Call me optimistic, but I had been giving Andy Burnham the benefit of the doubt - he’s more charismatic than the current Prime Minister, a better communicator and doesn’t resemble the human incarnation of a car park bollard.
But now he is inexplicably considering resurrecting Labour’s bizarre Chagos deal, I cannot see him as anything other than living in the awkward shadow of his doomed forerunner.
This self-defeating giveaway will cost British taxpayers billions of pounds - a totally unworkable commitment given Burnham’s stated desire to spend that money where it should be deployed: here at home. It is a disaster for British national security - undermining our vital strategic relationship with the US - and will enrage President Trump.
There’s another reason Burnham’s attempt to force through this sellout is destined to run aground. The first session of the 2024 Parliament significantly strained the executive’s relationship with MPs and Peers - and if Burnham charts this course, I believe the situation will only get worse.
Starmer’s opening gambit as Prime Minister was to set out a raft of legislation that was unwieldy, overly complex and often disconnected from voters’ priorities.
He then went on to treat Parliament with contempt - ironic for a man who considers himself the embodiment of due process.
Incomplete or incorrect answers to written questions are now commonplace, Ministers and senior advisers are refusing to appear before committees, and the growing number of one-line whip days suggests a Government afraid of scrutiny.
No10 ultimately attempted to railroad Parliament over the Diego Garcia Bill and bounce its Chagos deal into law.
Fortunately, my colleagues in the House of Lords helped delay that until the draft Bill was dropped. Chagos isn’t the only case in point.
Consider the absurd assisted suicide Bill, which has now fallen after failing to complete its parliamentary stages. Lauren Edwards MP has since secured a top Private Members’ Bill ballot slot and has now reintroduced the Bill, setting up Second Reading on 11 September and raising concerns about both the process and the outcome.
Originally introduced by Kim Leadbeater MP and later taken up by Lord Falconer in the Lords, the Bill was not Government legislation.
Whatever one’s view on the issue, it is clear the usual pre-legislative safeguards were bypassed: no consultation, no draft bill, no impact assessment, no mandate, and no pre-legislative scrutiny.
Private Members’ Bills are typically short, uncontroversial and limited in scope, because the procedure demands it.
This bill was anything but. Baroness Hollins noted in the Lords that, over the past decade, the average Private Members’ Bill was 8.8 pages long with around five clauses.
By contrast, this bill ran to 51 pages and 59 complex clauses, longer and more intricate than many government bills affecting important policy areas.
This is a good example of how Labour now operates. Both Starmer and Burnham appear to support rapid social and constitutional change proceeding without proper scrutiny, despite lacking any popular mandate for these ideas.
The eleventh-hour abortion amendments to the Crime and Policing Bill, introducing changes of major consequence, receiving minimal line-by-line examination, are another example of this.
Assisted suicide campaigners openly discussed using the Parliament Acts to force the Bill into law without the consent of the House of Lords - a tool that has also been mooted for the Chagos deal.
This is essentially unprecedented in modern parliamentary procedure. Only seven Bills have become law under the Parliament Acts and never a Private Members’ Bill. Their design assumed a Government would reintroduce legislation in a subsequent session, not that backbenchers would attempt to bypass the Lords altogether.
This would set a dire precedent, and if a different government were associated with such proposals, there would rightly be outrage.
Sweeping change to the way this country works - whether it’s on social matters or the territories we call our own - demands careful, dedicated scrutiny, whatever one’s position on the issues. Our constitutional processes are due the same respect.
It is unconscionably reckless and immature for a maleficent group, determined to remake Britain without consent, to so zealously pursue their agenda that they are willing to upend the current settlement, regardless of the consequences.
Both Lauren Edwards and Andy Burnham should carefully consider the course they are pursuing over the summer. It’s not too late to restrain their legislative vandalism and focus instead on the mandate Labour does have: to deliver the domestic change it promised at the last General Election.
Ross Kempsell is a Conservative peer
