In a stunning rejection of basic democratic principles, NIO Minister David Hanson persuaded the House of Commons to reject amendments to the Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill designed to make politics in Ulster more accountable (hat tip Pete Baker).

The first amendment proposed by the Lords would have changed the process of making laws for Northern Ireland. At the minute, most laws for Northern Ireland are passed as Orders In Council rather than full Bills. As Orders in Council are secondary legislation they cannot be amended and Parliament are left with a "take it or leave it" vote, allowing the government a lot of wiggle-room to force through unpopular legislation (education reform anyone?) by using the blackmail inherent to this system. Of course this leaves a great disparity with how laws that only affect England are made, being that they are put to Parliament as Bills which can be fully debated and amended by Parliament instead of being rushed through a committee.

I remember learning of this farcical situation in A-level politics and even as an 17 year old student I could identify how ridiculous it was (especially since the committee voting on Northern Ireland laws, which sits in England unlike similar Scottish/Welsh committes which sit closer to home, only has about 4 of the 16 sitting Northern Irish MPs sitting on it). This has been the way the majority of laws have been made for Northern Ireland under Direct Rule for 30 years. Now, after all this time, it has taken the House of Lords to propose democratic change - which the Commons has now stomped all over. Democratic house, eh? The government have accepted that there needs to be a change to this system, but God forbid they actually do anything before the devolutiond deadline they've imposed.

The second amendment would have ended the ability of parties here to source their funds outside the country. In the rest of the UK, donations from overseas cannot exceed £200 - and with good reason. It's generally a accepted democratic principle that citizens of other countries, or those residing outside a given country shouldn't be allowed to affect politics within it.

Here however nationalist parties, Sinn Fein particularly, source large amounts of funds from the Republic. Nigel Dodds (North Belfast, DUP) said he couldn't understand how the Minister could justify special provisions to allow donations from the Irish Republic when he knew that such donations would disproportionately benefit nationalist parties and Peter Robinson (East Belfast, DUP) claimed the government was doing it simply to benefit their sister-party, the SDLP. The Lords' amendment to plug this loophole and bring Northern Ireland party funding in line with the rest of the UK was also defeated in the Commons, by a large majority.

Unfortunately the Lords failed to stick to their guns and return the Bill to the Commons, and it has already gained Royal Assent.