THE CEP HAS WELCOMED THIS RECENT, THOUGH INDEED VERY BELATED, RECOGNITION BY DR. TONY TRAVERS OF THE LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS OF ENGLAND’S CONSTITUTIONAL AND POLITICAL SITUATION COMPARED TO THE DEVOLUTION STATUS OF SCOTLAND,AND WALES.
Dr. Travers, director of the LSE esearch Centre, is the foremost English expert on local government matters, esteemed very highly and consulted constantly by Whitehall, the media and his fellow academics. His recent article ‘We must support Scotland’ (Local Government Chronicle Aug.29th ’09) which deals with the Megrahi affair, has highlighted its constitutional implications for the UK and what it means for England.
‘For the people of England,’ he writes, ‘the revelation that a Scottish politician can make such a life-and-death decision with massive international ramifications serves to point out how privileged the Scots now are within the UK’s so-called constitution. The 50 million English and their elected local institutions have nothing like the devolved power of the five million Scots or three million Welsh. Scotland may now be a nation free to decide its own justice policy, but England remains little more than a centrally governed colony’
‘It is to be welcomed that Dr Travers has now had this insight into the implications for England of the 1998 Devolution legislation,’ Michael Knowles of the CEP National Council has stated. ‘It is precisely what the CEP has been saying for the past 11 years. Regretably however, Dr Travers like many traditional British-minded academics still thinks of English devolution in terms of regionalism, even though the people of England’s overwhelmingly rejected the measure in the 2004 referendum. It is still their mind-set. As George Orwell noted over half a century ago there is a immense pool of English intellectuals who are strangely uncomfortable in their English skin.
‘The next four significant mental break-throughs for academics like Dr. Travers is first the recognition that Devolution 1998 was given to nations qua nations, as is explicit in the text of the legislation.The second is to make themselves intellectually and culturally comfortable with being English, which is what they are, just as the Scots and the Welsh are comfortable with their national identity. Over 60 years ago George Orwell wrote about the strange phenomenon of an immense pool of English intellectuals who feel uncomfortable in their English skin. The third is to recognise that England cannot be balkanised without immense damage and divisiveness. As Will Hutton wrote in 2001 ‘regional assemblies will a veritable witches’ brew of internecine rivalries’. The fourth is an open mind to the introduction of a new Union in which the three historic nations of this island will stand in the same relationship to the UK government and to each other’.
Contacts:
Michael Knowles.
CEP Media Unit. Tel: 01260 271139. email: michael-knowles@tiscali.co.uk
__._,_.___
Friday 28 August 2009
Monday 24 August 2009
History in the making
Scotland entered the world stage as an independent nation when it ignored the UK and US Governments and freed Lockerbie bomber Abdel-baset Ali al Megrahi. The grounds Scotland gave for the bombers release prove not only that there are major differences between the Scottish and UK Governments domestic policies, but more importantly it appears that the boundaries of devolution are not stopping Scotland interfering and affecting matters reserved to the UK Government, in this case British foreign policy. Surely with the possibility of international repercussions if we still have a Union there is no way Scotland could have been allowed to release the bomber without the consent of the UK Government even if the matter was devolved, which brings up the question, did Gordon Brown actually give authorisation for it or is it what it seems a British embarrassment?
Perhaps this will bring home the realities of devolution to all those English doubters who think that devolution has been and is the saviour of the Union, when it is obvious it has given power to the factions that want to tear the Union apart and is turning bit players into international celebrities.
There is no way back now in reversing the devolutionary process and before animosities start getting to the stage of forcing separation instead of calling for a referendum on Scottish independence after the next general election, all four countries should be calling for a referendum on the creation of a new British Federal State and new ways of working together.
It takes courage to stand up for your beliefs and especially so if that belief is contary to that of the worlds superpower, and in that respect SNP's Kenny MacAaskill can either be seen as a Scottish hero or a Scottish fool and only time will tell.
Perhaps this will bring home the realities of devolution to all those English doubters who think that devolution has been and is the saviour of the Union, when it is obvious it has given power to the factions that want to tear the Union apart and is turning bit players into international celebrities.
There is no way back now in reversing the devolutionary process and before animosities start getting to the stage of forcing separation instead of calling for a referendum on Scottish independence after the next general election, all four countries should be calling for a referendum on the creation of a new British Federal State and new ways of working together.
It takes courage to stand up for your beliefs and especially so if that belief is contary to that of the worlds superpower, and in that respect SNP's Kenny MacAaskill can either be seen as a Scottish hero or a Scottish fool and only time will tell.
Sunday 16 August 2009
England must not forget its Peterloo
This piece is taken from LINKS International Journal of Socialist Renewal the full article can be read at
http://links. org.au/node/ 1206
The 1819 `Peterloo' massacre: class struggle in the Industrial Revolution
By Graham Milner
August 16 in Lancashire was a lovely summer day with a cloudless sky and a hot sun shining. There was a confident, cheerful and festive atmosphere as the contingents gathered and prepared to march. Bands played, and the beautiful banners, woven and embroidered with great care, were unfurled. Oldham's banner was of pure white silk, emblazoned with the inscriptions: ``Universal Suffrage, Annual Parliaments -- Election by Ballot', and ``No Combination Acts: Oldham Union''. Saddleworth's was jet black, with the inscription ``Equal Representation or Death'' in white over two joined hands and a heart. One of the banners carried by the Stockport contingent read: ``Success to the Female Reformers of Stockport''. Many red caps of liberty were carried.
When all the contingents had arrived and assembled in the centre of Manchester, something like 12 per cent of the population of the county of Lancashire, and over half that of its industrial south east were present. It was the largest assembly England had ever seen.
As soon as all the contingents had filled St. Peter's Field, to the point where, according to a contemporary report, people were packed in so tightly that ``their hats seemed to touch'', the area was ringed by 1500 troops with cannon. No one in the crowd, least of all the organisers, suspected that an attempt to physically disperse the meeting was planned. Meetings such as this, even if smaller and without the same evident discipline and organisation, had been held many times before up and down the country. The ensuing massacre was completely unexpected and unprovoked, and met with little organised resistance. The city magistrates had even gone to the lengths in their preparations for the massacre of employing scavengers to remove every stone, brick or possible missile from the field and surrounding streets, so that the meeting's participants were thus left entirely without defence.
Barely had Henry Hunt, the main featured speaker, begun to address the meeting when mounted troopers of the yeomanry charged the hustings to arrest him and others on the platform. At first the crowd, which had not been aware of the presence of the troops, did not panic and Hunt shouted: ``Stand firm, my friends: there are only a few soldiers, and we are a host against them.''
But as the yeomanry, many of whom were drunk, charged with sabres drawn, slashing and cutting their way through the crowd and trampling and crushing many people, chaos and panic gripped the field. According to witnesses cited in Joyce Marlow's account The Peterloo Massacre, the yeomanry, having tasted blood, went berserk. They dragged the speakers and organisers from the hustings and would have killed Hunt had he not been quickly whisked away to jail. The yeomanry continued to slash and cut indiscriminately at men, women and children alike, while smashing wagons and platforms, and tearing the banners and the caps of liberty.
The regular cavalry then moved onto the field to complete the work. Hundreds more people suffered serious injuries from the slashing sabres and flying hooves, or were smothered under piles of falling bodies. Ten minutes from the first charge it was all over. Samuel Bamford, the Lancashire poet, described the scene
...the field was an open and almost deserted space. The hustings remained, with a few broken and hewed flagstaves erect, and a torn and gashed banner or two drooping; whilst over the whole field were strewed the caps, bonnets, hats, shawls and shoes and other parts of male and female dress; trampled, torn and bloody. The yeomanry had dismounted -- some were easing their horses' girths and some were wiping their sabres.
Many more people were killed and maimed as the troops continued to ``disperse'' the crowd through surrounding streets. That night one person was shot dead and several injured in clashes between soldiers and crowds of angry workers.
The government's attitude was made clear by its total endorsement of the massacre. The Prince Regent, then disporting himself on his yacht, made it known through Sidmouth what great satisfaction he had derived from the magistrate's ``prompt, decisive and efficient measure for the preservation of public tranquillity''. Despite repeated and widely voiced demands for one, there never was an official inquiry into the Peterloo massacre.
Wave of anger
An immense wave of anger swept across England in the wake of the massacre. The mass movement for reform was not appreciably set back by the Peterloo massacre. A huge crowd estimated by the conservative Times at 300,000 lined the streets of London to greet Hunt after his release from jail. Meetings were spurred all over England by the events at St. Peter's Field, especially in the north-east counties, where more than 50,000 miners marched into Newcastle from surrounding districts. Loyalist [pro-government] forces in this area began arming, and the pitmen took up arms to defend themselves. In the months of October and November, according to Edward Thompson, workers across the country stocked pikes and other weapons to defend themselves and their meetings. Drilling, and armed demonstrations, were reported in Newcastle, Wolverhampton, Wigan, Bolton and Blackburn.
Divisions within the radical movements's leadership between constitutionalists and revolutionaries were not resolved, and this crisis of leadership, combined with renewed government repression and an economic upturn brought this early phase of mass working-class struggle to a close. The events in Manchester on August 16, 1819 however, will remain forever inscribed in the collective memory of the international working class. Shelley's poem ``The Masque of Anarchy'' was written just after Peterloo and its final stanza carries the fighting sentiments of thousands of workers:
Rise, like lions after slumber.
In unvanquishable number!
Shake your chains to earth like dew,
Which in sleep had fallen on you!
Ye are many -- they are few!
[Graham Milner is a member of the Socialist Alliance in Perth, Western Australia.]
We must not forget that it is the British that are denying England its political recognition, the British MPs we have sent to parliament to represent England, it is these who are to blame. Until we have our own English MPs not British MPs representing England nothing is going to change.
http://links. org.au/node/ 1206
The 1819 `Peterloo' massacre: class struggle in the Industrial Revolution
By Graham Milner
August 16 in Lancashire was a lovely summer day with a cloudless sky and a hot sun shining. There was a confident, cheerful and festive atmosphere as the contingents gathered and prepared to march. Bands played, and the beautiful banners, woven and embroidered with great care, were unfurled. Oldham's banner was of pure white silk, emblazoned with the inscriptions: ``Universal Suffrage, Annual Parliaments -- Election by Ballot', and ``No Combination Acts: Oldham Union''. Saddleworth's was jet black, with the inscription ``Equal Representation or Death'' in white over two joined hands and a heart. One of the banners carried by the Stockport contingent read: ``Success to the Female Reformers of Stockport''. Many red caps of liberty were carried.
When all the contingents had arrived and assembled in the centre of Manchester, something like 12 per cent of the population of the county of Lancashire, and over half that of its industrial south east were present. It was the largest assembly England had ever seen.
As soon as all the contingents had filled St. Peter's Field, to the point where, according to a contemporary report, people were packed in so tightly that ``their hats seemed to touch'', the area was ringed by 1500 troops with cannon. No one in the crowd, least of all the organisers, suspected that an attempt to physically disperse the meeting was planned. Meetings such as this, even if smaller and without the same evident discipline and organisation, had been held many times before up and down the country. The ensuing massacre was completely unexpected and unprovoked, and met with little organised resistance. The city magistrates had even gone to the lengths in their preparations for the massacre of employing scavengers to remove every stone, brick or possible missile from the field and surrounding streets, so that the meeting's participants were thus left entirely without defence.
Barely had Henry Hunt, the main featured speaker, begun to address the meeting when mounted troopers of the yeomanry charged the hustings to arrest him and others on the platform. At first the crowd, which had not been aware of the presence of the troops, did not panic and Hunt shouted: ``Stand firm, my friends: there are only a few soldiers, and we are a host against them.''
But as the yeomanry, many of whom were drunk, charged with sabres drawn, slashing and cutting their way through the crowd and trampling and crushing many people, chaos and panic gripped the field. According to witnesses cited in Joyce Marlow's account The Peterloo Massacre, the yeomanry, having tasted blood, went berserk. They dragged the speakers and organisers from the hustings and would have killed Hunt had he not been quickly whisked away to jail. The yeomanry continued to slash and cut indiscriminately at men, women and children alike, while smashing wagons and platforms, and tearing the banners and the caps of liberty.
The regular cavalry then moved onto the field to complete the work. Hundreds more people suffered serious injuries from the slashing sabres and flying hooves, or were smothered under piles of falling bodies. Ten minutes from the first charge it was all over. Samuel Bamford, the Lancashire poet, described the scene
...the field was an open and almost deserted space. The hustings remained, with a few broken and hewed flagstaves erect, and a torn and gashed banner or two drooping; whilst over the whole field were strewed the caps, bonnets, hats, shawls and shoes and other parts of male and female dress; trampled, torn and bloody. The yeomanry had dismounted -- some were easing their horses' girths and some were wiping their sabres.
Many more people were killed and maimed as the troops continued to ``disperse'' the crowd through surrounding streets. That night one person was shot dead and several injured in clashes between soldiers and crowds of angry workers.
The government's attitude was made clear by its total endorsement of the massacre. The Prince Regent, then disporting himself on his yacht, made it known through Sidmouth what great satisfaction he had derived from the magistrate's ``prompt, decisive and efficient measure for the preservation of public tranquillity''. Despite repeated and widely voiced demands for one, there never was an official inquiry into the Peterloo massacre.
Wave of anger
An immense wave of anger swept across England in the wake of the massacre. The mass movement for reform was not appreciably set back by the Peterloo massacre. A huge crowd estimated by the conservative Times at 300,000 lined the streets of London to greet Hunt after his release from jail. Meetings were spurred all over England by the events at St. Peter's Field, especially in the north-east counties, where more than 50,000 miners marched into Newcastle from surrounding districts. Loyalist [pro-government] forces in this area began arming, and the pitmen took up arms to defend themselves. In the months of October and November, according to Edward Thompson, workers across the country stocked pikes and other weapons to defend themselves and their meetings. Drilling, and armed demonstrations, were reported in Newcastle, Wolverhampton, Wigan, Bolton and Blackburn.
Divisions within the radical movements's leadership between constitutionalists and revolutionaries were not resolved, and this crisis of leadership, combined with renewed government repression and an economic upturn brought this early phase of mass working-class struggle to a close. The events in Manchester on August 16, 1819 however, will remain forever inscribed in the collective memory of the international working class. Shelley's poem ``The Masque of Anarchy'' was written just after Peterloo and its final stanza carries the fighting sentiments of thousands of workers:
Rise, like lions after slumber.
In unvanquishable number!
Shake your chains to earth like dew,
Which in sleep had fallen on you!
Ye are many -- they are few!
[Graham Milner is a member of the Socialist Alliance in Perth, Western Australia.]
We must not forget that it is the British that are denying England its political recognition, the British MPs we have sent to parliament to represent England, it is these who are to blame. Until we have our own English MPs not British MPs representing England nothing is going to change.
Saturday 15 August 2009
First Mayor to be elected from an English Political Party in the News
Published Date: 13 August 2009 IN THE SHOREHAM HERALD
By Ian Hart
I THINK the phrase goes something like "a new broom sweeps clean", and I'm indebted to Ellis Rodda for bringing my attention to the following tale.
On his first morning as mayor of Doncaster, Peter Davies cut his salary from £73,000 to £30,000, and on the same morning he closed the council's in-house newspaper for "peddling politics on the rates".
Mayor Davies is now pressing ahead with plans he hopes will see the number of town councillors cut from 63 to just 21, saving local taxpayers £800,000.
Mr Davies has said: "If 100 senators can run the United States of America; I can't see how 63 councillors are needed to run Doncaster."
He has withdrawn Doncaster from the Local Government Association and the Local Government Information Unit, saving another £200,000, citing both bodies as "all talk, no action".
The subject of twinning has also come under the microscope.
"Doncaster is in for some serious untwinning.
"We are twinned with probably nine other places around the world and they are just for people to fly off and have a binge at the council taxpayers' expense."
The mayor's chauffeur-driven car has been axed and the driver given another job within the local authority.
Mr Davies was elected in May, under the banner of the English Democrats, a party that wants tighter immigration curbs, an English parliament and a law requiring every public building to fly the flag of St George.
He has also promised to end council funding for Doncaster's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender History Month.
He says: "Politicians have got completely out of touch with what people want.
"We need to cut costs, I want to pass on some savings I make in reduced taxes and use the rest for things we really need, like improved children's services."
So the million dollar question, the view of a right wing homophobic northerner, or the voice of reason?
Or simply someone who has said enough is enough and got in a position to make changes?
We must not forget that it is the British that are denying England its political recognition, the British MPs we have sent to parliament to represent England, it is these who are to blame. Until we have our own English MPs not British MPs representing England nothing is going to change.
By Ian Hart
I THINK the phrase goes something like "a new broom sweeps clean", and I'm indebted to Ellis Rodda for bringing my attention to the following tale.
On his first morning as mayor of Doncaster, Peter Davies cut his salary from £73,000 to £30,000, and on the same morning he closed the council's in-house newspaper for "peddling politics on the rates".
Mayor Davies is now pressing ahead with plans he hopes will see the number of town councillors cut from 63 to just 21, saving local taxpayers £800,000.
Mr Davies has said: "If 100 senators can run the United States of America; I can't see how 63 councillors are needed to run Doncaster."
He has withdrawn Doncaster from the Local Government Association and the Local Government Information Unit, saving another £200,000, citing both bodies as "all talk, no action".
The subject of twinning has also come under the microscope.
"Doncaster is in for some serious untwinning.
"We are twinned with probably nine other places around the world and they are just for people to fly off and have a binge at the council taxpayers' expense."
The mayor's chauffeur-driven car has been axed and the driver given another job within the local authority.
Mr Davies was elected in May, under the banner of the English Democrats, a party that wants tighter immigration curbs, an English parliament and a law requiring every public building to fly the flag of St George.
He has also promised to end council funding for Doncaster's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender History Month.
He says: "Politicians have got completely out of touch with what people want.
"We need to cut costs, I want to pass on some savings I make in reduced taxes and use the rest for things we really need, like improved children's services."
So the million dollar question, the view of a right wing homophobic northerner, or the voice of reason?
Or simply someone who has said enough is enough and got in a position to make changes?
We must not forget that it is the British that are denying England its political recognition, the British MPs we have sent to parliament to represent England, it is these who are to blame. Until we have our own English MPs not British MPs representing England nothing is going to change.
Tuesday 4 August 2009
WHY WE NEED AN ENGLISH PARLIAMENT
When Tony Blair’s government decided to take the initiative and head for Europe with the introduction of the Devolution Acts of 1998, there is no doubt that it did so because his government was dominated by Ministers elected from the Scottish and Welsh constituencies who saw European policies as the means of re-establishing their own countries separate political identities and nationhood.
Every nation has a right to govern themselves under their own laws; it is what makes a nation, and is the difference between self government and subordination, between self respect and self contempt, quoted Eurosceptics when it was proposed that the United Kingdom should join Europe’s superstate.
The Scots agreed but the nation they were talking about was the Scottish Nation and its position within the Multi- Nation British State, and when they moved into their new law making Scottish Parliament that boasted control over their own domestic policies they rejoiced in gaining their first move towards Scottish independence. Land of our fathers sang the Welsh; a forum for the nation they cried when Devolution 1998 gave them an assembly which recognised Wales and their Welsh Nationhood, and they dance in the streets of Northern Ireland now that the people have found peace in the resurrection of their own parliament.
NO DOUBT ABOUT IT ‘DEVOLUTION 1998 WAS DECIDED ON NATIONHOOD’
We too have a right to govern ourselves, we too have an identity separate from a British identity, and we too have a right to a parliament that will recognise England and England’s Nationhood. Why should we be the only nation not gaining anything from devolution, the claims made by the other three nations of the United Kingdom can be echoed by our claims, what applies to Scotland and Wales equally applies to England, and it is unjust and unfair that the English Nation should remain the only one subjugated entirely to British rule.
Young people for more than a millennium have been making the ultimate sacrifice in defending England’s shores for the sake of freedom and democracy, and young people are still doing so today in Iraq and Afghanistan. Ask the Scotsman what he is fighting for and he can say Scotland, ask the Welshman and the Irishman what they are fighting for and they can say Wales and Ireland, but what about the English what can we say, what are we fighting for. They tell us (the English) we are fighting for Britain and fighting to stop Islamic terrorists destroying our country, yet they are openly inviting and giving these people a free passage into England, giving them all our free health and welfare benefits, houses and jobs, and when we catch them the British are refusing to kick them out. How much longer are our English mothers going to continue to let their sons fight for this British double-cross, are the British worth fighting for, and how much longer can we and they go on supporting a British Government that recognises the sacrifices made by the Scotsman, the Welshman, and the Irishman, but denies the same to the Englishman?
At the recent Olympic Games they did it again; they recognised the Scottish, Welsh and Irish medal winners with separate celebrations, while ours went unrecognised and were claimed by the British, and every government form or document denies an English identity.
Since Labours Devolution Acts of 1998 England our homeland is no longer our own, our nationality is not recognised, our country no longer has any political or constitutional existence, our culture is being denied us and our language is being infiltrated by that of every other nation on the globe. While our English soldiers fight for British interests abroad the British are trying their hardest to destroy the nation they identify with at home.
Compare this to the devolved nations of Scotland and Wales who now have a parliament and the responsibility for their own nation’s ‘Education and Training’ programs, and consider British lies when they say it is us the English not them who are trying to break up the Union and its British identity.
The Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly is the political and constitutional recognition of their Scottish and Welsh National Identities.
Through the school curriculum all children in Scotland and Wales are now being reared and educated to have strong Scottish and Welsh identities and knowledge of their Scottish and Welsh history and heritage; the Welsh language is now being taught in their schools. (Britishness is only being taught in English schools)
Similar ‘Sports and Art’ programs backed up by a BBC TV Scotland and a BBC TV Wales and their own tourist boards are promoting their distinct Scottish and Welsh cultures, (There is no BBC England or English tourist board) and the Scots have honoured their St. Andrew by giving their nation a day’s holiday. (No St. George’s holiday for England)
Scottish culture is being promoted also through education and training courses that encourage students into university by not asking them to pay ‘Top up Fees’ of £3000 + a year like the British ask of the English, and their part time students earning less than £18,000 are getting a £500 grant towards their £800 a year course fees as Scotland moves from a system of loans to
grants. (English students get nothing)
The devolved nations are also allowed to promote their own separate identities through labelling, especially food items, a lot of which now promote Scotland and Wales by supporting their national flags, controversially in England the ‘Dairy Crest’ company last year re-branded their ‘English Country Life’ butter’ as ‘British Country Life’ butter amid a fanfare of adverts featuring Jonny Rotten taking the mickey out of us English. The French have a big stake in Dairy Crest, and last year 2008 when they bought the butter brand outright they did the name change with British approval. Recently we have been told that the England football Team will be re-branded with the British identity ‘Team GB’ in 2012 in time for the Olympics.
Never mind the ‘West Lothian Question’ or the ‘English Question’ which question the right of the British to rule only on England’s Domestic policies, the British have now set up their own quango type government to do it.
England is now being governed by MPs elected from Scottish constituencies which include the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer and an assortment of seven peers from the House of Lords, not one of them is answerable to the English electorate and 7 of them can’t even be questioned in the House of Commons. If it wasn’t so serious the whole thing could be seen as a joke?
Why should England be the only country made to suffer the consequences of being ruled by these proven British untrustworthy, lying, cheating, corrupt fraudsters, so called Honourable MPs who despise us and treat us with contempt?
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Q1) The Westminster Parliament has 529 MPs elected from England’s constituencies; don’t you think England has enough representation?
A1) MPs elected to the Westminster Parliament are British MPs not English MPs and they owe their loyalty to the British State as a whole not to the individual nations within it. MPs elected to national parliaments however like Scotland and Wales are full of members who owe their loyalty to their own nation; a nation’s interest often conflicts with that of the State.
Q2) Do we really need any more MPs surely we have got enough already?
A2) Regardless of cost England needs its own parliament in order to establish constitutionally and politically its identity and nationhood. British MPs elected from English constituencies have failed and are failing to put the interests of the people of England first, and instead are supporting the British political interests of their party.
With England controlling its own Domestic Policies on par with Scotland, Wales, and N. Ireland the role of the British Parliament would be significantly changed along with its workload; there would be no need for any significant increase in MP numbers if the number of MPs to an English Parliament could be matched by a similar reduction in the number of British MPs representing England in the UK Parliament.
Q3) Will the English Parliament need to be a separate parliament or could it be a parliament within a parliament made up from existing members of the British UK Parliament?
A3) An English Parliament must be a completely separately elected parliament with its own separately elected EMPs, a national parliament, a parliament elected solely to represent the interests of the people of England like that given to our other home nations. Suggestions by all the main British political Parties that England’s Domestic Policies and interests are best served only if they are looked after by British MPs in the UK Parliament does not hold credence, if that were true it would be true also for Scottish, Welsh and N. Irish Domestic Policies and interests and there would have been no need for devolution, which clearly it wasn’t. British MPs owe their loyalty to the UK British State, and what they are asking us to believe is that this British loyalty can be switched on and off according to what time of the day or what day of the week it is instantly an English Bill arises in the UK Parliament. Try telling that to a Manchester United supporter at 3pm on a Saturday afternoon when they haven’t got a game, and ask them to switch their support to Liverpool who have.
Q (4) It is said that if England was given its own Parliament the United Kingdom would have to look at becoming a Federal State, and that being the case, the sheer geographical size of England being 4/5 of the UK’s land mass and the size of its population would make England dominant and make a federal UK unstable and lead to its break up.
A(4) While the British believe an English Parliament would see the end of the Union, the Campaign for an English Parliament (CEP) believes it is vital to saving the Union. The specific point on England’s dominance and size making a federal UK unstable should be seen as a red herring along with the one about millions of pounds being needed for extra MPs if England gets an EP, and can be demonstrably exposed as nonsense by referring to the examples of the USA, Canada, and India. There are 60 Californians to every Alaskan, 70 bodies in Ontario for every person in Prince Edward Island, and 111 inhabitants of Utter Pradesh for every person in Goa. In fact, England has dominated the Union for 300 years and devolving power to England would not increase its ability to dominate the Union but would have the opposite effect and reduce it; England would now only be in charge of looking after its own domestic policies and could not interfere with those of the other nations, who could not interfere in England’s or in each others.
Q5) Would a new building be required for the English Parliament and if so where would it be sited?
A5) Moving at least one of the parliaments the British or the English to central or northern England would bring about the biggest transfer of employment, political, cultural and media power and activity, in all of England’s history. Such a decision would not harm the capital, as such an event would save London and the South East from self destructing due to its success, but that decision would have to be decided by present MPs and the constitutional committee, or through a British Convention.
Q6) The present policy regarding England’s devolution from all the main political parties centres around some type of Regionalism in preference to giving England a parliament, what are your views on these regional policies?
A6) For all their supposed good intensions it is a fundamental weakness of the regionalists’ argument that they seek to deny national government and constitutional recognition of nationhood to the people of England. It is one thing to argue for regionalism, but to argue that the nation of England should be denied national government because of it is quite another. An English Parliament would be able to take over the work performed by the regions in the EU, providing England with a stronger unified voice and force than the individual regions in applying for EU structural funds, currently the English regions apply separately for funds and are therefore in direct competition with one another. With London and the South East undoubtedly able to shout the loudest the poorer regions such as those in the North are in danger of losing out; an English Parliament would therefore not only be a stronger lobbying force in the UK and the EU but it would be better placed to distribute the funds more evenly across England.
Q7) How would an English Parliament effect England’s immigrant population?
A7) An English Parliament would do for England’s immigrants what it has done for Scottish and Welsh immigrants; in the first place it would allow all immigrants living in England with a British qualification to identity themselves with England the country in which they live and the indigenous English people they live with, like it has done in Scotland and Wales. The very essence of identifying themselves with the identity of our country would unite England’s people under one banner and an English Parliament would be the centre of gravity around which we could all work together in carving out a new English identity.
Q8) Alun Michael a Welsh MP said in a recent TV interview that if there was a First Minister for England he/she would be more important and have more power than the British Prime Minister?
A8) This is another British redherring; England's First Minister would only have the powers invested in him by the British Constitution and what Alun is inferring is that a state governor in the USA has more powers and is more important than the USA President which is rediclous.
Under the Scotland Act 1998, the Scottish Parliament can make primary and secondary legislation in
Areas not reserved to Westminster or protected from modification
‘Devolved’ responsibilities now controlled by the Scottish Parliament
* Health * Local Government * Social Work
* Education and Training * Housing * Planning
* Tourism * Economic development and financial assistance to industry
* Some aspects of transport, inc. the Scottish road network, bus policy and ports and harbours
* Law and home affairs, inc. most aspects of criminal and civil law, the prosecution system and the courts
* The Police and Fire Services * Natural and Built Heritage * Sports and the Arts
* The Environment * Agriculture, forestry and Fishing
* Statistics, public registers and records
Other Advantages
* MPs in their own parliament and separate MPs of their own at Westminster
* A Secretary of State in the Cabinet
* A Grand Committee made up of all of their MPs
* Their own Select Committee at Westminster to deal with their own affairs
* They can speak up for their own nations in Europe and help shape UK- EU policy
* Have the benefit of Statutory Instruments (UK laws) to be studied by their own institution
* The Scottish and Welsh Development agencies deal direct with their own executives so can tailor things on a national rather than a regional basis
* Although the devolved nations MPs at Westminster have had their workload drastically reduced they have had no pay cut (99% of constituent’s problems now being dealt with by their own parliamentary MSPs)
UK Parliament controlled ‘Reserved Responsibilities’
* The Constitution * Defence and national security * Fiscal, economic and monetary system
* Trade and Industry, including competition and customer protection
* Transport (not particular to Scotland) including railways, transport safety and regulation
* Social Security * Employment * Equal opportunities
* Medical ethics: abortion; human fertilisation and embryology; genetics; xenotransplantation and vivi section
* Broadcasting * the Civil Service * Immigration and Nationality
* Foreign Affairs * Energy: electricity, coal, gas,nuclear energy
Looking at the list opposite of the powers devolved to the national parliaments of Scotland and Wales you soon realise that England does not have National power over anything; all English powers are in the hands of the British, so let’s take a look and compare the health services. While Scotland and Wales have a true NHS and can control their own policies across all of their country England can not, instead England is heading in the direction of privatisation by being subjected to a Health Service run by a British based regionalism system of Primary Care Trusts and Foundation Hospitals, forced onto it by British MPs elected from Scottish and Welsh constituencies who denied forcing it onto their own nations. Half of our hospitals are already out of Ministerial control and it is said all will be by 2012. When the call went out for a massive clean up of English hospitals because of the MRSA outbreaks recently it was pointed out that it is against the law for an elected government or the Dept of Health on behalf of that government to tell Foundation Hospitals what to do, as long as they are financially viable.
National governments like Foundation hospitals above have been given huge sums of tax payer’s money by the British to conduct their own affairs without British interference which has allowed them to adopt differing policies and priorities. Foundation Hospitals are run like businesses and are free to use the market as they see fit in order to hit their targets and remain financially viable, this is seeing huge differences of care across England as each hospital decides its own policy, we are even seeing some of these hospitals paying for and building their own hospitals in other countries, outside of the EU too.
The NHS of Scotland and Wales provides equality of care for all their people regardless of what part of their country people live in, and their hospitals do not have the same restraints put on them as they are all under ministerial control and subsidised by the English tax payer. Besides receiving a huge grant from the British Government to run their own affairs, National Parliaments also get additional payments every year made to them through a formula called Barnet which is based on England’s expenditure, in Scotland’s case alone this formula lets the British give Scotland an extra £12 billion per year more than they give us in England.
National Parliaments first priority is to the nation they serve and not to the British State which they are part of, and this can be seen when we look at their national achievements.
Free Prescription charges
Free Eye Tests
Free Dental Check Ups and reduced charges
Free personal Care in Residential Homes - even if they cross the border into England
Free School Milk - Better school meals being provided by doubling England’s subsidy
Seriously ill patients are able to receive drugs that are denied to English patients even if they are a patient in an English hospital
Trainee nurses kept on an extra year after qualification so that they have the necessary experience to get jobs in the private sector should there be no jobs in NHS
No Hospital Car Parking Charges
No Wheel Clamping allowed anywhere in the country
Their own Students in Universities have fees waived until they are earning over £25,000 per year and no top up fees are paid. (English Students pay £3000/year + in top up fees and leave with debts of £20,000)
Council Tax frozen 2008 and 2009 and has only risen 40% since 1997 (England’s council tax has risen 100% over the same period and increases every year)
Every young person between the ages of 20 and 25 living in England should be aware that their lives are not as important to the British establishment as those lives of the young people of Scotland, Wales and N. Ireland, as Jade Goody found out to her cost. In England you do not get invited for a cervical smear test until you are 25, by then it is too late for any girl unfortunate enough to get it at a younger age as Jade did; in Scotland, Wales and N. Ireland they are allowed to test their young at 20 and also every youngster taking part in sport over 16 years of age in Scotland will also be offered screening for cardiac abnormalities, the cause of sudden death syndrome.
Continuing on the list we can see that the British recognised nations have responsibility for their own housing, planning, and environmental policies, the British can’t force the ECO Towns on Scotland or Wales, or force the extension of airports which they are able to force onto us. Then there is Agriculture and Fisheries, national governments make sure their farmers get their subsidies on time while the British keep English farmers waiting, and the Scottish Fisheries Dept has already made a cut in English fishing quotas along the East Coast. The list goes on, and in every dept the nations are able to protect their people from the sufferance of seeing their domestic policies being decided by the corrupt incompetent fraudsters in the UK British Parliament; from ID Cards, to Road Pricing to bin collections, the national parliaments decide themselves what is best for their people and do not have to accept the wishes of the British Government, and invariably do not.
The British do not wish to recognise England and Englishness because it gives them a problem with their identity, so they are trying to solve it by supplanting the name Britain for England and forcing an invented indigenous British multi-cultural identity on our nation.
The West Lothian Question
Why should MPs elected by the countries of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland into the British UK Parliament be allowed to debate and vote on policies that only apply to England, when British MPs elected by England to the UK Parliament can not debate and vote on policies that only apply to their countries.
The reason they can’t is because these countries have their own parliaments and another set of MPs deciding their policies.
The result of their interference in English legislation has already resulted in England being forced down the road of NHS privatisation with Foundation Hospitals, and also forced our University students to pay Top Up fees, and most recently influenced the stopping of trials by Jury for certain offences.
The English Question
Who rules England – Why should British MPs elected in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland be allowed to be head of English only departments deciding English Domestic Policies when they can not force those same policies onto their own nations that elected them, and one as even made himself Prime Minister.
-----------------------------------------------
We must not forget that our troubles began in 1997 when a gang of Scottish conspirators and Europhiles (Gordon Brown, Alistair Darling and the disgraced speaker Michael Martin amongst them) who had signed an oath in 1989 vowing to put the interests of Scotland before that of every other nation (The Scottish Claim of Right) suddenly found themselves in control of a New British Labour Government. These British MPs elected by Scotland promoted themselves to all of the major ministerial posts in government and wasted little time in honouring that oath when in less than a year they complied with EU legislation and began the break up of the United Kingdom and headed for Scottish independence by bringing in the Devolution Acts of 1998.
It must also never be forgotten that although the Welsh and Irish British MPs spoke up for their countries nationhood, England’s elected British MPs elected to represent England failed to do so, and so England’s nationhood was not recognised.
From this day British MPs can not be trusted to put England’s interests before that of their party.
John Stanhope
West Midlands
tel - 01902 630110
Every nation has a right to govern themselves under their own laws; it is what makes a nation, and is the difference between self government and subordination, between self respect and self contempt, quoted Eurosceptics when it was proposed that the United Kingdom should join Europe’s superstate.
The Scots agreed but the nation they were talking about was the Scottish Nation and its position within the Multi- Nation British State, and when they moved into their new law making Scottish Parliament that boasted control over their own domestic policies they rejoiced in gaining their first move towards Scottish independence. Land of our fathers sang the Welsh; a forum for the nation they cried when Devolution 1998 gave them an assembly which recognised Wales and their Welsh Nationhood, and they dance in the streets of Northern Ireland now that the people have found peace in the resurrection of their own parliament.
NO DOUBT ABOUT IT ‘DEVOLUTION 1998 WAS DECIDED ON NATIONHOOD’
We too have a right to govern ourselves, we too have an identity separate from a British identity, and we too have a right to a parliament that will recognise England and England’s Nationhood. Why should we be the only nation not gaining anything from devolution, the claims made by the other three nations of the United Kingdom can be echoed by our claims, what applies to Scotland and Wales equally applies to England, and it is unjust and unfair that the English Nation should remain the only one subjugated entirely to British rule.
Young people for more than a millennium have been making the ultimate sacrifice in defending England’s shores for the sake of freedom and democracy, and young people are still doing so today in Iraq and Afghanistan. Ask the Scotsman what he is fighting for and he can say Scotland, ask the Welshman and the Irishman what they are fighting for and they can say Wales and Ireland, but what about the English what can we say, what are we fighting for. They tell us (the English) we are fighting for Britain and fighting to stop Islamic terrorists destroying our country, yet they are openly inviting and giving these people a free passage into England, giving them all our free health and welfare benefits, houses and jobs, and when we catch them the British are refusing to kick them out. How much longer are our English mothers going to continue to let their sons fight for this British double-cross, are the British worth fighting for, and how much longer can we and they go on supporting a British Government that recognises the sacrifices made by the Scotsman, the Welshman, and the Irishman, but denies the same to the Englishman?
At the recent Olympic Games they did it again; they recognised the Scottish, Welsh and Irish medal winners with separate celebrations, while ours went unrecognised and were claimed by the British, and every government form or document denies an English identity.
Since Labours Devolution Acts of 1998 England our homeland is no longer our own, our nationality is not recognised, our country no longer has any political or constitutional existence, our culture is being denied us and our language is being infiltrated by that of every other nation on the globe. While our English soldiers fight for British interests abroad the British are trying their hardest to destroy the nation they identify with at home.
Compare this to the devolved nations of Scotland and Wales who now have a parliament and the responsibility for their own nation’s ‘Education and Training’ programs, and consider British lies when they say it is us the English not them who are trying to break up the Union and its British identity.
The Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly is the political and constitutional recognition of their Scottish and Welsh National Identities.
Through the school curriculum all children in Scotland and Wales are now being reared and educated to have strong Scottish and Welsh identities and knowledge of their Scottish and Welsh history and heritage; the Welsh language is now being taught in their schools. (Britishness is only being taught in English schools)
Similar ‘Sports and Art’ programs backed up by a BBC TV Scotland and a BBC TV Wales and their own tourist boards are promoting their distinct Scottish and Welsh cultures, (There is no BBC England or English tourist board) and the Scots have honoured their St. Andrew by giving their nation a day’s holiday. (No St. George’s holiday for England)
Scottish culture is being promoted also through education and training courses that encourage students into university by not asking them to pay ‘Top up Fees’ of £3000 + a year like the British ask of the English, and their part time students earning less than £18,000 are getting a £500 grant towards their £800 a year course fees as Scotland moves from a system of loans to
grants. (English students get nothing)
The devolved nations are also allowed to promote their own separate identities through labelling, especially food items, a lot of which now promote Scotland and Wales by supporting their national flags, controversially in England the ‘Dairy Crest’ company last year re-branded their ‘English Country Life’ butter’ as ‘British Country Life’ butter amid a fanfare of adverts featuring Jonny Rotten taking the mickey out of us English. The French have a big stake in Dairy Crest, and last year 2008 when they bought the butter brand outright they did the name change with British approval. Recently we have been told that the England football Team will be re-branded with the British identity ‘Team GB’ in 2012 in time for the Olympics.
Never mind the ‘West Lothian Question’ or the ‘English Question’ which question the right of the British to rule only on England’s Domestic policies, the British have now set up their own quango type government to do it.
England is now being governed by MPs elected from Scottish constituencies which include the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer and an assortment of seven peers from the House of Lords, not one of them is answerable to the English electorate and 7 of them can’t even be questioned in the House of Commons. If it wasn’t so serious the whole thing could be seen as a joke?
Why should England be the only country made to suffer the consequences of being ruled by these proven British untrustworthy, lying, cheating, corrupt fraudsters, so called Honourable MPs who despise us and treat us with contempt?
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Q1) The Westminster Parliament has 529 MPs elected from England’s constituencies; don’t you think England has enough representation?
A1) MPs elected to the Westminster Parliament are British MPs not English MPs and they owe their loyalty to the British State as a whole not to the individual nations within it. MPs elected to national parliaments however like Scotland and Wales are full of members who owe their loyalty to their own nation; a nation’s interest often conflicts with that of the State.
Q2) Do we really need any more MPs surely we have got enough already?
A2) Regardless of cost England needs its own parliament in order to establish constitutionally and politically its identity and nationhood. British MPs elected from English constituencies have failed and are failing to put the interests of the people of England first, and instead are supporting the British political interests of their party.
With England controlling its own Domestic Policies on par with Scotland, Wales, and N. Ireland the role of the British Parliament would be significantly changed along with its workload; there would be no need for any significant increase in MP numbers if the number of MPs to an English Parliament could be matched by a similar reduction in the number of British MPs representing England in the UK Parliament.
Q3) Will the English Parliament need to be a separate parliament or could it be a parliament within a parliament made up from existing members of the British UK Parliament?
A3) An English Parliament must be a completely separately elected parliament with its own separately elected EMPs, a national parliament, a parliament elected solely to represent the interests of the people of England like that given to our other home nations. Suggestions by all the main British political Parties that England’s Domestic Policies and interests are best served only if they are looked after by British MPs in the UK Parliament does not hold credence, if that were true it would be true also for Scottish, Welsh and N. Irish Domestic Policies and interests and there would have been no need for devolution, which clearly it wasn’t. British MPs owe their loyalty to the UK British State, and what they are asking us to believe is that this British loyalty can be switched on and off according to what time of the day or what day of the week it is instantly an English Bill arises in the UK Parliament. Try telling that to a Manchester United supporter at 3pm on a Saturday afternoon when they haven’t got a game, and ask them to switch their support to Liverpool who have.
Q (4) It is said that if England was given its own Parliament the United Kingdom would have to look at becoming a Federal State, and that being the case, the sheer geographical size of England being 4/5 of the UK’s land mass and the size of its population would make England dominant and make a federal UK unstable and lead to its break up.
A(4) While the British believe an English Parliament would see the end of the Union, the Campaign for an English Parliament (CEP) believes it is vital to saving the Union. The specific point on England’s dominance and size making a federal UK unstable should be seen as a red herring along with the one about millions of pounds being needed for extra MPs if England gets an EP, and can be demonstrably exposed as nonsense by referring to the examples of the USA, Canada, and India. There are 60 Californians to every Alaskan, 70 bodies in Ontario for every person in Prince Edward Island, and 111 inhabitants of Utter Pradesh for every person in Goa. In fact, England has dominated the Union for 300 years and devolving power to England would not increase its ability to dominate the Union but would have the opposite effect and reduce it; England would now only be in charge of looking after its own domestic policies and could not interfere with those of the other nations, who could not interfere in England’s or in each others.
Q5) Would a new building be required for the English Parliament and if so where would it be sited?
A5) Moving at least one of the parliaments the British or the English to central or northern England would bring about the biggest transfer of employment, political, cultural and media power and activity, in all of England’s history. Such a decision would not harm the capital, as such an event would save London and the South East from self destructing due to its success, but that decision would have to be decided by present MPs and the constitutional committee, or through a British Convention.
Q6) The present policy regarding England’s devolution from all the main political parties centres around some type of Regionalism in preference to giving England a parliament, what are your views on these regional policies?
A6) For all their supposed good intensions it is a fundamental weakness of the regionalists’ argument that they seek to deny national government and constitutional recognition of nationhood to the people of England. It is one thing to argue for regionalism, but to argue that the nation of England should be denied national government because of it is quite another. An English Parliament would be able to take over the work performed by the regions in the EU, providing England with a stronger unified voice and force than the individual regions in applying for EU structural funds, currently the English regions apply separately for funds and are therefore in direct competition with one another. With London and the South East undoubtedly able to shout the loudest the poorer regions such as those in the North are in danger of losing out; an English Parliament would therefore not only be a stronger lobbying force in the UK and the EU but it would be better placed to distribute the funds more evenly across England.
Q7) How would an English Parliament effect England’s immigrant population?
A7) An English Parliament would do for England’s immigrants what it has done for Scottish and Welsh immigrants; in the first place it would allow all immigrants living in England with a British qualification to identity themselves with England the country in which they live and the indigenous English people they live with, like it has done in Scotland and Wales. The very essence of identifying themselves with the identity of our country would unite England’s people under one banner and an English Parliament would be the centre of gravity around which we could all work together in carving out a new English identity.
Q8) Alun Michael a Welsh MP said in a recent TV interview that if there was a First Minister for England he/she would be more important and have more power than the British Prime Minister?
A8) This is another British redherring; England's First Minister would only have the powers invested in him by the British Constitution and what Alun is inferring is that a state governor in the USA has more powers and is more important than the USA President which is rediclous.
Under the Scotland Act 1998, the Scottish Parliament can make primary and secondary legislation in
Areas not reserved to Westminster or protected from modification
‘Devolved’ responsibilities now controlled by the Scottish Parliament
* Health * Local Government * Social Work
* Education and Training * Housing * Planning
* Tourism * Economic development and financial assistance to industry
* Some aspects of transport, inc. the Scottish road network, bus policy and ports and harbours
* Law and home affairs, inc. most aspects of criminal and civil law, the prosecution system and the courts
* The Police and Fire Services * Natural and Built Heritage * Sports and the Arts
* The Environment * Agriculture, forestry and Fishing
* Statistics, public registers and records
Other Advantages
* MPs in their own parliament and separate MPs of their own at Westminster
* A Secretary of State in the Cabinet
* A Grand Committee made up of all of their MPs
* Their own Select Committee at Westminster to deal with their own affairs
* They can speak up for their own nations in Europe and help shape UK- EU policy
* Have the benefit of Statutory Instruments (UK laws) to be studied by their own institution
* The Scottish and Welsh Development agencies deal direct with their own executives so can tailor things on a national rather than a regional basis
* Although the devolved nations MPs at Westminster have had their workload drastically reduced they have had no pay cut (99% of constituent’s problems now being dealt with by their own parliamentary MSPs)
UK Parliament controlled ‘Reserved Responsibilities’
* The Constitution * Defence and national security * Fiscal, economic and monetary system
* Trade and Industry, including competition and customer protection
* Transport (not particular to Scotland) including railways, transport safety and regulation
* Social Security * Employment * Equal opportunities
* Medical ethics: abortion; human fertilisation and embryology; genetics; xenotransplantation and vivi section
* Broadcasting * the Civil Service * Immigration and Nationality
* Foreign Affairs * Energy: electricity, coal, gas,nuclear energy
Looking at the list opposite of the powers devolved to the national parliaments of Scotland and Wales you soon realise that England does not have National power over anything; all English powers are in the hands of the British, so let’s take a look and compare the health services. While Scotland and Wales have a true NHS and can control their own policies across all of their country England can not, instead England is heading in the direction of privatisation by being subjected to a Health Service run by a British based regionalism system of Primary Care Trusts and Foundation Hospitals, forced onto it by British MPs elected from Scottish and Welsh constituencies who denied forcing it onto their own nations. Half of our hospitals are already out of Ministerial control and it is said all will be by 2012. When the call went out for a massive clean up of English hospitals because of the MRSA outbreaks recently it was pointed out that it is against the law for an elected government or the Dept of Health on behalf of that government to tell Foundation Hospitals what to do, as long as they are financially viable.
National governments like Foundation hospitals above have been given huge sums of tax payer’s money by the British to conduct their own affairs without British interference which has allowed them to adopt differing policies and priorities. Foundation Hospitals are run like businesses and are free to use the market as they see fit in order to hit their targets and remain financially viable, this is seeing huge differences of care across England as each hospital decides its own policy, we are even seeing some of these hospitals paying for and building their own hospitals in other countries, outside of the EU too.
The NHS of Scotland and Wales provides equality of care for all their people regardless of what part of their country people live in, and their hospitals do not have the same restraints put on them as they are all under ministerial control and subsidised by the English tax payer. Besides receiving a huge grant from the British Government to run their own affairs, National Parliaments also get additional payments every year made to them through a formula called Barnet which is based on England’s expenditure, in Scotland’s case alone this formula lets the British give Scotland an extra £12 billion per year more than they give us in England.
National Parliaments first priority is to the nation they serve and not to the British State which they are part of, and this can be seen when we look at their national achievements.
Free Prescription charges
Free Eye Tests
Free Dental Check Ups and reduced charges
Free personal Care in Residential Homes - even if they cross the border into England
Free School Milk - Better school meals being provided by doubling England’s subsidy
Seriously ill patients are able to receive drugs that are denied to English patients even if they are a patient in an English hospital
Trainee nurses kept on an extra year after qualification so that they have the necessary experience to get jobs in the private sector should there be no jobs in NHS
No Hospital Car Parking Charges
No Wheel Clamping allowed anywhere in the country
Their own Students in Universities have fees waived until they are earning over £25,000 per year and no top up fees are paid. (English Students pay £3000/year + in top up fees and leave with debts of £20,000)
Council Tax frozen 2008 and 2009 and has only risen 40% since 1997 (England’s council tax has risen 100% over the same period and increases every year)
Every young person between the ages of 20 and 25 living in England should be aware that their lives are not as important to the British establishment as those lives of the young people of Scotland, Wales and N. Ireland, as Jade Goody found out to her cost. In England you do not get invited for a cervical smear test until you are 25, by then it is too late for any girl unfortunate enough to get it at a younger age as Jade did; in Scotland, Wales and N. Ireland they are allowed to test their young at 20 and also every youngster taking part in sport over 16 years of age in Scotland will also be offered screening for cardiac abnormalities, the cause of sudden death syndrome.
Continuing on the list we can see that the British recognised nations have responsibility for their own housing, planning, and environmental policies, the British can’t force the ECO Towns on Scotland or Wales, or force the extension of airports which they are able to force onto us. Then there is Agriculture and Fisheries, national governments make sure their farmers get their subsidies on time while the British keep English farmers waiting, and the Scottish Fisheries Dept has already made a cut in English fishing quotas along the East Coast. The list goes on, and in every dept the nations are able to protect their people from the sufferance of seeing their domestic policies being decided by the corrupt incompetent fraudsters in the UK British Parliament; from ID Cards, to Road Pricing to bin collections, the national parliaments decide themselves what is best for their people and do not have to accept the wishes of the British Government, and invariably do not.
The British do not wish to recognise England and Englishness because it gives them a problem with their identity, so they are trying to solve it by supplanting the name Britain for England and forcing an invented indigenous British multi-cultural identity on our nation.
The West Lothian Question
Why should MPs elected by the countries of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland into the British UK Parliament be allowed to debate and vote on policies that only apply to England, when British MPs elected by England to the UK Parliament can not debate and vote on policies that only apply to their countries.
The reason they can’t is because these countries have their own parliaments and another set of MPs deciding their policies.
The result of their interference in English legislation has already resulted in England being forced down the road of NHS privatisation with Foundation Hospitals, and also forced our University students to pay Top Up fees, and most recently influenced the stopping of trials by Jury for certain offences.
The English Question
Who rules England – Why should British MPs elected in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland be allowed to be head of English only departments deciding English Domestic Policies when they can not force those same policies onto their own nations that elected them, and one as even made himself Prime Minister.
-----------------------------------------------
We must not forget that our troubles began in 1997 when a gang of Scottish conspirators and Europhiles (Gordon Brown, Alistair Darling and the disgraced speaker Michael Martin amongst them) who had signed an oath in 1989 vowing to put the interests of Scotland before that of every other nation (The Scottish Claim of Right) suddenly found themselves in control of a New British Labour Government. These British MPs elected by Scotland promoted themselves to all of the major ministerial posts in government and wasted little time in honouring that oath when in less than a year they complied with EU legislation and began the break up of the United Kingdom and headed for Scottish independence by bringing in the Devolution Acts of 1998.
It must also never be forgotten that although the Welsh and Irish British MPs spoke up for their countries nationhood, England’s elected British MPs elected to represent England failed to do so, and so England’s nationhood was not recognised.
From this day British MPs can not be trusted to put England’s interests before that of their party.
John Stanhope
West Midlands
tel - 01902 630110
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