The need for constitutional reformNo modern government has ever been elected with such a commitment to reforming the constitution as the Labor administration which won office in May 1997. Within months of his election, Scotland and Wales were on the path to devolution. Within a year, albeit in a very different context, the framework for a devolved, power-sharing government was created in Northern Ireland. A year later, the process of reforming the House of Lords was well underway, eliminating, first and foremost, peers whose place in the legislature was hereditary. In May 2000 London elected its first mayor. At the beginning of 2003 there was a commitment to allow English regions to choose to elect their assemblies. Then, in the June 2003 cabinet reshuffle, it was signaled that the office of Lord Chancellor would be abolished and that the judicial functions of the House of Lords would be transferred to the Supreme Court. Above all, the government kept its promise that Britain would sign up to a European constitution in 2004-2005, which would formally subjugate British law to European law and have many other consequences for Britain's political responsibility. All in all, it would appear that the Government can look back on a program of continuing constitutional reform which far surpasses anything achieved by its recent predecessors and which amounts to the fulfillment of the promises made at the time of the 1997 general election. But to what extent are these results? To what extent do they keep the promises made at the elections and afterwards? And, above all, to what extent they have led to better governance of... half the paper... more than its share over the years (such as the peerage reforms of 1958 and 1963, and the 1972 reform) . European Communities Act), has yet to take a clear position on many of these issues, even though it has announced its total opposition to the proposed European Constitution. The importance of the European proposals is that they must now occupy the center of the government's constitutional reform programme. To some extent, however, they will also take the whole issue out of the hands of the government, since the pace is dictated by an external power. The government refuses to consult the electorate on these issues. The prospect was not included in Labour's 2001 manifesto. This pursuit of sweeping constitutional change without a mandate could derail not only the reform agenda but the whole of government..