UK Politics
General Discussion for politics in the UK.
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Thanks for posting this. Signed for what its worth
If a petition is not on https://petition.parliament.uk then it is definitely worthless, in my opinion.
If a petition is on https://petition.parliament.uk then at least there is a small chance of a parliamentary debate.
Have you ever seen them 'debate' a petition? Those debates are either 1) tiny 2) clown shows 3) miss the point entirely 4) "we investigated ourselves and found nothing wrong".
I saw the one for Brexit.
That wasn't iny, the room was packed, but it did miss the point and it was a clown show.
The key thing that I took away from that was basically "We must deliver the will of the people"
Yes, but all petitions of this kind are meaningless. If they could actually do anything they wouldn't exist in the first place. The major issue is that PMs can appoint their pals to the Lords as a quid pro quo and that won't change without major reforms, let alone a petition. I don't like Boris, but the system has been rigged long before he became PM.
Even if they do debate a petition, there's often not many MPs present.
Getting a petition in the news is more valuable in my opinion. News coverage and spreading awareness puts more pressure on MPs than a parliamentary debate few show up to. Still not great but may change a few minds at least.
Sadly, I don't think much will happen. The current removals only seem to have transpired because Rishi wanted those MPs to not step down.
Much like the US is seeing, rules at the highest levels seem to be a lot of conventions and gentlemen's agreements. If someone decides to do what suits them instead, there are limits to the amount of laws currently.
If they do go through, it would not surprise me if Lords reform is on the cards (decade terms, rather than life peerages, for example).
Lords reform is most definitely on the cards, provided Labour do not drop the ball with their lead. Starmer seems adamant to take the party only ever towards vote gains. This is the main reason he is avoiding policies which we know are popular, but have contentious connotations behind them (Brexit, PR voting). Starmer has stated unequivocally that the Lords will be reformed.
Signed, though honestly I don't think it'll do much unfortunately.
Should the house of lords be reformed? disbanded? What would you do?
I do like the idea of there being some sort of sanity check between parliament and laws actually getting passed but I don't like the idea of the people in power being able to appoint basically whoever they want.
Starmer has already committed, whatever that's worth, to abolish the house of lords
It was something Gordon Brown also wanted to do