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Why England needs a Parliament

Robert Henderson | 20.01.2006 11:17

One time Tory Cabinet minister Lord Baker has called for English only votes on English only legislation. This is both impractical and does not solve the constitutional imbalance created by devolution. What is needed is an English parliament and a fully federal system for the UK

One time Tory Cabinet minister Lord Baker has called for English only votes on English only Parliamentary Bills. This will not work for two reasons. The first is administrative. It would be politically unsustainable to have a UK government which did not comand a comfortable majority in the Commons because without such a majority the UK Government would, especially when Labour are in power, be constantly defeated - England only votes would cover around 85% of UK public spending.

The second reason is that even with such a system in place the consitutional balance would not have been restored because England alone of the foru Home Nations would not have a Parliament devoted entirely to English interests and a political class whose prime purpose was to represent English interests and the English would lack the national political focus given by a parliament. The answer is a federal system with England having its own parliament.

Let me put my cards on the table: I view devolution as a
most pernicious and reckless act which has gratuitously
destabilised what was arguably the best-established and most
harmonious political arrangement in the world, namely, the
United Kingdom. But the deed is done and cannot be
realistically undone. So the question the English must
now of necessity address is not how to put the union back
together again, but how best to guard their own country and
interests. This is a matter of urgency, indeed simple
self-preservation, for the Blair government have made it
clear that English interests will not merely be casually
neglected, but placed under active attack. Behind the
domestic threat and linked to it through NuLabour ambitions,
are the Federal ambitions of the European Union.

Why do we need an English parliament?

The short answer is that an English parliament is needed to
achieve a stable constitutional settlement following
devolution within the rest of the UK and to protect the
interests of England.

The sense of national identity and the political power of the
Scots and the Welsh is enhanced by devolution. It gives them
significant control over their domestic affairs, strengthens
their ability to deal directly with non-British agencies such
as the EU and, most importantly, provides assemblies for
the expression of their national aspirations.

England, on the other hand, merely loses by devolution.
Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish members continue to vote on
all English matters. On the other hand, English MPs are
denied an opportunity to vote on many important areas of
Scots, Welsh and Irish legislation and English ministers are
prevented from forming policy on domestic Celtic matters -
for the sake of convenience I shall refer to Scotland, N.
Ireland and Wales collectively as the Celts and their doings
and interests as Celtic.

It is also unlikely that Scotland, Wales and N. Ireland will
not be satisfied for ever with their current devolved
powers. As they develop confidence, each national political
class will seek more control over their domestic matters.
Scotland will push for greater tax raising powers and the
removal of what remains of Westminster's power to interfere
in their domestic life: Wales will continually seek equality
with Scotland. N. Ireland will do the same if they ever get
their assembly up and running again. That is human nature.
The inexorable and natural trend will be towards greater and
greater autonomy.

In short, England requires a parliament to defend her own
interests without the distraction of the domestic needs of
the rest of the UK or the interference of politicians sitting
for non-English constituencies.

Behind the domestic reasons for an English parliament lurk
the federalist aspirations of the EU.

The Eurofederalists

The Eurofederalists fear English interests being realised
and defended. They understand that a strong, self-confident
England would spell the end of their plans to embed Britain
within the EU. That Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland
should have a means of national political expression is
nothing to them, because these countries are, in their eyes,
too insignificant and above all too poor to resist the march
of Eurofederalism. England with fifty million people and the
third or fourth largest economy in the EU is a different
kettle of fish. It is also a fact that opinion polls show the
English to be considerably more Eurosceptic than the rest of
the UK.

The Eurofederalists' preferred means of preventing England
from realising her political potential is the institution
of Regional Assemblies. Here Brussels works hand-in-hand
with the Blair Government, which is both emotionally
committed to Eurofederalism and sees regional English
assemblies as a means to emasculate England politically -
Labour never having had a substantial overall majority of
English seats in their history is heavily dependent on
non-English constituencies for a majority at Westminster.
Finally, from the Labour viewpoint, English regional
assemblies also divert attention from the imbalance of the
constitutional arrangements as they stand.

The groundwork for Balkanising England has already been
done through the institution of eight publicly funded
Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) and the creation of
unelected consultative bodies which roughly correspond to the
physical areas covered by the RDAs. Interestingly, these
divisions of England correspond to the English regions
planned by the EU.

The process of formal English political regionalisation has
already begun with creation of a mayor and assembly for
London, while the Government has promised that referenda will
be held in at least three regions of England, such as the
North East, probably before the next general election.

The political regionalisation of England would provide the
EU with an opportunity to advance its interests. The tactic
of the Eurofederalists will be to create, through
competition, conflict between the English regions at RDA
level before referenda are arranged for elected regional
assemblies. Those arguing for a YES vote in such referenda
will point to the negotiating advantages gained by Wales and
Scotland, whilst giving the English regions the impression
that they each will get more from both Westminster and the
EU if they have a political voice. It is classic divide and
rule.

Regional assemblies in England would not utterly destroy
English national feeling, but they would lead to the
development of regional political classes which would, out
of self-interest or ideological conviction, actively work to
create bogus divisions within England. In the absence of a
national English parliament, such regional voices would be
difficult to counter.

Why does England not already have a parliament?

To a foreigner it must seem curious that the English of
all peoples should be denied a Parliament. Why, they would
ask, is the country in which parliamentary government
evolved now deemed unfit to rule itself?

Even stranger to the foreigner would be the fact that of the
four nations of the United Kingdom, England should be the
only one to be denied national political representation.
The foreigner would note in particular that even the
implacable factions of Ulster are deemed fit to run their
own affairs if they can but remove their hands from one
another's throats, while England, the country which has
been free of civil war for longer than other state on
earth, must place their fate in the hands of others.

The foreigner would become most bemused when he
contemplated the existing arrangements between the four
nations of the UK. He would see that an English parliament
is not merely the most just, but also the most obvious and
economical solution to the inequality of democratic
representation and opportunity wrought by devolution. He
would marvel that such an imbalanced and unstable
constitutional settlement could ever have been engineered by
politicians.

If it is so obvious, so just, so economical, why do we not
already have a parliament? The obnoxious truth is that our
political elite - not merely the present Government alone -
understand that it is the only solution which would deliver
fair treatment to the five sixths of the UK population which
is presently disadvantaged by devolution, but oppose an
English parliament for various anachronistic or
disreputable reasons.

The anachronistic reason, almost wholly on the Tory side of
politics, is the good old cause of unionism, the desire to
maintain the UK as a single national and political entity. A
good old cause, but not a good present cause because
devolution has destroyed it utterly by cracking the political
shell which held Britain together. Those politicians who
support it are simply living in the past, unable to overcome
the inertia of their experience and emotional commitment.

The most obvious of the disreputable reasons is pure
electoral fear by the Labour Party, which throughout its
history has relied heavily on its dominance of Scots and
Welsh constituencies for a majority in the Commons. Labour
realises that it is most unlikely that they would ever be
able to control an English parliament in the way they can
control the Commons.

There is also a dread, shared by all parties, of English
interests being realised and fought for because England is so
dominant within the UK.

England has five sixths of the UK population. She has more
than five sixths of the wealth, commerce and industry. An
English parliament with the same powers as that of the Scots
would account for well over half total UK state
expenditure.

With such a preponderance of population and wealth, it is
improbable that an English parliament would long remain
subordinate to the Westminster parliament for reasons of
human nature. Solemn agreements and treaties mean nothing if
they do not serve the needs of the moment or the powerful.
Thus once an English parliament was in being, it would in
practice have a great deal of power regardless of the initial
theoretical limits of its authority.

But it would in any case make little political sense to have
what would be in effect a federal UK parliament (the UK
government as it is now less any devolved powers to an
English parliament) collecting the vast majority of tax
revenue, while controlling only a minority proportion of
public expenditure.

To these domestic reasons must be added the knowledge of
Euroenthusiasts - who exist in all the major parties - that
a strong self-confident England would subvert their
Eurofederalist plans.

The Anglophobia of our political elite

The reasons given so far for the failure to give England a
parliament are obvious enough. But there is something
deeper, more subtle, more poisonous, whose acid growth has
slowly corroded our entire public life, namely the elite
Anglophobia which exists in all parties.

Here is William Hague, an Englishman born and bred, during
his time as Tory leader declaring in the Daily Telegraph
(8/7/98) "I am not an English nationalist" and stated that
he "is determinedly British rather than English" and was
"dismayed to see so many St George Crosses at the world cup."

Jack Straw when Home Secretary (reported in the Daily
Telegraph 17/7/2000) in an interview with GMTV made the
following statements:

"There is a particular problem with some people's view of
Englishness..."

"There is a distorted, incomplete idea of what it is to be
patriotic for those in England, which is different from
that in Wales or Scotland or Ireland..."

"The sense of nationality that these smaller nations within
the United Kingdom have is partly defined by the fact that
they are smaller, "They have had to express their culture in
order not to be overwhelmed by England..."

"We have not had that. We have also had all the global
baggage of the empire and a lot of jingoism here. And I
think it is very important that we redefine not only what
it means to be British, but also what it means to be
English..."

"It is the responsibility of people who have a leadership
position in our society, like me, to try to change that..."

The same Telegraph piece (17 7 2000) also quotes from an
article by Simon Hughes, the Liberal Democrat home affairs
spokesman, "It seems beyond doubt that England
particularly has a severe and continuing problem with a
consistent current of aggression and violence..."

"Football thugs, domestic racial and homophobic abuse,
Friday-night fights after closing time, more and more
road rage are all very obvious signs of an easy
tendency to violence with which we will undermine any
chance of becoming a country at peace with ourselves."

The statements of Hague, Straw and Hughes all display the
same mentality: a fear of English national feeling and a
libellous view of the English and their society. They
actively fear and despise what England is and wish to both
keep English feelings caged and to subvert the very idea of
what those interests are and what England is.

A Federal UK

England is faced with two choices to resolve the
constitutional imbalance, a federal settlement within the
UK or complete independence. Either would be sustainable.
Let us examine the federal solution first.

The first quality any political settlement should seek is
stability. As the UK is comprised of four peoples who think
of themselves as nations, the only system with any hope of
long term survival as a stable political arrangement is a
federation in which each constituent part is legally equal
and responsible for its own domestic affairs. That means
home rule in each of the four home countries and expenditure
on all domestic matters in each country being raised from
within each country.

The federal government would be restricted to general matters
such as defence, foreign policy, the issuing of currency and
the servicing of government debt. Payment by each country for
these matters would be proportionate to the population of
each country. Any other system, which in effect could only
mean England subsidising the rest of the UK must mean one of
two things: English political dominance, which would incite
the age old Celtic hatreds of England, or ever growing
English resentment of the Celts. Both would be a road to the
dissolution of the UK.

Those who oppose English self-determination argue that
England is so large in comparison with the other parts of the
UK that a Federation would be unbalanced. The argument about
federal imbalance can be simply shown up for what it is, a
demonstrable nonsense, by referring to the examples of the
USA, Canada and India. There are sixty Californians to every
Alaskan; seventy bodies in Ontario for each person in
Prince Edward Island and one hundred and eleven inhabitants
of Uttar Pradesh for every human being in Goa.

How would the change to a federal system be made? The
simplest solution would be to remove all MPs sitting from
non-English constituencies from the House of Commons which
would them revert to its historic role of an English
representative assembly, abolish the House of Lords and
institute a new body to represent the four nations at federal
level.

The administrative arrangements could be simple. Each of the
four home countries would elect their own parliament. The
members of their parliaments would also be members of the UK
parliament. This would have three advantages: (1) it would
substantially reduce the number of politicians by removing
the current duplication resulting from the election of both
devolved assembly members and MPs, (2) the members elected
to the national assemblies would not be able to shirk
responsibility for the effect of their national decisions on
UK federal issues - this would act as a brake on
irresponsible domestic political decisions which could
clash with the federal interest - and (3) it would remove
any cause for legitimate complaint from any part of the UK.

There would be no need for any new building. The Westminster
Parliament could act both as the English Parliament and, as
required, the federal UK Parliament. Because all domestic
issues would be with the national assemblies, the UK
Parliament would need to sit only a few days a month.

Because the responsibilities of the national and UK federal
governments would be clearly demarcated, members of the UK
federal government would not find themselves constantly at
odds with their national government. The federal government
would be formed as it is now, by gaining a majority in the
federal parliament.

There is also a sound case for creating a second chamber in
each of the four national parliaments, because a single
chamber parliament is all to prone to reckless behaviour and
corruption, political and financial, from within and
without. The danger of corruption is particularly strong in
very small assemblies such as those in Wales and Northern
Ireland for the simple reason it is easier to control and
bribe a few people than it is to control and bribe a large
number.

For the same reason of preventing elite abuse, a written
constitution is desirable.

The arguments for a two-chamber parliament and a written
constitution applies equally to an independent England.

If England was a sovereign state again

For England it is difficult to envisage any insuperable
disadvantage in the break up of the UK, but easy to see
definite and substantial advantages. Her very considerable
population, wealth and general sophistication would ensure
that she could maintain without any real difficulty the
present levels of government provision from the welfare state
to the military. Moreover, England would be able to act
wholeheartedly in her own interests.

The only important disadvantages for England could be balance
of payments deficits (primarily from the loss of oil, gas and
whiskey production) and ructions in the international
institutional sphere. Happily, adverse balances of trade
are (eventually) self-correcting even if the correction, as
is the case with America, can seem an age coming. Moreover,
with the free global currency market and a floating pound, an
adverse balance of trade does not hold the horrors it once
did, for international borrowing is infinitely easier than it
was and devaluation of the currency is not viewed as a
national humiliation. England might be temporarily
embarrassed by a substantially increased trade deficit, but
there is no reason to believe that it would be prolonged or
seriously affect the English economy.

As for international upheaval, it is conceivable that
England would be unable to sustain a claim to Britain's
privileged position on international bodies such as the UN
Security Council and the board of IMF. However, this is
unlikely for a number of reasons. To begin with there is the
precedent of Russia which assumed all of the Soviet Union's
international entitlements. Britain is also the United
States' only halfway reliable ally on most of these
international boards. To this may be added Britain's
position as one of the larger international paymasters and
providers of reliable military muscle. None of these facts
need essentially change with the substitution of England for
Britain. Perhaps most importantly, the denial to England of
any of Britain's institutional places would pose the awkward
question of who was to take any vacant position. This could
(and almost certainly would) in turn raise the whole question
of whether the constitutions of most world bodies are
equitable or suited to the modern world. (The constitutions
were after all created approximately fifty years ago and are
in no sense equitable). To deny England could mean the
opening of a can of worms.

Conversely, it could be plausibly argued that membership of
such international bodies represents a liability rather than
an advantage and England would be well shot of them.

The alternatives to an English Parliament

These are all insufficient, impractical or unnatural. The
Tories' preferred solution is to allow English MPs a veto on
matters which effect only England. This is impractical
because it ignores the position of the executive. Such a
system would mean in effect that no party elected without an
English majority could govern. Suppose for example that the
party divisions in the Commons were as follows: for the
entire UK (659 seats) - Labour 339, Tories 280, others 40:
for England alone (525 seats) - Labour 230, Tories 280,
others 15. The UK wide Labour majority would be robbed of any
say over the expenditure of approximately three quarters of
all public expenditure in the UK. Further complications
would arise if the English component of the Commons was
"hung", that is no parliamentary party had a majority of
English seats. The worst possible situation would be a
Commons in which the overall House and the English component
were both "hung", but with radically different balances
between the parties. For example, suppose that Labour and the
Libdems had an overall majority in the Commons, but did not
have an overall majority between them of English seats.

There would also be the question of who would make policy to
present to the Commons. Obviously it could not be a party
without an English majority for that would be pointless. It
would have to be the party with a majority of English MPs.
This would mean in effect an English government within
Westminster, which would have more practical power and
patronage that the UK government.

The other alternatives on offer are an English Grand
Committee, an English Secretary in the cabinet, a reduction
in the numbers of non-English MPs and Regional Assemblies. An
English Grand Committee would solve nothing for of itself it
would decide nothing. The Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish
Grand Committees were of importance prior to devolution, if
at all, because each of the Celtic parts of the UK had a
cabinet minister with the powers of a viceroy, a budget to
meet most of their domestic expenditure under the control of
the cabinet minister and a bureaucracy to carry out
ministerial policy. An English Secretary with similar powers
would be an absurdity, because he or she would exercise more
power than the prime minister for most of UK government
expenditure and patronage would be under his control.

I have already referred to English Regional Assemblies when
dealing with the Eurofederalists and the danger they
represent to our national independence of action. But there
are also daunting practical difficulties in the creation of
such assemblies. There is no natural division of regions in
England. Even those parts which are most commonly cited as
having a strong regional identity - the South West, Yorkshire
and the North East - are far from being homogeneous. There is
an emotional division between Cornwall and the rest of the
South West. Yorkshire is extremely diverse, the south with
its large cities and very substantial ethnic population
having little in common with the North Riding, which is
largely rural. As for the North East, anyone who knows the
area will realise that the people are far from seeing
themselves as a single entity and often display considerable
rivalry, for example between Sunderland and Newcastle. As
for the rest of England, there is no obvious division
anywhere. Moreover, traditional regional loyalties are much
diluted by internal migration. In Cornwall, for example,
less than forty percent of its population was born in the
county. There are local loyalties in England, but they are
precisely that, local, being based on neighbourhoods, towns,
cities and villages.

If Regional Assemblies re set up, all the complaints which
are now levelled at Westminster will be replicated and most
probably amplified, because local animosities are greater
than national animosities. There will be accusations of
remoteness - the likely representative regions would be
physically large - complaints of unequal spending within the
region and disputes about the distribution of centrally
raised taxation. There is also the problem of subsidies. The
richer regions would come to resent paying for the poorer.
Eventually this dissatisfaction would be given a political
voice. Already there are political stirrings in London about
the amount of money which is redistributed to the rest of
the country. On 22/7/99 the London local paper, the Evening
Standard, carried an article by the chair of the Association
of London Government, Toby Harris. It began: " For too long
the taxpayers of England have been bank-rolling the rest of
the UK. Too much of the tax revenues generated by our
households and businesses are recycled to the supposedly more
needy regions of the UK, while too many of the capital's own
needs go unmet." As London and her environs has an economy
larger than the combined economies of Scotland, Wales and N
Ireland, a reduction in her willingness to pay tax would
have very serious implications for the poorer parts of
England. Regional Assemblies would lose whatever appeal they
might have once it became clear that subsidies from the
wealthier parts of England might cease or be reduced.

There is also the question of what powers Regional Assemblies
could be reasonably given. The natural tendency for
Westminster will be to give them as little power as possible,
indeed to produce bodies which are little more than local
councils. Yet this will be easier said than done. The
Scottish Parliament controls most domestic matters other
than major tax raising. Even the Welsh Assembly deals with
a great deal of domestic legislation - those who doubt this
should tune into Welsh Questions in the Commons. Time and
again questions are rejected because they deal with matters
now outside Westminster's competence. It is difficult to see
how English Regional Assemblies could be given anything less
than the Welsh and improbable that they could be denied that
which has been granted to Scotland. Indeed, it is improbable
that the Welsh will be satisfied with a lesser status for
long. This has profound implications. That Scotland or Wales
may institute new laws which differ from those in England is
one thing because they can claim to be a national governing
entity: for English Regions to do the same quite another. To
take an example, we could end up with different laws on
abortion in the South West and Yorkshire. Even more
problematic would be regional differences with commercial
implications, such as different rates of tax or safety
regulations. In effect, we would have not one system of
English law but many.

Reducing the number of non-English members at Westminster is
a non-solution. It is true that there is an imbalance which
should be addressed. At the 1997 election it took an average
of 69, 577 electors to form an English constituency. In
Scotland it was 55,563, in Wales 55,338. Significantly,
Northern Ireland - which could put forward at least as good
(or bad) a case for over-representation as Scotland and Wales
- matched England with an average of 66,122 electors.
However, even and when the imbalance is remedied, and there
are plans to do so, it would not address the Scottish
Labour MP Tam Dayell's West Lothian Question, namely why
should non-English members vote on English matters when
English MPs may not vote on Celtic matters?

There are those who argue that no change is necessary because
English MPs are always in the majority. This argument is
bogus because it ignores the reality of party discipline. It
is highly improbable that English MPs of any political colour
would regularly breach three line whips. Most particularly,
it is difficult to imagine Labour and Tory MPs sitting for
English seats combining to defeat a Labour government. But
the difficulty goes beyond the obvious. Any future Labour or
LibLab coalition government would probably be substantially
dependent on non-English seats. Consequently, such a
government would never introduce policies driven solely by
what is best for England.

What could an English parliament do?

What could an English parliament do if it was given full
powers? In practice, almost everything that Britain can do.
Moreover, it could declare independence from the other parts
of the UK. That would give England the same freedom of action
which Britain enjoys. If the parliament withdrew England
from the EU, her sovereignty would be greatly increased. An
independent England free of the EU could do such immensely
useful things as controlling welfare expenditure by
restricting the benefits of the welfare state to English
citizens, repudiate disadvantageous treaties which have no
time limit and insist on work permits for any person
without English citizenship.

Even within a federal UK, much could be done. It would be
reasonable for the English to put in place a system whereby
money raised in England was spent solely in England or
spent on matters such as defence and foreign policy. That
would force the Celts to follow suit.

An English parliament could even introduce English
citizenship alongside British citizenship. Anomalous? Not at
all for that is precisely what the EU has done by designating
member states' citizens as EU citizens. Such citizenship
could be used even within the confines of the EU to give
preferential treatment to those with English citizenship.

The demand for an English parliament

What demand is there for an English parliament? Our
political elite state baldly that there is no desire amongst
the English for a parliament, a proposition which they are
strangely unwilling to put to a ballot.

The reality is that the elite fear the English would
welcome a Parliament. That explains the fervour with which
the proposition is publicly attacked. No one expends much
energy belittling something which does not exist or which is
not feared.

There is not of course any great public clamour at present.
It would be amazing if there was, because no mainstream
political party advocates such a parliament and the national
media makes a positive fetish of screaming nationalism or
racism whenever one is publicly mooted. The media are also
most assiduous in censoring and abusing those in favour of
a parliament. Without mainstream political leadership and
access to the mass media, it is next to impossible for a
political idea to make headway. Come the rise of a credible
political movement with English interests at heart and
things will look very different. The media will not then be
able to censor so effectively and there will be a focus for
dissent.

Once mainstream political leadership is given, it would be
extraordinary if the English did not favour control over
their own affairs. But even if the English had at present no
great desire for a parliament, circumstances make one a
necessity simply to safeguard English interests.

If democracy means anything, any responsible British
mainstream political party would adopt an English parliament
as a matter of prime policy. They are meant above all to
represent the interests of their constituents. In this case
the large majority of the constituents are English. It is
clearly to their disadvantage to have no independent
political representation.

As with complaints of English nationalism, the bogus nature
of the claim that the English should not have a parliament
because they do not clamour for one publicly can be shown by
the treatment of the rest of the UK. Support for a Welsh
Assembly was muted in the extreme: approximately 25% 1 of
the
total electorate voted for it and 50% bothered to vote. This
did not prevent the government from hastily granting such an
assembly. Even in Scotland, only 60% of the electorate voted
and a parliament was granted on a YES vote of only 45% of the
total electorate. Scarcely rampant enthusiasm.

How do we get a parliament?

This is the most daunting question of all. It would be
heartening to think that a new English party advocating an
English parliament could arise which would sweep rapidly to
power. Sadly, that is a romantic fantasy. The British
political system is so constructed that the sudden rise of a
party is next to impossible. Any new party would have to find
650 odd suitable candidates to stand for election. It would
have to be prepared to lose 650 deposits. It would need time
for credible leaders to emerge. It would have to overcome the
sociological inertia of electors - the large majority of
voters are still not floating voters. The media would have to
be persuaded to give considerable airtime and space to the
party and its doings. That and a hundred other political
bridges would have to be crossed. If it could be done at
all, it would be the work of a generation. By then England
would in all probability be Balkanised with regional English
assemblies and Britain itself so enmeshed in a United Sates
of Europe that its status would be no more than a state in
the USA. .

Any party advocating an English parliament would have to
achieve a Commons majority on English seats alone, because
electors in Celtic seats could not be expected to vote for
a party which they knew would ultimately remove English
subsidies. Achieving such a majority is difficult at the best
of times: even in the landslide of 1997, Labour won only 329
English seats. It means gaining 330 out of 525 English seats
for a bare majority. A working majority would require 350-360
seats. If the Labour vote stays constant in Scotland and
Wales, Labour can achieve an overall majority by winning a
mere 230 English seats.

As things stand, there is very little prospect of an English
parliament coming about through mainstream political action.
What might be done to alter matters? The ideal should be to
frighten the entire political mainstream into believing that
it is in their electoral interests to support an English
parliament. More realistically, the strategy should be to
persuade the Tory Party to adopt an English parliament as a
policy and to cause enough concern in the other mainstream
parties to get them to offer some concessions to English
national feeling and interests, such as an English Grand
Committee. Although such concessions would have little
practical effect, they would be an admission of the need to
observe English interests and a recognition of an English
desire to govern their own affairs. Those would be important
propaganda gains.

The most vital task for the English in the immediate future
is the breaking of the public censorship of the subject. This
might be done by a new political party advocating an English
parliament. Although it would stand no chance of forming a
government, with a decent electoral showing it could place
considerable pressure on the major parties to change their
policies. The grotesqueries and injustices of devolution must
be constantly put before the public through the media of
petitions, demonstrations, public meetings, pamphletering
and the use the Internet.

Such a party would be most effective if it offered a full
range of policies rather than standing on a single issue. It
might have a platform which included, for example, not only
English self-government, but such policies as withdrawal
from the EU and a national rather than an international
defence policy.

An English constitutional assembly set up by private
individuals could also have a part to play. It would
undoubtedly raise the public profile of the campaign. But
such an assembly could also be the means of creating a pro
English party with some electoral punch. The primary problem
for any Englishman or woman wishing to work for an English
parliament is knowing where to start in the absence of a
mainstream party taking the lead. An English constitutional
assembly would provide a means by which likeminded people
drawn for across the country to meet and clarify their ideas,
but there is a clear difficulty in gaining support for such
an idea because of the media antipathy towards giving
publicity to any attempt at English political organisation
and the need for large amounts of money to mount an effective
PR campaign.

There is also civil disobedience. This includes such
nonviolent actions as illegal demonstrations and occupations,
a mass refusal to pay tax and a General Strike. Breaking the
law en mass does not come easily to the latterday English,
but there are times when it becomes necessary. Those times
are when the political system develops a constitutional
bottleneck. Examples from English history are the civil war,
which destroyed the notion of the king as sovereign, the
"Glorious Revolution" which created the conditions for
parliamentary government, the agitation for the Great
Reform Bill which made the first breach in the concept of
parliament as an aristocratic club, and the fight for
women's suffrage which completed the transition to full adult
suffrage. All involved criminal acts as defined by the law of
the time.

It is important for a democratic society that any breach of
the law should be made within the moral context of restoring
meaningful democratic control. I suggest that to do this a
breach of the law must meet the following criteria: the
matter must be of great importance and the political and
social system must offer no meaningful opportunity to
challenge the status quo.

Urgency and the difficulty of reversibility also come into
the equation when assessing whether a breach of the law is
justified. The action is given greater moral force if (1) a
policy is being pursued which will cause either great damage
or immense change, (2) a policy cannot be legally reversed,
(3) a policy cannot be practically reversed and (4) a policy
can be reversed only with immense difficulty,

What if there is no English Parliament?

English resentment will inevitably grow and have nowhere to
go within the political system. The danger will be that
people will turn to violence because they have no democratic
means of gaining national representation. Suppose no
mainstream party takes up the cause. Suppose that English
majorities committed to an English parliament were elected to
Westminster, yet were never able to form a government
because an English minority allied to the Celts always
formed a Commons majority. Suppose that Proportional
Representation was introduced and practically removed
forever the opportunity for a single party to form a
government. Some would think that no meaningful
constitutional or nonviolent opportunity was left.

The most obviously inflammatory constitutional position
would be where an English party advocating an English
parliament gains a majority of English seats in the Commons
but did not gain an overall Commons majority. Using
parliamentary procedures and keeping their behaviour within
customary bounds, they could inconvenience the business of
government but little more. They might boycott Parliament
but that would be an impotent ruse unless linked to massive
demonstrations. They might set up a self-declared English
parliament but it would have no power. The best tactics in
such a situation would be for the party with the English
majority to take the lead in organising civil disobedience
and to announce before the election that they would do so if
an English parliament was denied.

Then there is Europe. Our enmeshment in the EU may become so
advanced that we could not legally set up an English
parliament. Fanciful? Suppose that the EU at some future date
insists on Regional Assemblies throughout the EU and this is
accepted by a British government. Such Assemblies might then
be set up in England without referenda. Suppose further that
the EU insists that the only representation for domestic
matters rests with the Regional Assemblies.

The existence of the EU is in itself a powerful argument for
an English Parliament because the EU already so controls
Add to that the possibility of entry into the euro and the
likelihood of the adoption of an EU constitution which
promises EU control over such fundamental matters such as
foreign relations, defence, and tax harmonisation, and it
would be constitutionally impossible for England to set up a
meaningful parliament for it could decide nothing. The only
nonviolent answer to such a situation would be to elect a UK
or an English parliament to declare independence from the
EU.

Conclusion

The English should not be afraid of national feeling. Let
them ask themselves why should all peoples except the English
be encouraged to celebrate and defend their ethnicity? The
oft cited dichotomy between patriotism and nationalism is
contrived. Both words have at their core a sense of "tribe"
and a desire to protect and celebrate the nation and culture.

Nationalism is a synonym for patriotism. The true difference
is between non-aggressive and aggressive patriotism; between
those who wish to celebrate and protect their nation within
their existing territory and those who wish to invade and
compromise the culture and territories of others. The modern
English of all peoples can be trusted to remain within the
limits of non-aggressive nationalism.

What the English must understand is that they cannot afford
to simply sit on their hands and let matters drift. If they
do they will find themselves within ten years divided by
regional assemblies and arguing interminably amongst
themselves about who should get what while those who are
actively hostile to their interests obtain their ends by
default. 1 Evening Standard 12/9/97

Robert Henderson
- e-mail: philip@anywhere.demon.co.uk

Comments

Display the following 4 comments

  1. Freedom for England — Robert the Bruce
  2. I agree — Another Scot
  3. Aye, but — Yet Another Scot
  4. Answering the Scotch — Robert Henderson
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