lawn it is the people's lawn. You must co-operate. We are the government and we love you.
  • mandrill
    With fewer words you may find yourself paying more layers, more per word. I would love it to be more concise but unfortunately you have to make sure there is as little room for interpretation as possible. Lawyers are regrettably a necessary evil as civilization requires the rule of law (in its classical sense) to function.
    I'll get to deconstructing your proposals later, I'm going to bed.
  • I think it's got far too many words. Every word is another fifty pounds per lawyer per year forever, and I think these people have grazed upon the pastures of our legalism for long enough. Howabout this:
    1) let us cooperate to ensure we each can peacefully live out our particular lives unmolested by powers or by persons, and let us call the instruments of our cooperation love and government.
    2)Let's all have nice things that don't fuck up the planet.
    3)Get your tanks off my lawn.
    Cheers!
    Tom
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