A Parliament for England
The Scotch have a parliament; the Welsh have an assembly;
the implacable factions of Ulster shall run their own
affairs if they can but remove their hands from one another's
throats; yet the English, the most politically mature of all
peoples, shall possess no such means of political expression
and control over their own affairs, neither now nor ever.
So runs the curious view of our political masters. Yet such
unbalanced constitutional arrangements as we now have say
all that need be said about England's want of a parliament:
it is self evident.
When I say our political masters I mean the entire British
political elite, for no mainstream party advocates an
English parliament or gives any sign that it will do so.
All that is heard are a few faint back-bench murmurings from
the likes of the conservative MP, Teresa Gorman, whose words
fall to silence amongst her political peers and the media
like warnings shouted in a gale. This is more than a little
strange, because a 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. The obnoxious truth is that our
political elite understand this only too well, but oppose an
English parliament for Anglophobic and self-serving
reasons.
Why is our political class so utterly determined that
England shall be given no voice? There is a general terror
amongst them of what they describe as English nationalism,
but which in reality is a dread of English interests being
realised and fought for. To that general motive may be added
two particular reasons, the knowledge of Euroenthusiasts
that a strong self-confident England would subvert their
federalist plans and the Labour Party's fear that an English
parliament could mean a near permanent Tory majority in
England. Those things are obvious enough. But there is
something deeper, more subtle, more poisonous, whose acid
growth has slowly corroded our entire public life, namely
elite sponsored Anglophobia which has its roots in the
currently dominant elite ideology of the West, liberal
internationalism.
For more than a generation there has been assiduously
nurtured amongst our elite a habit of public belittlement of
England and the English. The disease spreads far beyond
politics and infects the worlds of mediafolk, academics,
public servants, pressure groups and important businessmen.
These people I shall call the Public Class. The habit has
become so ingrained and so widespread, that gratuitous insult
by public figures of all things English and the energetic
promotion of all peoples and cultures other than the English,
has become the norm rather than the exception. Things have
come to such a pass that it is now commonly suggested by the
Public Class that Englishness does not exist and any attempt
to protect English interests is treated as at best chauvinism
and at worst racism. We have the unsavoury spectacle of a
native ruling elite actively denigrating their own culture
and generally acting against the interests of the mass of
their people. Historically, such behaviour is commonly found
in monarchies, aristocracies and despotisms. In a supposed
democracy, it is best described as bizarre.
This dangerous habit of mind for England extends to the one
parliamentary party, the Conservatives, which might be
expected to rebel against it. Their leader, William Hague, an
Englishman born and bred, gave the game away in an interview
in the Daily Telegraph (8/7/98) when he stated "I am not an
English nationalist" and declared that he "is determinedly
British rather than English" and was "dismayed to see so many
St George Crosses at the world cup." It comes as no surprise
to learn that he has since rejected an English parliament on
the ground that "it could prove a decisive step in the
break-up of the United Kingdom" (translation: Mr Hague is
unreservedly willing to subordinate England's interests to
preserving the union at all costs).
The bogus nature of the claims made by those who scream blue
murder at the slightest public expression of English pride
or defence of English interests is shown by the uncritical
support the same people give to Scotch, Welsh and Irish
nationalism. They also give the game away when they argue
that England is so large in comparison with the other parts
of the UK that a Federation would be unbalanced. In other
words, their fear is really that England would naturally
dominate a federation. 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.
The dominance of England
What exactly is this terrible danger our political elite see
in their misnamed English nationalism? It is not that England
would oppress her Celtic neighbours. It is not that England
would engage in any form of aggressive action against the
rest of Britain. The fear quite simply is that an England
with its own voice and political focus would attend to its
own interests. The political fat would then would be in the
fire.
The prime political fact of the UK is that England enjoys
such a preponderance in population, wealth, educational
opportunity, industry and commerce that she inevitably
dominates the other parts of Britain. In fact, England has
such a predominant position that she could, if she but had
the political will, utterly dictate the terms of any future
Union or dismantlement of the Union. She has five sixths of
the population. She has more than five sixths of the wealth,
commerce and industry. An English parliament with the same
powers as the Scotch would account for approximately three
quarters of total UK state expenditure. Most pertinently the
English taxpayer pays massive subsidies to the rest of the
UK. An English parliament would eventually mean an end to
these subsidies. It is this fact above all others which
frightens those who oppose such an assembly. The effect of
ending these English payments to the Celts would be
profound.
Since the advent of a full blown welfare state, higher
unemployment and illness and lower incomes in the Celtic
parts of Britain of themselves have produced an imbalance in
domestic expenditure financed by central government which is
much to England's disadvantage. Moreover, this natural
imbalance has been worsened since the mid seventies by the
Barnett formula for calculating central government
disbursements. According to a report on the Commons Select
Committee's examination of the matter of central government
funding (Daily Telegraph 1/1/97) Scotland receives per capita
23 percent more cash than England, Wales 16 percent and
Northern Ireland 37 percent. Interestingly, Lord Barnett now
believes the formula is flawed viz: "The formula I devised to
a large extent took account of the different levels of income
in England, Scotland and Wales. In those days Scotland had a
lower income per head than some of the poorer regions of
England, like the North East...That has changed
substantially. It is a matter of what is fair now." 1 In
other words, the Celts, particularly the Scotch, receive a
much of their English subsidies not to compensate them for
the poverty of their regions, as was originally intended,
but simply because a formula based on outdated circumstances
is being mindlessly continued.
The disproportionate central government disbursements to the
Celts have startling consequences. For example, the official
publication for health statistics for 1997 gives NHS per
capita spending of œ381 in England and œ595 for Scotland, a
difference of 56%. This discrepancy resulted in the numbers
(proportionate to population) of medical and nursing staff
being 19.14% and 31.7% higher in Scotland, while there were
a barely credible 95% more hospital beds in Scotland than in
England.
But the money which the Celts receive from England does not
merely pay for the difference between what is spent per
capita on domestic projects (welfare, education and health
etc) in England and what is spent on domestic projects in
the rest of the UK. Tax revenues in Scotland, Wales and
Northern Ireland are, proportionate to population,
considerably lower than in England. For example, the latest
published figures (Inland Revenue Statistics 1998) for income
tax collection show that in the tax year 96/97 the following
average revenue per head was collected in the various parts
of the UK: England (œ3060), Scotland (œ2596), N. Ireland
(œ2300), Wales (œ2170). In percentage terms Scotland has 84%
of England's income tax revenue, N.Ireland 75% and Wales 70%.
It is dubious whether Scotland could fund from its existing
tax revenue, ie the revenues collected in Scotland, a
domestic expenditure equivalent to the lower English rate.
Wales and Northern Ireland definitely could not. Thus England
is not merely paying for higher per capita domestic public
spending in the Celtic Fringe, but subsidizing that portion
of Celtic domestic spending which is equivalent to that in
England. Let me illustrate that with an example. Suppose
English domestic expenditure per capita is œ100 and that in
Wales is œ116. English taxpayers will not only pay the œ16
difference, but a proportion of the other œ100 spent in
Wales. The lower tax revenues also mean that the Celts make
a lesser proportional contribution to those matters of
national importance - the armed forces, diplomacy and so
forth - than the English.
To these easily quantifiable benefits may be added a
disproportionate Celtic share of government subsidies to
bribe firms into setting up factories on inappropriate sites
and a large share of public jobs not related to domestic
Celtic affairs. Scotland, for example, administers much of
England's social security, PAYE and schedule D tax and has a
disproportionate number of army regiments; Wales plays host
to the Vehicle Licensing Centre; Ulster contains the Short
shipyard.
The benefits the Celts receive from their association within
the UK extend to the intangible but inestimable advantages
of free trade with England and the assurance which being part
of a prosperous and advanced nation state of fifty eight
million gives foreign investors and companies. Most
importantly for small peoples, the Celts receive the
protection of the British state, which would be nothing
without England.
That is the existing situation. It could rapidly change to
England's advantage. It is dubious whether tax revenue in
Scotland, Ulster and Wales could be sustained at their
present levels if an English Parliament was established. The
removal of English subsidies would significantly reduce
expenditure immediately. Companies would be less likely to
situate themselves in Scotland because of reduced grants.
Public service jobs would reduce as England repatriated work
dealing with English people and issues. Defence expenditure
would be concentrated in England. The result would be
increased unemployment and soaring welfare demands. It is
also probable that the more able and better qualified Celts
would emigrate, largely to England.
The Eurofederalists
The Eurofederalists share the fears of English interests
being realised and defended, but their reasons are different.
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 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, many of whose peoples
harbour fantasies of being given massive subsidies by the EU
in the manner of the Irish Republic, as "nations within
Europe".
The Euroenthusiasts' preferred means of preventing England
from realising her political potential is the institution
of Regional Assemblies. The groundwork for this has already
been done through the institution of eight 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 English political regionalisation has already
begun with the proposed mayor and assembly for London due to
be up and running in the year 2000. As London and its
environs has an substantially larger economy than Scotland
this is of considerable significance.
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.
An English Parliament
Scotland and Wales will not be satisfied 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. That is human nature. The trend
will be towards greater and greater autonomy.
England is Scotland and Wales writ very large. Not only
that, she does not rely on subsidies or special favours from
any other part of the UK. There are no self-interested
material reasons to circumscribe her nationalist leanings as
there are with the Celtic Fringe. It is improbable that an
English parliament would long remain subordinate to a UK
parliament for reasons of human nature. 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 small proportion of public expenditure.
If one understands only one thing about politics it should be
this: 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.
What could an English parliament do? 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. The most
obvious target for English action would be over the subsidies
paid to the rest of the UK. There would no longer be any
reason for the English to subsidize the Celts. 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 break up of the UK
In the long term, this is probable regardless of whether an
English parliament is instituted. Devolution has predictably
increased the sense of nation amongst the various Celts and
given fuller reign to the widespread resentment of England.
These traits will grow, sustained by a number of fantasies.
The Scotch dream of an Eldorado of oil revenues enjoyed by
Scotland alone. The Scotch and the Welsh dwell in a fantasy
world in which they are funded by the EU with the same
largesse as the Irish Republic. The Ulster republicans dream
of the same in a unified Ireland.
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. She would be shorn of
the burden of Celtic subsidies, both direct and indirect,
while 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 rather than constantly tailoring national decisions
to take into account the demands of the Celts, who in all
honesty, increasingly resemble a squadron of albatrosses
around Albion's neck.
The only important disadvantages for England could be balance
of payments difficulties (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 even ten years past 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.
None of the would be Celtic states, unlike England, would
be large enough or rich enough to maintain government
spending and services at anywhere near the current level.
Moreover, the cost of their separate state administrations
would almost certainly be proportionately substantially
greater than that of England because of the loss of the
advantages of scale. Nor for reasons already stated would
they be likely to obtain the largesse currently handed out to
the Republic of Ireland by the EU. Indeed, it is quite
probable that all or some of them could be refused membership
of the EU because of Germany's fear of incurring liabilities
for more beggar nations.
It is also reasonable to ask what would happen if an external
military threat appeared. (Unlikely in the immediate future
but not improbable over the next fifty years). Even if
independent Celtic states were members of the EU, it is
carrying optimism to the limit to imagine that they would
receive active military help from that quarter. In the end
they would have to turn to England for help.
The Celts should also realise that an independent England
might well leave the EU. Then she could act, without
infringing any of its general international obligations, in
ways which would gravely disadvantage the Celts. She could
impose passport regulations. She could refuse reciprocal
social security and health provisions. She could insist upon
work permits. Because the need for emigration is much
greater in the Celtic parts of Britain than in England and
the number of Celts on benefit in England vastly exceeds that
of the English in Scotland, Wales and Ulster, such measures
could be utterly calamitous for independent Celtic states.
There is also the ticklish problem of the national debt. In
the event of the independence of Scotland, Wales or Ulster,
or the amalgamation of Ulster with the Irish Republic, a
proportionate share (based on population) of the UK national
debt would have to be borne by a seceding part of the UK.
Scotland's share, for example, would be currently in excess
of 30 billion pounds; that of Wales approximately 15 billion.
Even at current rates, the financing of the interest alone
would cost between two and three billion a year.
Ulster has a particular problem whether it remains
independent or becomes submerged in a united Ireland. The
removal of English subsidies alone would be a massive blow
because they are of a different magnitude (when the
expenditure of the armed forces in Ulster and special
compensation payments for terrorist actions are taken into
account) to those in Scotland and Wales. But if the EU
refused to continue, either in whole or in part, subsidising
the Republic of Ireland, Ulster would almost certainly have
to bear a massive decline in Irish cross border trading.
When it comes to paying their own way, independent Celtic
states would also have to consider the effect of confidence
on their finances. If independent Celtic states were deemed
to be poorer credit risks than Britain is now as a whole,
which is probable, they would have to pay more for their
future public and private borrowing in the form of higher
interest rates. That would apply whether or not they were
members of EMU, for a universal ECB bank rate does not mean
that everyone can borrow at the same rate. A lender still has
to believe that the borrower is worth the risk.
Even if the most favourable conditions envisaged by Celtic
Nationalists could be secured - essentially the same
conditions currently enjoyed by the Republic of Ireland,
Portugal etc - the omens would not be good. To begin with
beggar nations within the EU can never be sure that the money
will keep hitting the bottom of the begging bowl. To have an
economy as dependent upon handouts as the Republic of
Ireland's is simply courting disaster. Then there is the
natural price to pay for such money, the supporting of the
donor nations through thick and thin. This can, and often
does mean, going against the direct interest of one's own
people. (England - because it is from England rather than
Britain that the EU Danegeld is extracted in practice - has
the sovereign distinction of uniformly voting against the
interests of its people and being the paymaster to the beggar
nations). Nor should beggar nations be under any illusion
that the EU will generally protect their interests in
international disputes. The equation is quite clear: votes
for money and to hell with the long term interests of the
populations of the poorer EU states if these clash with the
interests of the powerful.
Looked at unsentimentally, the prospect for an independent
Scotland, Wales or Ulster is one of poverty, a decayed
welfare state, established companies moving across the border
into England, foreign companies refusing to settle because of
a lack of subsidies and the absence of the security of a
large nation state, massive emigration of the middle classes
and extreme levels of unemployment for those left behind.
But what about the oil and gas? I can hear the Scotch
Nationalists positively screaming. Well, the current tax
take is relatively trivial in terms of the revenue an
independent Scotland would require. (It would probably
finance their share of the national debt at current rates).
Moreover, not all oil is in Scottish waters. Further, even
the revenues from oil within Scotch waters might be claimed
in part by both the various islanders, who fear Scotch rule,
and England (on the grounds that because the project was
started when Britain was a unitary state, the rewards should
continue to be split proportionately according to the new
states' various populations). There are also the unfortunate
facts that British oil is very expensive to produce and may
well become uncompetitive as countries such as China expand
production or other forms of energy become cheaper, and, more
definitely, oil extraction at its present level is unlikely
to last for more than another generation. Oil and gas
production revenues would be a poor pair of crutches to prop
up an impoverished independent Scotland.
The alternatives to an English Parliament
These are all insufficient, impractical or unnatural.
William Hague's 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 were 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 in
the same way that England resents subsidizing the Celts.
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 has an economy larger than
Sweden's, a reduction in her willingness to pay tax would
have very serious implications for the poorer parts of
England. Everything I have said about the problems facing the
Celts within a federal UK apply to English Regional
government. 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 last 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 if the imbalance is remedied, it would not
address 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. Good examples of such behaviour
already exist in the present Labour government's failure to
take action to reduce either the number of Celtic seats in
the Commons or the subsidies paid by England to the Celts.
The suggestion is a piece of casuistry worthy of a sixteenth
century Jesuit.
The demand for an English parliament
What demand is there for an English parliament? The Public
Class pretend 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 Public Class 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 political leadership is given, it would be extraordinary
if the English did not favour control over their own affairs.
The mere fact of granting devolution to Scotland and Wales
must heighten and clarify English feelings for an English
parliament. The natural outcome of such a splitting of
political responsibilities will be the growth of a
resentment by the English of the subsidies currently given to
the Celts. From such a resentment will come a desire within
England for each country within Britain to finance both the
cost of home rule and a proportionate share of general
charges such as defence and the servicing of the national
debt. What the Celts cannot reasonably expect to have for
very long is home rule financed by England, for that would be
having your political cake and eating it. At present we are
in easy economic times. Come a depression and English
resentment of money being exported to the Celts will be
fuelled. Already there is dissatisfaction with the proposed
cuts in welfare.
There is also the increasingly meanspirited attitude of the
Celts to the English. The extent to which the Scotch, the
Welsh and Northern Irish Catholics actively wish to leave
the UK is debatable. Their widespread resentment of England
and all things English is sadly not. To be English in any
part of the UK other than England is to risk utterly
gratuitous insult. Those who blithely dismiss anti-English
Celtic feeling as being either the product of a small
minority of political activists whose importance is unduly
inflated by media attention or simply sporting chauvinism -
implausible even by the dismal standards of liberal apologia
- are either dullards or wilfully dishonest.
The unpalatable truth is that Celts too often jealously
nurse an ancestral resentment of the English. This
resentment expresses itself from the outright terroism of the
Fenian Irish through a belligerent rudeness found most
commonly amongst the working class to a snide middleclass
dog-in-the-manger attitude. It is something which has grown
greatly in recent times. The comedian and actor, Billy
Connolly, recently put the matter succinctly when he said
that Scottish antipathy towards the English had gone from
being a music hall joke akin to the rivalry between Yorkshire
and Lancashire to a truly vicious hatred of the English. 1 The
English, like any other people, do not respond favourably to
habitual, gratuitous and sustained abuse.
But even if the English had at present no great desire for a
parliament, circumstances make one a necessity. If
democratic politics 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.
Manifestly, it is not to the advantage of the majority to
subsidize those over whom they have no political control and
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% 2 of the
total electorate voted for it and 50% bothered to vote. This
did not prevent the government for 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. That is far too
long, because it is probable that if Labour win the next
election, they will create constitutional conditions -
through such changes as entry in EMU and English Regional
Assemblies - which will make it virtually impossible for any
party advocating an English parliament to gain an overall
Commons majority.
Who then shall speak for England? It is a melancholy fact
that at present the Tory Party offers the only practical
hope of gaining an English Parliament through normal
constitutional means, for neither Labour nor the LibDems,
with their embedded Eurofederalism and Internationalism,
will embrace the idea voluntarily. The Tories could do so
without any great ideological or emotional turmoil, but they
have the stumbling block of William Hague's Anglophobia and
liberal internationalist cast of mind. In addition, their
electoral chances are currently grim going on abysmal.
There are also purely practical electoral reasons why the
Tories would find it difficult to support an English
Parliament.
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: 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. Thus the Tory party would be placed
in the invidious position of having to chose between the most
likely means of achieving an overall Commons majority, that
is the maintenance of the status quo including English
subsidies, and the advocacy of an English parliament.
Then there is the hulking question of electoral reform.
Despite the recent evidence to the contrary, I think it
probable that Blair is secretly committed to PR or some
variant of it. The fact that he is currently making noises
suggestive of retaining first-past-the-post for Westminster
is purely tactical. He is biding his time.
Why should Blair want to adopt a course which on the face of
it could lead to an unnecessary sharing of power? The answer
is simple, Blair fears and dislikes the Labour Party. He has
managed to use it as Mosely wished to use it, as a vehicle
for his own ambitions, but he has not got complete control
of the party. Nor in a parliamentary system can he ever hope
to have such control. But Blair can greatly mitigate the
constraints of parliamentary government.
He has two obvious ways of doing this. First by the
replacement of the Lords by a chamber wholly or primarily
nominated by the major political parties. The chamber would
then be dominated by his placemen. Such a chamber might well
be given powers which substantially impinged on those of the
Commons, for example a vote of No Confidence might need to be
passed by both Houses. This would greatly strengthen the PM's
position.
His second means of strengthening his position is by
finishing his remaking of the Labour Party. This Blair can
achieve by a combination of party management, the
marginalisation of Old Labour to the point where they can
be provoked into leaving the Party and the enticing into
the Labour Party of the Europhile wing of the Tory Party and
as many of the LibDems as he can - this could be simply be
done by promising safe Labour seats to the defectors. The
upshot would be a Labour Party faced with only the rumps of
the Conservative and LibDems. Blair would be left without any
meaningful opposition. PR would be of great utility in
achieving this end because it blurs Party lines
marvellously and allows much greater control of the
nomination of parliamentary candidates. In effect, the PM's
patronage is greatly extended.
PR has two other great advantages for Blair. It will fit in
with Labour's devolution proposals for Regional English
Assemblies - put on the back burner at present but far from
dead - by damaging English political cohesion and
generally marginalise opposition to the EU by removing any
coherent and substantial parliamentary opposition.
If Labour goes for proportional representation, the Tory
position may be irrecoverable, because the only probable
outcome of PR would be an interminable period of coalition
government between Labour and the Libdems.
Barring the victory of a Tory Party committed to an English
parliament, the only other parliamentary means of achieving
that end would be through a coalition of English MPs.
However, party discipline is so rigid that this is
improbable. Moreover, a party which held a Commons majority
through the status quo, ie with the help of Celtic seats,
would have a vested interest in not supporting an English
parliament.
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, a national rather than an international defence
policy and a specific pledge to end English subsidies to the
Celts.
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.
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 no where 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 formed a
Commons majority. Suppose that Proportional Representation
was introduced and practically removed forever the
opportunity for a single party to form a government. All this
and a media dedicated to preventing honest public discussion
of the subject. 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. Add to that entry
into EMU the ever diminishing control over policy in foreign
relations and plans for an EU defence force 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.
A Federal UK
What would be the most stable solution to this mess of
devolution? As the UK is comprised of four peoples who think
of themselves as nations, the only system with any hope of
long term survival 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 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.
A federal system in which each of the four parts of the UK
was granted the same powers and responsibilities might
cement the Union because it would force the Celts to a
realisation of what independence could mean. A Federal UK
would disadvantage the Celts materially through the removal
of English subsidies and a reduction in public servants doing
English related work, but it would still preserve the
benefits of being part of a long established and wealthy
state, which gives diplomatic clout, military protection and
assurance of political and commercial stability.
Conclusion
I write as one who would not have disturbed the union and see
devolution as the most pernicious and reckless act amongst
many already perpetrated by this Labour government. But it is
done and cannot be repaired. 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 interest. This is a matter of urgency, indeed
self-preservation, for Labour have made it clear that
English interests will not merely be casually neglected by
this government, but placed under active attack. There is
also the looming threat of the EU.
The sense of national identity and the political power of the
Scots and the Welsh is enhanced by devolution. It gives them
considerable 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. Moreover,
while Labour remains in power, the Welsh and Scots lose
little or nothing. There is no meaningful suggestion that the
disproportionately high central government spending on Wales
and Scotland will be reduced by Labour and the Blair
government has already stated that there will be no change
in the number of Welsh and Scots MPs for at least ten years.
The position in Ulster is different because there is no
clearcut sense of nationhood. However, the practical and
material advantages gained by the Scots and Welsh will be
repeated in Ulster.
England, on the other hand, merely loses by devolution. As
things stand, she will continue to pay heavy subsidies to
the Scotch, Welsh and Irish; Scotch, Welsh and Irish members
will continue to vote on all English matters and Scotch,
Welsh and Irish ministers will help to determine policy which
affects only the English. On the other hand, English MPs will
be denied an opportunity to vote on many important areas of
Scotch, Welsh and Irish legislation and English ministers
prevented from forming policy on domestic Celtic matters.
Behind the domestic reasons for an English parliament lurk
the federalist aspirations of the EU.
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 pride of nation
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.
Devolution and our membership of the EU raise the most
profound of political questions: who governs? Those who would
deny England a parliament do so because for one reason or
another they wish to destroy England as a nation. The English
must work unceasingly for an parliament both for their
self-respect and to prevent the political murder of Albion.
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