News OnTheWight always welcomes a Letter to the Editor to share with our readers – unsurprisingly they don’t always reflect the views of this publication. If you have something you’d like to share, get in touch and of course, your considered comments are welcome below.
This from a reader known to News OnTheWight who wishes to remain anonymous. Ed
Councillors, please delay the IW council committee system until May 2025, and allow the council staff, councillors, and legal experts the time to construct a bulletproof constitution.
The Isle of Wight appears to be rushing through a ‘committee system’, making it seem like it will be more ‘democratic’ and efficient, but nothing could be farther from the truth.
Massive holes in constitution
The proposed constitution in its current form seems to have massive holes in it. This is of no fault of the IW council staff; they have had very little time to throw it together under a tremendous deadline.
If the constitution is not well constructed and iron clad, there’s no guarantee that it won’t be abused.
It could create a very weak, expensive, and ineffective council
We only need to look at foreign countries right now to see how their seemingly rock-solid written constitutions are being tested to their very limits by authoritarian figures and extremists.
Whilst I obviously don’t think that exact scenario would happen on the Isle of Wight, with a bad constitution, one can create a very weak, expensive, and ineffective council.
More delegated decisions?
Ironically, some of the proposed language has such large gaps between committee meetings that more council decisions are on the trajectory to be made (delegated to) unelected council staff, not our democratically elected representatives. How democratic is that?
As of yesterday, there are no proper financials set against the total costs of this transition to committee system and full on-going costs of running such a model.
Committee chairs
Don’t forget the dice roll of who leads each committee as well, potentially resulting in some policy getting more care and attention than others when partisan politics rears its inevitable head in any governance system.
This can be made worse with a badly constructed constitution.
Worry about it later?
The calls of councillors supporting the committee system are “don’t worry – we’ll deal with that later.”
What if that new constitution doesn’t empower the council with the constitutional tools to make the important changes ‘later’ to protect democracy in time?
A committee system doesn’t guarantee harmony
Yes, in principle it’s lovely when all politicians work in harmony towards a common goal. A committee system doesn’t guarantee that. The devil is in the detail.
I’m not, in principle, opposed to a committee system. But I am vehemently opposed to rushing a badly constructed constitution through that has not been thought out.
The constitution enables AND protects democracy
A constitution isn’t a piece of paper, and it isn’t a bunch of bureaucracy that can be dealt with ‘later’. It is what enables AND protects democracy. Getting it to barely legal form also doesn’t mean that it will protect democracy.
Please don’t rush – do it right, not fast. We don’t want democracy’s ‘death by committee’.
