Why did the Labour government introduce a series of constitutional reforms after 1997?

What the Labour Government did soon after it got into power raised many questions about the integrity of the party and the ideologies the party possessed. Obviously the main assailants trying to cause a stir among the labour camp were the Conservatives and The Liberal Democrats. Both trying to unhinge the Labour campaign and take the position for themselves. The four main questionable reforms were: Electoral Reform, The Human Rights Act and Devolution of Power. The main issue with the voting system was that it was seen as unfair that if a party won say 49% of the votes but didnt win the overall election then they wouldnt be represented at all. This effectively discounts almost half of the population of people. Making the system more undemocratic as many people doesnt get their say. The previous system of first past the post is argued as being simple enough to work properly and it also keeps MPs linked to their constituencies. However taking into account that many MPs are elected with the support of less than half the total votes cast the voting system as Labour came onto the scene was heavily biased, and this was one of the main reasons for trying to gain electoral reform. However during this time both the conservatives and the liberals criticised Labour for not completing the reform, arguing that the only reason the reform wasnt eventually completed was because labour wanted to preserve power for itself. The second fairly substantial reform under labour was the Human Rights act. This clearly laid out the rights that citizens of the country were allowed to enjoy. Such as drinking water, food and a place to live. Almost indefinitely the soul reason why labour decided to proceed with this ideology was to win the votes of the people. If the government was seen to be taking an active step in securing the well-being of millions of people this would massively increase voter confidence. Yet again though many people criticised this as well. When the document was passed it was not entrenched, this means that it would be fairly easy to amend the act or even scrap it completely if another government wanted to. This lead to huge scope of whether or not Labour was serious about Human rights or whether they simply did it for voting purposes. The third reform was the devolution of power away from the centre of Westminster. This is where Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales were all given their own political voice for the first time in Britains history. Prior to this English MPs dominated the House of Commons, this was because the other parts of the UK simply did not get a say in proceedings. The supposed reason for doing this was because it would strengthen democracy. It would allow voters to express their views about national issues and UK issues and have their say heard. As a result of this, civic engagement was strengthened as well as political education. However yet again the Tories and the liberals picked hold in the Labour plan. They complained that devolution was made to look like an attempt to allow everybody to have a say but was really all a big ploy. They felt that devolution had very limited powers anyway, and that all the major decisions were still made at Whitehall anyway! In conclusion I feel that the soul reason that some parts of the constitution were reformed was because of the amount of votes that the changes would bring. By

making a change that will benefit a vast cross section of society, voting confidence in a party will increase, and that is what I feel Labour were aiming for.