THE recent House of Commons decision to back proposals for English votes on English issues contributes to the ever-deepening morass which Welsh constitutional arrangements have become.

The limited levels of self-determination afforded the Welsh nation by 17 years of shifting devolution policy face jeopardy on a number of fronts.

Prospects of extending self-determination, which seemed hopeful in recent years, are now under threat.

And yet the Tory government claims at least to be acting on the basis of some principles that, on the face of it, would garner widespread support on the left and seem the basis for a lasting settlement.

The principle of introducing a degree of self-determination for England is sound. The principles behind a reserved powers model are also sound. And yet what we actually face is unsustainable and riddled with potential conflict. So why the contradiction and how can it be resolved?

In broad terms, the principles outlined are sound only in the context of a federal apparatus for the governance of the British state.

The Tory government has sought to avoid this as it is motivated by the desire to maintain its dominance and the dominance of British capital over the whole of the British people and to maintain its imperialist foothold in the north of Ireland.

The relative size, current electoral politics and, above all, the location of British capital interests means that in the current conditions this manifests in a way that asserts the dominance of England over the other nations.

A federal state opens up the opportunity for releasing an uneven progressive advance as left victories in part of Britain can find expression in meaningful reform.

Some commentators on the left have warned against this with claims that uneven left advance is a threat to left unity.

It is clear from the reaction of the Tory government and capitalist class to the Scottish independence referendum and the growing assertiveness of campaigners in Wales that they see the prospect of any progressive advance as a threat to British capital.

This is why they seek to prevent a federal structure arising and also why the left should advance proposals for such a structure.

A federal structure with home rule parliaments with major social and economic powers offer the opportunity for both a race to the bottom in terms of tax breaks for business and assaults on workers’ rights — but also for a race to the top with workers inspired to fight for extensions of their rights and curbs on the power of capital by the examples of progress in neighbouring nations.

It is time for a confident and assertive left to back itself in these struggles.

The detail of proposals for English votes for English laws have emerged flawed because they have not involved the wide range of people’s interests across Britain and have been tailored to suit the needs of the Tory Party in its ideological mission to roll back the state and strengthen the power of capital.

There has been much debate about the so-called Barnet consequentials, the fact that changes in Westminster government department budgets for spending in England have a knock-on impact on funding for the devolved governments.

The government has argued that these have been separated out and would be determined by the whole Parliament, including Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish members.

The reality is that all legislation on public policy matters has an impact across the UK and that no legislation can be said to have zero financial implications.

Increasingly public services are being hived off to privateers across all nations of Britain. The privateers operate in a single market — a market that is shaped throughout the UK by policy and practice in England based in future on English-only participation in nominally English legislation.

The decision to exclude Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish MPs from decisions rests with the speaker based on direction from a Civil Service state apparatus that has the interests of capital at heart.

Where the interests of capital will be served by excluding Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish MPs, an attempt will be made to exclude them.

There is no legitimacy in this arrangement. An alternative federal approach must be proposed. Those matters that are to be reserved to a federal parliament must be determined democratically by members elected on the basis of single transferable vote with adequate safeguard in place to allow national parliaments to express and to protect their interests.

Such an arrangement would be a reserved powers model as part of a federal framework. The approach taken by the Tory government in it reserved powers list published in February is much more sinister, precisely because the list has been drawn up with the aim and intention of advancing the Tory Party’s ideological mission to roll back the state and strengthen the power of capital.

Consequently, across a host of areas affecting workers’ rights, key economic levers, energy, natural resources, social security and criminal justice powers are denied to the Welsh government.

Furthermore, the absence of a distinct Welsh jurisdiction and a number of other inter-governmental procedural elements in the documents mean that Wales not only continues to be denied the power to enforce its own legislation but that the balance of power is shifted toward, rather than away from central UK government.

Many of the progressive pieces of legislation passed by the Welsh government in the last term, in the face of legal challenge and opposition from Westminster, would under the new proposals be shot down by the Westminster machine.

It is time for the left across Britain to begin discussions around proposals for a genuinely democratic federal solution to our continuing constitutional crisis.