Lords reject English Votes

The House of Lords have thrown out the Conservative Party's half-baked English Pauses for English Clauses fudge that would have allowed British MPs elected in England to tweak legislation that only affected England before British MPs elected in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland were allowed to vote on it.

There was cross-party support for Lord Butler's motion to reject the ineffectual, unconstitutional proposal that the Conservative Party misleadingly call English Votes on English Laws and create a cross-party committee to examine it for a couple of years until everyone forgets that it was supposed to have been reviewed by a commission in the last parliament and the policy of breaking England up into city regions has been fully implemented.

Under the Conservative proposals for English Pauses for English Clauses, only British MPs elected in England would be allowed to vote on individual clauses in legislation that only relate to England whilst British MPs elected in Wales would join then for clauses that relate only to England and Wales. Once they've tinkered with a bill to their heart's content, British MPs from Scotland and Northern Ireland would vote alongside British MPs from England and Wales on the clauses that don't apply only to England or to England and Wales and would then vote on whatever fractured, disconnected mishmash of legislation spews out of the end of convoluted and farcical process. Unless the whole bill applies only to England or only England and Wales in which case all British MPs will get to vote on it but as well as requiring a majority of British MPs voting in favour of it, a majority of British MPs elected in England or England and Wales will also have to vote in favour.

All this to avoid making England equal by simply creating an English Parliament with the same powers as the Scottish Parliament and letting members of an English Parliament make English laws for England.