I have long contemplated the enormous dangers that unchecked political power brings, where massive and permanent damage can be done by the metaphorical stroke of a pen. Consider e.g. COVID-countermeasures that predictably did more harm than good in large parts of the world and that were pushed without democratic backing, the Merkelian decision to open the floodgates to African immigrants to Germany, and, quite generally, the signing of international treaties as an executive (cf. below) decision.
However, the matter here is not whether a decision is good or bad but that it can be made at all, have irreparable consequences, and potentially do damage. The immediate trigger for this (long overdue) text is the October 2024 decision by Keir Starmer to hand over the Chagos, at the time of writing a British possession near Mauritius, to Mauritius.
I have no strong feelings on whether the decision was correct from, say, a who-has-the-greater-right perspective, for want of detail knowledge—in fact, when first encountering the headlines, I found myself wondering what this “Chagos” at all was. (An advantage, as I can write from a more detached position than concerning, say, COVID-countermeasures. Some unconscious influence can be present, however, from the fact that the decision is pushed by a strong Leftist and opposed by a number of non-Leftists.)
However, if we look at this from a power perspective: Should a prime minister (or other head of government and/or state) in a democracy have the right to just give away territory? My answer is a resounding “No!”.
What modalities might be reasonable is a tricky question, might not have a single best answer, and other important decisions than surrender of territory might bring different best answers (e.g. due to a greater urgency than here). A particular complication is that an important aspect is the reduction of executive power, while many countries, including the U.K., have a quite weak division between the executive and the legislative. In such cases, merely shifting power from the executive to the legislative would border on the pointless.
However, possibilities include:
Making the decision subject to a plebiscite.
(An all-out democratic method, but one with additional costs.)
Requiring a qualified majority in a vote of all houses of parliament (two, in the case of the U.K.).
(Moves the decision to the legislative and requires a very strong support.)
Following the Swedish approach to constitutional changes and requiring that two consecutive parliaments, with an election between them, vote in favor of the same suggested decision.
(Has the dual advantage of allowing some aspects of a plebiscite without the additional costs, while giving the currently elected incentives not to push things too far, lest they fail to be re-elected and fail to secure the desired decision.)
All would not only give the decision a greater democratic legitimacy but would also: force greater transparency and debate; reduce the risk of highly misguided snap decisions (but, of course, cannot safeguard entirely against misguided decisions in general); reduce the ability of those in power to push a certain partisan or ideologically determined agenda in an un- or anti-democratic manner (the latter is something that I strongly suspect is the case here, in light of other early impressions of Starmer’s government); etc. With both plebiscites and the “Swedish” solution there would also be an additional time delay. In many cases, this is a good thing; in others, it can be a disadvantage.
Similarly, the type of dictatorial decisions made with regard to COVID should not, or only for a brief transition period, have been possible, [etc. for other examples]. There must be sufficient safeguards against this type of decision.
Note the difference between sufficiently checked power (be it through voluntary reticence or through formal checks and balances) and insufficiently checked power.
For example, the disastrous German energy politics and, in particular, the decision to abolish nuclear power when it was needed the most, have been quite harmful. However, this was not a matter of that metaphorical stroke of the pen—it was a long process that could have been stopped on a number of occasions by several different governments. The decision was an objectively very poor one, but not an un- or anti-democratic one. (With reservations for the off-topic questions of whether a government intervention in free enterprise was democratically justifiable, and whether the governments might deliberately have ignored the will of the people, which is a common issue in Germany.)
The issue of international treaties is particularly tricky, as the treaties can, depending on jurisdiction, supersede previous law, often move power to some international entity, and often introduce a future uncertainty around their implications. Even, say, a parliamentary ratification of an executive signing might not be enough of a safeguard, and the application of whatever measures are used for constitutional changes might be the best solution. Alternatively, a constitutional ban on international treaties, or strong constraints on their local validity, might work—maybe, in the form of reducing an international treaty to the equivalent of a (non-ratifiable) letter of intent, with any ensuing effects following only if and when a corresponding, explicit, encoding in local law takes place. (With the effect that any later changes to the treaty, decisions made by an international governance organization of the treaty, and similar, will have no effect whatever, unless followed by equivalent and explicit modifications to local law.)
Both surrender of territory and the entering into international treaties can be viewed as special cases of a surrender of sovereignty (complete but localized in the one case; incomplete but nation-wide in the other).
In cases where such a surrender of sovereignty is not very carefully justified and following a strict democratic process, a strong case for treason can be made. Where there is no legal codification of this type of treason, such should be made in addition to any other regulations (e.g. to define that strict democratic process).
Other types of criminal charges, be it relating to surrender of sovereignty (as here) or e.g damage to the people or the rights of the people (as with COVID-countermeasures), should also be possible, if and when called for.
For the sake of precision: (a) I do not claim that Starmer has violated current and actual U.K. law. (b) Whether he would have done so under some other set of laws would both depend on the exact laws and require a more detailed evaluation than I have made.
A more general issue relates to how much easier it is to destroy, give away, or otherwise lose something, than it is to create, take back, or otherwise regain something.
This is not limited to politicians but includes e.g. the Taliban destroying Buddhist sculptures in Afghanistan, U.S. extremists tearing down statues or renaming buildings over (often trumped up or misleading) accusations of “racism”, museums suddenly, after decades or centuries, deciding that a legally obtained object was “stolen” and must now be returned to its country of origin, and similar. Likewise, from another angle, it includes e.g. the damage done to education by letting ideological concerns trump educational concerns, by focusing on equal outcomes over good outcomes and equal opportunity, by following an outdated and deeply flawed “nurture only” philosophy of education, and similar—education might eventually be restored, but the damage done to the students in between cannot be undone. (And this even while remaining with legal or as-good-as-legal examples.)
Shortly after I wrote the original version of this page, a potential U.K. “exit tax” was in the papers again—that those with money who try to leave the country to avoid the threatening tax raises under the Leftmost government since the 1970s should pay dearly for the right to leave. Depending on point of view, this could be seen as an attempt to force them to stay, through a virtual Berlin Wall, or as an attempt to milk them as they go, but the effect is the same. Of course, it would also hit those who leave for other reasons.
I have not looked into the modalities, as they are not important for my current purpose. (And I am not certain to what degree these have actually been nailed down—it might be more of an idea at this stage. A particular complication is to what degree the exit tax would aim at the movement of humans resp. the movement of money.) However, it is clear that this type of change must be done sufficiently slowly as to give those with a wish to leave sufficient opportunity to do so before any exit tax is instituted, including sufficient time to actually make a decision whether to leave and where to go, and to actually implement the move, which can take a great amount of time. If not, the potential immigrants are put in an utterly unconscionable situation, which gives us yet another reason to put limits on politicians. Solutions could include that certain types of decisions, e.g. to institute new taxes or to raise old ones in a non-trivial manner, may only take affect after a considerable waiting period. (How long a waiting period, I leave unstated.)
Politicians often, and Leftist politicians very often, take the opposite attitude, and demand as much power, as few checks-and-balances, and as few delays as possible—and to hell with others. (Thereby proving that we do need great limitations on politicians.) Here, e.g., it can be outright expected that Labour would want a tax that becomes effective as soon as possible, exactly to remove the possibility of escape from that unconscionable situation. An exit tax would also demonstrate an extremely common Leftist attitude—that the citizen exists for the state, not the state for the citizen, with implications like leaving being a privilege, not a right, and any personal fortune being the state’s, not the citizen’s, to begin with. Even a description of “stay or pay” would not catch the entire issue, as the reason for leaving, again, is often the threatening new taxes (and other Labour-caused problems). A fuller description would be “stay and pay or leave and pay”. You may leave or stay as you wish—but you will pay.