The Constitution under New Labour

Abstract

It remains a curious paradox in Britain’s political history, that despite being the party which established the basis for a universal democratic way of life through the creation of the Welfare State and the National Health Service, Labour has until very recently remained unconcerned with constitutional and democratic matters. There have been some exceptions; for example, the Wilson governments of the 1960s and 1970s were responsible for both the creation of the Parliamentary Ombudsman and the introduction of legislation to confront racial and sexual discrimination, but it remains striking that agendas of constitutional reform have failed to gain the backing of the Labour leadership, at least when Labour has been in government. Indeed, the Labour Party has been characterized by what Anthony Wright (1990, p. 323) has termed a ‘history of satisfaction’ with Britain’s constitutional arrangements (see Evans, 1994, for a detailed discussion).