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Charter 88 was committed to achieving one central aim—shifting the nature of British democracy from a highly majoritarian polity to a more pluralistic or consensual model of democracy. This article argues that New Labour has not demonstrated a clear commitment to a more consensual or pluralist model of democracy but has instead implemented a bi-constitutional system whereby a system of ‘modified majoritarianism’ has been retained at the national level while at the same time creating more consensual and pluralistic polities in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. However bi-constitutionalism within a unitary state is unlikely to prove unstable in the long-term. A focus on future dynamics opens up space not only for the assertion that it may still be too soon to comprehend the legacy and impact of Charter 88 (because the organisation's work planted certain seeds that may in the long-term indirectly lead to systemic change of the nature it campaigned for) but also because there exists a contemporary need for groups like Charter 88 in providing a new narrative in the form of a holist approach to understanding and shaping the constitutional configuration, thereby providing a form of constitutional morality and ending the current situation of constitutional anomie. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Although there is no doubt that the British constitution has been significantly reformed since the election of Labour in May 1997, the degree to which these reforms have altered the nature of British democracy remains deeply contested. A major problem within this debate is that it has become polarised around a binary distinction between consensual or majoritarian models of democracy when the contemporary situation is more complex. This article develops the concept of 'meta-constitutional orientations' in order to argue that the distinctive element of 'New' Labour's approach to constitutional engineering is not that it has shifted the nature of British democracy from one model to another but has, instead, sought to apply different models at the periphery and core: hi-constitutionality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the mechanism of government in Great Britain. Creation of new forms of delegated governance in 1980 and 1990; Interrelationship between elected arenas and the wider area administration; Failure of the Labour government to institute reforms that clarify the rationale and structure of the state.