It has been some time since I last blogged because I thought the April 2010 one said it all, however I am now so angry with the British over their treatment of England’s University students I am going to start again and this is more than a rant.
England and its citizens are suffering more prejudice and discrimination than citizens in any other part of the United Kingdom because England has no voice. British political parties show more support and less discrimination against those citizens in places like Jersey, Guernsey, and the little isle of Man than they do of those in England, their citizens at least have been given a voice and separate representation in the British / Irish ‘Council of the Isles’ to which England and its citizens are denied. This action by the British and Irish governments amounts to outright racism against the people of England and the English nation, and it is being supported by all of those countries of the UK that attend it. The objective of this British / Irish ‘Council of the Isles’ is to promote the harmonious and mutually beneficial development of the relationships between all of the people of these islands, all it appears except those in England.
The people of England are not only suffering discrimination from the British United Kingdom government, but also from our fellow British citizens in other parts of the United Kingdom. Devolution is allowing the people of England to be discriminated against in varying degrees by citizens of all UK national regions without any recourse, one nation, Scotland, has even been given a parliament that can legally legislate against us. A change in government has not seen a change in attitude, and the present economic climate is a bonus it appears to those Ministers and MPs in the coalition who want to continue England’s destruction and discrimination, as we see the sell off of another icon of our identity, and with it the possibility of the Queen’s Head on our stamps, not to mention England’s forests. The British Coalition government says it believes in the Union yet it is deliberately creating policies that are increasing friction, like making unequal cuts and funding across the regions, and offering more devolution to Scotland and Wales, while ignoring England. It is shocking too that it is not only the Tory, and Liberal Parties, but Labour and the entire British establishment who are party to this increase in devolution, and even more shocking and an insult, that without consulting England the British have agreed to the Welsh referendum in March 2011 that will decide if Wales too wants the same legal right to legislate and discriminate against England and their fellow United Kingdom citizens, while at the same time refusing to answer the West Lothian Question.
If Wales gets its Law making parliament in May, England will be at the mercy of Laws made in the parliaments of the EU, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Channel Isles, Isle of Man, and a UK parliament full of British Racists.
There are no boundaries as far as the British are concerned when it comes to England’s discrimination, its citizens, young and old alike, rich, poor, the dying the sick, they treat all with contempt compared to how the government’s of national regions treat their citizens, besides which they are systematically dismantling England and selling off its icons of identity.
Fight the Fees
At present it is the British Education Policy for England that is taking central focus in the media, and discrimination against England could not be shown more clearly than the injustice that has been metered out to England’s University students. Increases in tuition fees that the British are forcing England’s students to pay compared with fees that the national governments of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland are going to ask off theirs and EU students is not only unfair, it is grotesque, in what the British keep telling us is a United Kingdom.
This power of discrimination against England’s students was first felt in the 1999 Scottish government elections, when the abolition of University tuition fees became a major issue in the forming of the Lab / Lib coalition that governed Scotland 1999/2003. The Liberal Party stood by its manifesto pledge and the coalition depended on the Labour Party’s acceptance of the Liberal Policy; a deal which saw the abolition of tuition fees for Scotland’s domiciled students and for students attending Scottish Universities from Europe. A deal however that denied that same privilege to students attending Scottish Universities from other parts of the UK, even those from England whose nation was being forced to subsidise the deal with their taxes. The Liberal Party cry then was and still is “Going to University must be decided on the ability to learn, not the ability to pay” which obviously is now a cry being taken up by all of our national governments, and refers to cheap or free education for their own and European students but as no reference to England’s students, who along with the English nation is helping fund it.
The EU says their students studying in the UK must be treated in the same way as domiciled students are treated in the region that they study, so are entitled to the same discounts and benefits offered by national regional governments. By far the most destructive and discriminating part of EU law on devolution however is the one that came to light in the 1999 Scottish election and the reason why we could not fight England’s discrimination then, and why we can’t now. It is the law of devolution, it gives regional governments the power to discriminate against citizens of other regions within the same State, and it is not being given the full attention it deserves by the media, the full force of which is felt by the English who have No Region, No Defence, and No Voice, and is the reason England must fight tooth and nail to stop any British Government creating and giving the same power to regions in whatever disguise they take within England’s borders, or the English Nation will tear itself apart.
I hope English students can create enough noise to make England’s sleeping nation wake up and realise its discrimination in all areas and not just education, though violence of any sort cannot be condoned. With the outstanding debt of the British state there maybe justifiable reasons to ask students to subsidise their own education, but if we still have a United Kingdom then every student/citizen of it should be made to contribute to the debt equally. Instead, the British are using England’s unrecognised Nation to subsidise the contributions being made by our fellow citizens in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and also those coming here from the European Union, and no matter how much the British Government or the EU tries to convince us otherwise, their devolution policies are not fair, are racially motivated and are against human rights and should not happen in what they keep telling us is a United Kingdom.
Summary
England’s students pay £3290 now but are being made to meet the full cost of their University tuition fees from 2012 because of British cuts to England’s funding. Students will then pay between £6000 and £9000 a year for a 3year degree course at any University in England, which if you add on living costs arrives at a figure between £40,000 and £50,000 for the 3 year course at a minimum. The British Government allows England’s students a loan but are reducing its size, and it appears the low fixed rate of interest they now pay on it could be removed and opened up to market forces increasing its cost, besides which the government grant EMA is being removed. The student does not have to pay the tuition fees up front and the loan does not have to be paid back until the student is earning £21,000 at which point they start paying back 9% of their earnings; the loan taking an average student an estimated 30years to pay off. European students pay the same fees as England’s students if they study at England’s Universities, unless they or their parents have lived for the 3 years previously in either Scotland, Wales, or Northern Ireland, when instead they will pay the fees decided by the respective governments of the nation lived in, EU students can even get extra help if they have lived for 3years in the Channel Isles or the Isle of Man. It is also a fact that even now before the rise in tuition fees takes effect that less than a third of EU students have been paying back their fees, which beggars the question of whether the British are a willing partner in subsidising these EU students at English Universities.
Fees to be paid by Scottish, Welsh, Northern Irish, and EU students living in those countries are still under revision, also under revision are the fees that these countries are going to charge England’s students that attend their Universities, but;
Scotland’s domiciled Scottish students do not pay top up fees at any UK University now and are not expected to pay any after the revision and they also get a better deal on living costs. EU students with the 3year qualification qualify for the same benefits the domiciled Scots get now and it is debatable whether they can be charged any differently after the revision?
English/Welsh/NI students attending Scottish Universities after revision are expected to be charged the same fees that the British charge English students in England, to stop the exodus from England for cheaper fees.
Only England’s students are guaranteed to be forced to pay the full fees in Scotland however, because the Welsh and Northern Irish governments have given a guarantee of funding to their students to keep their fees at the £3290 a year they pay now.
Welsh domiciled students studying at Universities in Wales and EU students with the 3year qualification pay £3290 a year now but get a grant of £1890 towards it off the government, fees are not expected to change after the revision. Tuition fees for English/Scottish and N. Irish students attending Welsh Universities are expected to rise after the revision to meet those set by the British for England, for the reasons given above. It will only be the English however who pay the full fee because the Scots pay nothing and the N. Irish government have given the guarantee that their students will not pay more than the £3290 they pay now.
I have just been shown page six of today’s SUN newspaper, Wednesday 29th December 2010 and it should go down in history, and it just about sums up what these British Racists think of the people of England. David Willetts the Minister for England’s University Education says the Coalition Government is going to subsidise the tuition fees and living costs of England’s University students, but only for those children of service personnel killed in action, in other words the British expect the English to give their lives for what others get for doing nothing, unbelievable.
Unless England becomes a national region within the United Kingdom and Europe with its own English Parliament, Brussels will continue to recognise England to be a Britain, the part left over from British devolution in 1998, and will leave England, its people, its culture, and its assets to the mercy of a British government that is denying the English Nation its political and constitutional existence, and to any other United Kingdom nation that wants to discriminate against it.
Wednesday 29 December 2010
Saturday 17 April 2010
Devolution 1998 – England’s war of 1066 proportions
Devolution forced on the UK by Europe’s regional policies saw the British because of Scottish influence adopt a system of devolution that regionalised the United Kingdom along national boundaries. It was obvious that any devolution that gave political and constitutional recognition along national lines would strengthen a nation’s individual national identity and weaken the British State, so to protect the British identity devolution 1998 denied the English Nation and England itself any political or constitutional recognition.
Pulling out of the EU and abandoning their regional policies or creating a new British federal state, are not options the British are considering. Yet!
After being subdued by a British Government for centuries the Scottish fortunes have now been turned around, and Scotland with its own parliament is now in a much stronger position to gain concessions off the British to prevent the country seeking independence. The British are already showing they are open to this bribery with the most obvious being their refusal to make changes to the Barnet funding formula that gives Scotland £12 billion a year more than England, and the bailing out of Scottish banks which they have promised England will take the brunt of paying for. Just how far the British are prepared to go in this direction could be seen to depend on how long the people of England are going to stand by and let this bribery continue.
By adopting an asymmetrical form of devolution that gave political and constitutional recognition to all UK countries except England, the British have retained the power to manipulate English Domestic policies to their own advantage. The British are using this power to reinforce their identity on the people of England and we are seeing a forceful encouragement of Britishness that wants to break up our country into regions to stop us gaining that unitary political existence and nationhood.
This is England Today
Since 1998 the English have been the only nation in the United Kingdom without a National Parliament and the only nation not able to defend and protect itself against ‘British’ Domestic and EU Polices, giving British Nationalists a free hand to destroy England’s unity and culture by allowing them to break up England into their 9 multicultural ‘British’ Regions, and apply EU laws with impunity.
Since 1998 England has been marginalised by devolution, constitutionally, politically, financially, economically and culturally.
By virtue of their national institutions Scotland and Wales have a distinct and separate political, constitutional existence and nationhood, England however does not constitutionally exist and is being denied its nationhood.
The Devolution Acts of 1998 revoked the Act of Union, revoked the concept of one British Nation with one legislative body of government, and revoked the principle of representative democracy. It unbalanced the Union by placing England, Scotland and Wales each in a different relationship with the Union and each other, and it institutionalised discrimination against the people of England.
The Devolution Acts of 1998 abolished representative democracy as the untouchable 1st principle of government. By what is understood to be the West Lothian issue, British MPs elected in Scotland can be both ministers and legislators,even Prime
Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Home Secretary in English matters without being answerable in elections for their actions in those matters to ‘any electorate’ either in Scotland or England.
England is being broken up into British Regions and is losing its unitary existence to the disadvantage of the English Nation to whom it denies nationhood and political representation. British nationalists claim that England does not need any separate representation because they say the interests of England are best served by its British MPs; this is an untruth as they could have said the same about the interests of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, and there would have been no need for the Devolution Acts of 1998 and the UK could have remained with one united parliament.
It is impossible to see how England can be best served by its British MPs when you consider how the British political system works. The United Kingdom Parliament’s House of Commons is not divided up into four national sectors with British MPs sitting in the sector of the country that elected them, the house divides on party political lines, the government on one side and the opposition on the other. What this means is that England’s elected representative British MPs are always divided and are always under the control of their separate political party whips, and who has ever seen or will see, or can imagine Labour and Conservative MPs sitting in English constituency seats defying their party whips to the extent of combining to defeat and bring down their own respective governments.
With England’s political and constitutional recognition England could decide its own form of local government and 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 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 always in danger of losing out; an English Parliament would therefore not only be a stronger lobbying force in the UK and in the EU but it would be better placed to distribute the funds more evenly across England.
There is nothing to stop an English Parliament from deciding on a regional form of local government, the difference between an English Parliament deciding on the option and a UK British Parliament deciding, is that the first option rightly gives
England and its nation their political and constitutional recognition and the second deny it, disproving again British Nationalist claims that their MPs elected from English constituencies act in England’s best interests.
England is further disenfranchised in representation in the House of Lords, in which members from other countries in the UK and abroad, unaccountable to the English electorate, are able to revise and modify laws that only apply to England, when they can not do so for Scotland and Northern Ireland.
‘The British / Irish Council’ known as the ‘Council of the Isles’ which
promotes the harmonious and mutually beneficial development of the totality of relationships among the peoples of these islands, ( British gibberish) which has representatives from Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Jersey, Guernsey and even the Isle of Man, is not allowed an independent representative from England.
Since Labours Devolution Acts of 1998 and their subsequent immigration policies, which included signing up to an EU open border policy, our country has been inundated with people from Europe’s 450 million inhabitants and England our homeland is no longer our own, and with each nation in the EU retaining power over its own citizenship a rogue nation could invite the world's population to our doorstep. By denying England its political and constitutional identity the nation is also being denied its ability to protect its own assets and culture, and the British are exploiting this situation by selling assets that would sustain England’s identity and are fostering a British Multiculturism on England that is encouraging the rise of alien cultures at its nation’s expense.
Compare this with the nations of Scotland and Wales who have recognition and have a parliament with responsibility for their own nation’s education and training programs. While British Multiculturism on England is based around a false premise of Britishness, and encourages cohesion from the outside by downplaying England’s identity, the Scots and Welsh are able to do the opposite and are encouraging cohesion from the inside. Through the school curriculum all children in Scotland and Wales are now being reared and educated to have strong Scottish and Welsh national identities and knowledge of their own individual Scottish and Welsh history and heritage. The British have also given each country a separate TV channel to help them regenerate their old languages, and the Welsh language is now being taught in the schools of Wales. The British have also allowed these nations similar ‘Sports and Art’ programs backed up by other separate television channels, a BBC Scotland, BBC Wales and a BBC Northern Ireland, and they have the added bonus of separate tourist boards who promote their own distinct Scottish and Welsh cultures.
While British Multiculturism is always demoting, a Scottish and Welsh Multiculturism is always promoting, and an obvious difference between the two was seen in the celebrations after the recent Olympic Games. England having won more Gold Medals in this Olympic Games than it had in its entire history in the competition, not only saw its winners denied their English identity in the media, but also saw their entire nation denied separate celebrations by the British on their return. Scottish and Welsh competitors on the other hand were applauded by the media and their nation status made headline news each time a medal came their way. Consider the difference too when the Scottish and Welsh competitors returned home, each nation held their own separate celebrations in Edinburgh and Cardiff with the added bonus of also being allowed to participate in the separate British celebrations in London.
Scotland, Wales, and Ireland are also allowed to promote their own separate identities and culture through labelling, especially food items, a lot of which now sport their national flags. Controversially in England, the ‘Dairy Crest’ company re-branded their ‘English Country Life Butter’ ‘British Country Life Butter’ with British government approval when the French recently acquired the brand outright.
Out of a grand total of 549 British MPs sent to the UK Parliament to represent the interests of the people of England, only 34 of them voted in favour of an EDM that called for England’s St. George to be honoured with a national day’s holiday, yet they knew they had already allowed Scotland a national holiday for St. Andrew’s Day.
Only in England is a false history of a multicultural Britishness being used to deny the people and their children their heritage. Only in England is its nation having obstacles put in its way to prevent its recognition and existence, and only on England are the British pursuing a vigorous policy of Multiculturism that is amounting to the cultural genocide of its standing nation with the introduction of their new licensing laws, health and safety regulations, public order offences, liability insurance requirements,and their political correctness and human rights policies.
Constitutional and political recognition for England would see British Multiculturism replaced with an English Multiculturism like that of Scotland and Wales that could encourage and promote England’s national identity to engage all from the inside, allowing all the people of England with a British qualification to identify with the country in which they live, the very essence of which would unite England’s people under one banner like is happening in Scotland and Wales, and an English Parliament would be the centre of gravity around which all could work together to carve out a new English identity. Britishness would then be promoted throughout the UK in its true category as the requirements and responsibilities of state citizenship.
Devolution 1998 the cause of the UK’s instability was the result of pressure being put on British Nationalists in the UK Parliament by a disillusioned Scotland and a UK Parliament that wanted to comply with the European Union’s Regional Policies that demanded it. If the devolutionary powers given to Scotland had been given to England, the simplest way to avoid a constitutional controversy, England would have received the same powers over its own domestic policies as those listed below and the UK would have held onto reserved issues.
Under the Scotland Act 1998, the Scottish Parliament can make primary and secondary legislation in Areas not reserved to Westminster or protected from modification.
* Health * Local Government * Social Work
* Education and Training * Housing * Planning
* Tourism * Economic development and financial assistance to industry
* Some aspects of transport, 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 gained by the Devolved Nations
* 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)
Similar powers have been given to Wales with the only exception being it has yet to be given jurisdiction over Primary Legislation.
You don’t have to be the brain of Britain to realise that when the UK’s British Government talks about any of the above institutions, appoints Ministers over them, and passes laws on them, that what they say and do can only apply to England, yet the media are aiding and abetting the government by not making this clear to the English general public.
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
You don’t have to be the brain of Britain either to realise that the UK Parliament’s ‘Reserved Responsibilities’ and their sovereign powers are wanted and are gradually being surrendered by the British to the EU. Giving up your sovereign rights means you are handing over the supreme and indisputable power to rule on those rights to the EU, and how far the British are prepared to go down that path depends on the whims of which political party is in power in the UK Parliament, and not its UK subjects who are being denied a referendum on the issue. If the
EU gains enough power the UK will be at its mercy, England therefore needs its political and constitutional recognition now before that point is reached in order to defend itself against British MPs who have proved themselves unworthy of our trust, and have shown that they are prepared to put their own interests and those of their party before England’s.
Looking at the UK list of powers devolved to Scotland and Wales, by far the most important thing every person living in England should be aware of and realise, is that the list is a list of national powers, powers given to the national parliaments of Scotland and Wales who appoint their own ministers over them, they are national institutions.
While Scotland and Wales have national institutions and can control their own policies nationally across all of their country England can not because England has no unitary existence. If we look at the health services we see that England is heading in the direction of privatisation by being subjected to a Health Service that is not a National Health Service in the sense of the word at all, but a British based regional system of Primary Care Trusts and Foundation Hospitals. Half of English hospitals are already out of Ministerial control and it is said all will be by 2012; we must not forget that this situation has been forced on England by Scotland’s elected British MPs against the wishes of those British MPs representing England after rejecting the system for their own Scottish nation. It must not be forgotten that it is these Scottish MPs that destroyed the English National Health Service and forced it into the regional based British Health Service we have now.
England’s regional based Foundation hospitals have been given huge sums of tax payer’s money by the British and conduct their own affairs free of British interference and are allowed to adopt differing policies and priorities in order to meet British set targets. They are run like businesses and are free to use the market as they see fit which is creating huge differences of care across England known as the post code lottery, which wouldn’t happen in a national based system. We are even seeing some of these hospitals paying for and building their own hospitals in other countries, outside of the EU too, and it is also being reported that they are selling first class drugs intended for English patients abroad for profit, while English patients go short or receive the cheaper options.
The NHS of Scotland and Wales provides equality of care for all of their people regardless of what part of their country people live in, and care is not dependent on a post code lottery; their hospitals do not have the same restraints put on them as those in England have because 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 the National Parliaments also get additional payments every year made to them because the funding formula called Barnet 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 England, which they use to bolster their own welfare system.
A National Parliament’s first priority is to the nation it serves and Scottish and Welsh national achievements since devolution are things England can only dream about and some are listed below.
*Free Prescription charges
*Free Eye Tests
*Free Dental Check Ups and reduced charges
*Free personal Care in Residential Homes - even if their people cross the border into England
*Free School Milk - Better school meals being provided because they are given double England’s subsidy
* The seriously ill are able to receive drugs that are denied to English patients even if their patients are in an English hospital
*Trainee nurses are 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 their NHS
*No Hospital Car Parking Charges
*No Wheel Clamping allowed anywhere in the country
*A fully funded Air Ambulance Service
*No Bridge tolls
*Higher wages to teachers and smaller class sizes in schools
*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, 2009, and probably 2010 has only risen 40% since 1997 (England’s council tax has risen 100% over the same period and increases every year)
*Every young woman between the ages of 20 and 25 is invited for a cervical smear test - in England you have to be 25, by then it is too late for any girl unfortunate enough to get it at a younger age like Jade Goody did.
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 their ECO Towns on Scotland or Wales, or force the extension of airports which they are able to force onto England. Their own Agriculture and Fisheries departments are seeing national governments make sure their farmers get their subsidies on time while the British keep English farmers waiting, some in the mean time going bankrupt, 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 the British Domestic policies that can be forced onto England; from ID Cards, to Road Pricing to bin collections, to council tax, to CTV surveillance and speed cameras, the national parliaments decide for themselves what is best for their people and do not have to accept the wishes of the British Government, and invariably do not.
The Barnet Formula mentioned previously is the mechanism that determines the allocation of resources throughout the United Kingdom and has been in place since the 1970s. It is the formula that decides the size of the Block Grants given to the devolved nations and it is based upon England’s expenditure. It was supposed to be “a convergence formula” based on population based changes, but in practice this has not proved to be the case. Government figures show that instead of converging the opposite is happening, and it is clear that the spending per head of population in England is continually lower to that of the devolved nations and the gap is actually widening.
In 2008 spending in England per head of population was £7,121. In Wales it was £8,139 (14% more), in Scotland £8,623 (21% more) and in Northern Ireland £9,385 (32% more) new figures for 2009 England £7535, Scot £9179 Scots get £1644 more. Since the Scottish Parliament was created in 1998 public spending has outstripped tax generated there by 45%, and in addition Scotland’s two flagship banks, HBOS and RBS have been bailed out by the tax payer.
Basically, every extra pound spent by the UK British Government on England projects automatically triggers an additional 10.66% payout to Scotland, a 6.02% payout to Wales and a 2.87% payout to Northern Ireland. So, for example, this means that any capital projects taking place in England are automatically made a total of 19.55% more expensive, because they instantly trigger extra Barnett Formula funding. This is why the proposed Cross Rail project in England means a financial bonanza in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and it has been estimated that Scotland alone will receive an extra £500 million pounds. Of course, this is a one-way process, capital projects elsewhere in the UK do not result in a single penny of extra funding for England.
But that is not all, when “uniform” adjustments, are made across treasury departments, for example Health, the same increase when applied to an already larger per capita budget naturally results in an even larger additional payout. In theory, these adjustments can be decreases as well as increases, but of course in practice this doesn’t happen.
For example, one of Gordon Brown’s last actions as Chancellor of the Exchequer was to slash England’s British Health Service capital budget by a third, £2.1 billion taken away from the English whilst the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish budgets remained untouched, and of course, any steps taken to return the money to England’s British Health Service will trigger automatic payouts to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The ‘£3000 top-up’ student tuition fees in England are also counted as additional English public expenditure, (because the extra income is spent by our universities). So by putting the burden of tuition fees on English students British MPs triggered a payout to the nations under the Barnett Formula, helping the nations to give their students free tuition.
The Barnett Formula also ensures that the rest of the UK benefits when England receives European Union (EU) funds. This is because the Treasury regards EU funding as UK expenditure, based on the argument that the UK is a net contributor to the EU and therefore EU grants are just money from the UK taxpayer. A large increase in EU funding to England is reflected in the Department Expenditure Limits (DELs) of the relevant English departments. DELs not only set limits on spending but also determine the assigned budget of the devolved nations in conjunction with the Barnett Formula. Therefore, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will receive extra funding from the UK Treasury, even though the intention of the EU was to meet the particular needs of England.
The Barnett Formula isn’t just fuelling resentment in England; it is also funding separation in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Because unequal, asymmetric devolution that deliberately ignores England’s constitutional and political existence is all about separation.
The Barnett Formula itself is expressively based upon nationality, not need. It is specifically and openly all about handing over money to the nations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – money taken in taxes from England.
The argument that these taxes are UK taxes doesn’t hold water. More money is spent in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland than is raised in taxes. The shortfall is made up in England and so it is English taxpayers who pay for the superior services elsewhere.
It is true that rural areas are more expensive to provide services to. But most of Scotland’s population lives in the Central Belt, which can hardly be described as “rural.” Glasgow alone has 40% of the Scottish population, and whereas there is an argument to be made for Wales being a poorer area of the UK and thus needing more funding, this cannot apply to Scotland which is recognised as being the third richest of the 12 EU regions.
Why should taxes on the low-paid in places in the North East of England go to support Edinburgh millionaires? The people of the North East are on average 13% poorer than the people of Scotland, but despite this they receive less government spending. Remember, Joel Barnett who devised the funding formula has said recently it was never intended to be the long term answer, and contradicted Gordon Brown by stressing that it was a population based formula not one based on need, that had run its course and was now grossly unfair to England.
This Barnet Formula will not be changed while England has no constitutional and political existence and England will continue to take the brunt of taxes to pay for British incompetence because of the aggressive nature of British Nationalism.
We have recently had a General Election and nothing changes as we hear the Con/Dem British Nationalist parties of Tory and Liberal continuing to trumpet their support for Scotland and have promised even in the midst of the UK’s Billions of debt that there will be no reduction in their nations funding in the short term; it’s England then that is going to take the brunt of cuts in public expenditure and be subjected to British revenue raising budgets.
England’s troubles began in 1997 when a gang of Scottish conspirators and Europhiles were supported by a United Kingdom Prime Minister backed by English elected British MPs who were prepared to sacrifice England and the English Nation that elected them for the glorification of Scotland and their New Labour Party. Tony Blair was the Prime Minister and Gordon Brown headed the long list of conspirators that included Charles Kennedy the then leader of the Liberal Party, Menzies Campbell his successor, and such people as the disgraced speaker Michael Martin and George Galloway amongst them, who had signed an oath in 1989 known as ‘The Scottish Claim of Right’ swearing to put the interests of Scotland before that of any other nation, and in doing so forced UK’s 1998 Devolution.
From this day British MPs elected from English constituencies can not be trusted to put England’s interests before that of their party.
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 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.
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England and Englishness are something to be positively proud about. It is the right of the people of England to have their own distinct particular English national identity acknowledged within the UK and the EU as those of Scotland and Wales have been acknowledged in the 1998 Devolution legislation.
The British do not wish to recognise England and Englishness because it gives them a problem with their identity and reduces their power, so they are trying to solve it by supplanting the name Britain for England and forcing an invented indigenous British multi-cultural identity onto the English Nation.
Pulling out of the EU and abandoning their regional policies or creating a new British federal state, are not options the British are considering. Yet!
After being subdued by a British Government for centuries the Scottish fortunes have now been turned around, and Scotland with its own parliament is now in a much stronger position to gain concessions off the British to prevent the country seeking independence. The British are already showing they are open to this bribery with the most obvious being their refusal to make changes to the Barnet funding formula that gives Scotland £12 billion a year more than England, and the bailing out of Scottish banks which they have promised England will take the brunt of paying for. Just how far the British are prepared to go in this direction could be seen to depend on how long the people of England are going to stand by and let this bribery continue.
By adopting an asymmetrical form of devolution that gave political and constitutional recognition to all UK countries except England, the British have retained the power to manipulate English Domestic policies to their own advantage. The British are using this power to reinforce their identity on the people of England and we are seeing a forceful encouragement of Britishness that wants to break up our country into regions to stop us gaining that unitary political existence and nationhood.
This is England Today
Since 1998 the English have been the only nation in the United Kingdom without a National Parliament and the only nation not able to defend and protect itself against ‘British’ Domestic and EU Polices, giving British Nationalists a free hand to destroy England’s unity and culture by allowing them to break up England into their 9 multicultural ‘British’ Regions, and apply EU laws with impunity.
Since 1998 England has been marginalised by devolution, constitutionally, politically, financially, economically and culturally.
By virtue of their national institutions Scotland and Wales have a distinct and separate political, constitutional existence and nationhood, England however does not constitutionally exist and is being denied its nationhood.
The Devolution Acts of 1998 revoked the Act of Union, revoked the concept of one British Nation with one legislative body of government, and revoked the principle of representative democracy. It unbalanced the Union by placing England, Scotland and Wales each in a different relationship with the Union and each other, and it institutionalised discrimination against the people of England.
The Devolution Acts of 1998 abolished representative democracy as the untouchable 1st principle of government. By what is understood to be the West Lothian issue, British MPs elected in Scotland can be both ministers and legislators,even Prime
Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Home Secretary in English matters without being answerable in elections for their actions in those matters to ‘any electorate’ either in Scotland or England.
England is being broken up into British Regions and is losing its unitary existence to the disadvantage of the English Nation to whom it denies nationhood and political representation. British nationalists claim that England does not need any separate representation because they say the interests of England are best served by its British MPs; this is an untruth as they could have said the same about the interests of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, and there would have been no need for the Devolution Acts of 1998 and the UK could have remained with one united parliament.
It is impossible to see how England can be best served by its British MPs when you consider how the British political system works. The United Kingdom Parliament’s House of Commons is not divided up into four national sectors with British MPs sitting in the sector of the country that elected them, the house divides on party political lines, the government on one side and the opposition on the other. What this means is that England’s elected representative British MPs are always divided and are always under the control of their separate political party whips, and who has ever seen or will see, or can imagine Labour and Conservative MPs sitting in English constituency seats defying their party whips to the extent of combining to defeat and bring down their own respective governments.
With England’s political and constitutional recognition England could decide its own form of local government and 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 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 always in danger of losing out; an English Parliament would therefore not only be a stronger lobbying force in the UK and in the EU but it would be better placed to distribute the funds more evenly across England.
There is nothing to stop an English Parliament from deciding on a regional form of local government, the difference between an English Parliament deciding on the option and a UK British Parliament deciding, is that the first option rightly gives
England and its nation their political and constitutional recognition and the second deny it, disproving again British Nationalist claims that their MPs elected from English constituencies act in England’s best interests.
England is further disenfranchised in representation in the House of Lords, in which members from other countries in the UK and abroad, unaccountable to the English electorate, are able to revise and modify laws that only apply to England, when they can not do so for Scotland and Northern Ireland.
‘The British / Irish Council’ known as the ‘Council of the Isles’ which
promotes the harmonious and mutually beneficial development of the totality of relationships among the peoples of these islands, ( British gibberish) which has representatives from Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Jersey, Guernsey and even the Isle of Man, is not allowed an independent representative from England.
Since Labours Devolution Acts of 1998 and their subsequent immigration policies, which included signing up to an EU open border policy, our country has been inundated with people from Europe’s 450 million inhabitants and England our homeland is no longer our own, and with each nation in the EU retaining power over its own citizenship a rogue nation could invite the world's population to our doorstep. By denying England its political and constitutional identity the nation is also being denied its ability to protect its own assets and culture, and the British are exploiting this situation by selling assets that would sustain England’s identity and are fostering a British Multiculturism on England that is encouraging the rise of alien cultures at its nation’s expense.
Compare this with the nations of Scotland and Wales who have recognition and have a parliament with responsibility for their own nation’s education and training programs. While British Multiculturism on England is based around a false premise of Britishness, and encourages cohesion from the outside by downplaying England’s identity, the Scots and Welsh are able to do the opposite and are encouraging cohesion from the inside. Through the school curriculum all children in Scotland and Wales are now being reared and educated to have strong Scottish and Welsh national identities and knowledge of their own individual Scottish and Welsh history and heritage. The British have also given each country a separate TV channel to help them regenerate their old languages, and the Welsh language is now being taught in the schools of Wales. The British have also allowed these nations similar ‘Sports and Art’ programs backed up by other separate television channels, a BBC Scotland, BBC Wales and a BBC Northern Ireland, and they have the added bonus of separate tourist boards who promote their own distinct Scottish and Welsh cultures.
While British Multiculturism is always demoting, a Scottish and Welsh Multiculturism is always promoting, and an obvious difference between the two was seen in the celebrations after the recent Olympic Games. England having won more Gold Medals in this Olympic Games than it had in its entire history in the competition, not only saw its winners denied their English identity in the media, but also saw their entire nation denied separate celebrations by the British on their return. Scottish and Welsh competitors on the other hand were applauded by the media and their nation status made headline news each time a medal came their way. Consider the difference too when the Scottish and Welsh competitors returned home, each nation held their own separate celebrations in Edinburgh and Cardiff with the added bonus of also being allowed to participate in the separate British celebrations in London.
Scotland, Wales, and Ireland are also allowed to promote their own separate identities and culture through labelling, especially food items, a lot of which now sport their national flags. Controversially in England, the ‘Dairy Crest’ company re-branded their ‘English Country Life Butter’ ‘British Country Life Butter’ with British government approval when the French recently acquired the brand outright.
Out of a grand total of 549 British MPs sent to the UK Parliament to represent the interests of the people of England, only 34 of them voted in favour of an EDM that called for England’s St. George to be honoured with a national day’s holiday, yet they knew they had already allowed Scotland a national holiday for St. Andrew’s Day.
Only in England is a false history of a multicultural Britishness being used to deny the people and their children their heritage. Only in England is its nation having obstacles put in its way to prevent its recognition and existence, and only on England are the British pursuing a vigorous policy of Multiculturism that is amounting to the cultural genocide of its standing nation with the introduction of their new licensing laws, health and safety regulations, public order offences, liability insurance requirements,and their political correctness and human rights policies.
Constitutional and political recognition for England would see British Multiculturism replaced with an English Multiculturism like that of Scotland and Wales that could encourage and promote England’s national identity to engage all from the inside, allowing all the people of England with a British qualification to identify with the country in which they live, the very essence of which would unite England’s people under one banner like is happening in Scotland and Wales, and an English Parliament would be the centre of gravity around which all could work together to carve out a new English identity. Britishness would then be promoted throughout the UK in its true category as the requirements and responsibilities of state citizenship.
Devolution 1998 the cause of the UK’s instability was the result of pressure being put on British Nationalists in the UK Parliament by a disillusioned Scotland and a UK Parliament that wanted to comply with the European Union’s Regional Policies that demanded it. If the devolutionary powers given to Scotland had been given to England, the simplest way to avoid a constitutional controversy, England would have received the same powers over its own domestic policies as those listed below and the UK would have held onto reserved issues.
Under the Scotland Act 1998, the Scottish Parliament can make primary and secondary legislation in Areas not reserved to Westminster or protected from modification.
* Health * Local Government * Social Work
* Education and Training * Housing * Planning
* Tourism * Economic development and financial assistance to industry
* Some aspects of transport, 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 gained by the Devolved Nations
* 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)
Similar powers have been given to Wales with the only exception being it has yet to be given jurisdiction over Primary Legislation.
You don’t have to be the brain of Britain to realise that when the UK’s British Government talks about any of the above institutions, appoints Ministers over them, and passes laws on them, that what they say and do can only apply to England, yet the media are aiding and abetting the government by not making this clear to the English general public.
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
You don’t have to be the brain of Britain either to realise that the UK Parliament’s ‘Reserved Responsibilities’ and their sovereign powers are wanted and are gradually being surrendered by the British to the EU. Giving up your sovereign rights means you are handing over the supreme and indisputable power to rule on those rights to the EU, and how far the British are prepared to go down that path depends on the whims of which political party is in power in the UK Parliament, and not its UK subjects who are being denied a referendum on the issue. If the
EU gains enough power the UK will be at its mercy, England therefore needs its political and constitutional recognition now before that point is reached in order to defend itself against British MPs who have proved themselves unworthy of our trust, and have shown that they are prepared to put their own interests and those of their party before England’s.
Looking at the UK list of powers devolved to Scotland and Wales, by far the most important thing every person living in England should be aware of and realise, is that the list is a list of national powers, powers given to the national parliaments of Scotland and Wales who appoint their own ministers over them, they are national institutions.
While Scotland and Wales have national institutions and can control their own policies nationally across all of their country England can not because England has no unitary existence. If we look at the health services we see that England is heading in the direction of privatisation by being subjected to a Health Service that is not a National Health Service in the sense of the word at all, but a British based regional system of Primary Care Trusts and Foundation Hospitals. Half of English hospitals are already out of Ministerial control and it is said all will be by 2012; we must not forget that this situation has been forced on England by Scotland’s elected British MPs against the wishes of those British MPs representing England after rejecting the system for their own Scottish nation. It must not be forgotten that it is these Scottish MPs that destroyed the English National Health Service and forced it into the regional based British Health Service we have now.
England’s regional based Foundation hospitals have been given huge sums of tax payer’s money by the British and conduct their own affairs free of British interference and are allowed to adopt differing policies and priorities in order to meet British set targets. They are run like businesses and are free to use the market as they see fit which is creating huge differences of care across England known as the post code lottery, which wouldn’t happen in a national based system. We are even seeing some of these hospitals paying for and building their own hospitals in other countries, outside of the EU too, and it is also being reported that they are selling first class drugs intended for English patients abroad for profit, while English patients go short or receive the cheaper options.
The NHS of Scotland and Wales provides equality of care for all of their people regardless of what part of their country people live in, and care is not dependent on a post code lottery; their hospitals do not have the same restraints put on them as those in England have because 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 the National Parliaments also get additional payments every year made to them because the funding formula called Barnet 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 England, which they use to bolster their own welfare system.
A National Parliament’s first priority is to the nation it serves and Scottish and Welsh national achievements since devolution are things England can only dream about and some are listed below.
*Free Prescription charges
*Free Eye Tests
*Free Dental Check Ups and reduced charges
*Free personal Care in Residential Homes - even if their people cross the border into England
*Free School Milk - Better school meals being provided because they are given double England’s subsidy
* The seriously ill are able to receive drugs that are denied to English patients even if their patients are in an English hospital
*Trainee nurses are 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 their NHS
*No Hospital Car Parking Charges
*No Wheel Clamping allowed anywhere in the country
*A fully funded Air Ambulance Service
*No Bridge tolls
*Higher wages to teachers and smaller class sizes in schools
*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, 2009, and probably 2010 has only risen 40% since 1997 (England’s council tax has risen 100% over the same period and increases every year)
*Every young woman between the ages of 20 and 25 is invited for a cervical smear test - in England you have to be 25, by then it is too late for any girl unfortunate enough to get it at a younger age like Jade Goody did.
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 their ECO Towns on Scotland or Wales, or force the extension of airports which they are able to force onto England. Their own Agriculture and Fisheries departments are seeing national governments make sure their farmers get their subsidies on time while the British keep English farmers waiting, some in the mean time going bankrupt, 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 the British Domestic policies that can be forced onto England; from ID Cards, to Road Pricing to bin collections, to council tax, to CTV surveillance and speed cameras, the national parliaments decide for themselves what is best for their people and do not have to accept the wishes of the British Government, and invariably do not.
The Barnet Formula mentioned previously is the mechanism that determines the allocation of resources throughout the United Kingdom and has been in place since the 1970s. It is the formula that decides the size of the Block Grants given to the devolved nations and it is based upon England’s expenditure. It was supposed to be “a convergence formula” based on population based changes, but in practice this has not proved to be the case. Government figures show that instead of converging the opposite is happening, and it is clear that the spending per head of population in England is continually lower to that of the devolved nations and the gap is actually widening.
In 2008 spending in England per head of population was £7,121. In Wales it was £8,139 (14% more), in Scotland £8,623 (21% more) and in Northern Ireland £9,385 (32% more) new figures for 2009 England £7535, Scot £9179 Scots get £1644 more. Since the Scottish Parliament was created in 1998 public spending has outstripped tax generated there by 45%, and in addition Scotland’s two flagship banks, HBOS and RBS have been bailed out by the tax payer.
Basically, every extra pound spent by the UK British Government on England projects automatically triggers an additional 10.66% payout to Scotland, a 6.02% payout to Wales and a 2.87% payout to Northern Ireland. So, for example, this means that any capital projects taking place in England are automatically made a total of 19.55% more expensive, because they instantly trigger extra Barnett Formula funding. This is why the proposed Cross Rail project in England means a financial bonanza in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and it has been estimated that Scotland alone will receive an extra £500 million pounds. Of course, this is a one-way process, capital projects elsewhere in the UK do not result in a single penny of extra funding for England.
But that is not all, when “uniform” adjustments, are made across treasury departments, for example Health, the same increase when applied to an already larger per capita budget naturally results in an even larger additional payout. In theory, these adjustments can be decreases as well as increases, but of course in practice this doesn’t happen.
For example, one of Gordon Brown’s last actions as Chancellor of the Exchequer was to slash England’s British Health Service capital budget by a third, £2.1 billion taken away from the English whilst the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish budgets remained untouched, and of course, any steps taken to return the money to England’s British Health Service will trigger automatic payouts to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The ‘£3000 top-up’ student tuition fees in England are also counted as additional English public expenditure, (because the extra income is spent by our universities). So by putting the burden of tuition fees on English students British MPs triggered a payout to the nations under the Barnett Formula, helping the nations to give their students free tuition.
The Barnett Formula also ensures that the rest of the UK benefits when England receives European Union (EU) funds. This is because the Treasury regards EU funding as UK expenditure, based on the argument that the UK is a net contributor to the EU and therefore EU grants are just money from the UK taxpayer. A large increase in EU funding to England is reflected in the Department Expenditure Limits (DELs) of the relevant English departments. DELs not only set limits on spending but also determine the assigned budget of the devolved nations in conjunction with the Barnett Formula. Therefore, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will receive extra funding from the UK Treasury, even though the intention of the EU was to meet the particular needs of England.
The Barnett Formula isn’t just fuelling resentment in England; it is also funding separation in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Because unequal, asymmetric devolution that deliberately ignores England’s constitutional and political existence is all about separation.
The Barnett Formula itself is expressively based upon nationality, not need. It is specifically and openly all about handing over money to the nations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – money taken in taxes from England.
The argument that these taxes are UK taxes doesn’t hold water. More money is spent in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland than is raised in taxes. The shortfall is made up in England and so it is English taxpayers who pay for the superior services elsewhere.
It is true that rural areas are more expensive to provide services to. But most of Scotland’s population lives in the Central Belt, which can hardly be described as “rural.” Glasgow alone has 40% of the Scottish population, and whereas there is an argument to be made for Wales being a poorer area of the UK and thus needing more funding, this cannot apply to Scotland which is recognised as being the third richest of the 12 EU regions.
Why should taxes on the low-paid in places in the North East of England go to support Edinburgh millionaires? The people of the North East are on average 13% poorer than the people of Scotland, but despite this they receive less government spending. Remember, Joel Barnett who devised the funding formula has said recently it was never intended to be the long term answer, and contradicted Gordon Brown by stressing that it was a population based formula not one based on need, that had run its course and was now grossly unfair to England.
This Barnet Formula will not be changed while England has no constitutional and political existence and England will continue to take the brunt of taxes to pay for British incompetence because of the aggressive nature of British Nationalism.
We have recently had a General Election and nothing changes as we hear the Con/Dem British Nationalist parties of Tory and Liberal continuing to trumpet their support for Scotland and have promised even in the midst of the UK’s Billions of debt that there will be no reduction in their nations funding in the short term; it’s England then that is going to take the brunt of cuts in public expenditure and be subjected to British revenue raising budgets.
England’s troubles began in 1997 when a gang of Scottish conspirators and Europhiles were supported by a United Kingdom Prime Minister backed by English elected British MPs who were prepared to sacrifice England and the English Nation that elected them for the glorification of Scotland and their New Labour Party. Tony Blair was the Prime Minister and Gordon Brown headed the long list of conspirators that included Charles Kennedy the then leader of the Liberal Party, Menzies Campbell his successor, and such people as the disgraced speaker Michael Martin and George Galloway amongst them, who had signed an oath in 1989 known as ‘The Scottish Claim of Right’ swearing to put the interests of Scotland before that of any other nation, and in doing so forced UK’s 1998 Devolution.
From this day British MPs elected from English constituencies can not be trusted to put England’s interests before that of their party.
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 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.
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England and Englishness are something to be positively proud about. It is the right of the people of England to have their own distinct particular English national identity acknowledged within the UK and the EU as those of Scotland and Wales have been acknowledged in the 1998 Devolution legislation.
The British do not wish to recognise England and Englishness because it gives them a problem with their identity and reduces their power, so they are trying to solve it by supplanting the name Britain for England and forcing an invented indigenous British multi-cultural identity onto the English Nation.
Wednesday 31 March 2010
England, the sacrificial lamb
Once again it appears that England's interests are to be sacrificed on the altar of the Union.
The Scottish Government is demanding that the Scottish portion of the DEFRA budget be handed over to Scotland's control before any of the planned cuts are made, thereby causing the cuts to fall even more heavily on England.
This demand follows the recent assurances from the Conservative Party that they will ‘respect’ the budget passed by the Scottish Government, an offer that has now also been extended to Wales. In other words, as an editorial in The Scotsman has pointed out, "England will see painful cuts over the next 12 months, while Scotland will escape relatively unscathed."[*]
For how much longer must England and her people be treated with this cavalier contempt? At what point will the British Government realise that it has to treat all its citizens equally if the Union is to survive? Or will it keep putting this off until it is too late?
David Wildgoose
CAMPAIGN FOR AN ENGLISH PARLIAMENT
Contacts: cep@skein.co.uk or 07906 551 417
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.
Fight against British Racism – Fight against racism directed against England and the English
The Scottish Government is demanding that the Scottish portion of the DEFRA budget be handed over to Scotland's control before any of the planned cuts are made, thereby causing the cuts to fall even more heavily on England.
This demand follows the recent assurances from the Conservative Party that they will ‘respect’ the budget passed by the Scottish Government, an offer that has now also been extended to Wales. In other words, as an editorial in The Scotsman has pointed out, "England will see painful cuts over the next 12 months, while Scotland will escape relatively unscathed."[*]
For how much longer must England and her people be treated with this cavalier contempt? At what point will the British Government realise that it has to treat all its citizens equally if the Union is to survive? Or will it keep putting this off until it is too late?
David Wildgoose
CAMPAIGN FOR AN ENGLISH PARLIAMENT
Contacts: cep@skein.co.uk or 07906 551 417
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.
Fight against British Racism – Fight against racism directed against England and the English
Wednesday 3 March 2010
Battlebus at Birmingham, Bromsgrove and Worcester
The CEP Battlebus will be arriving in Birmingham on Saturday 6th March, meet at Victoria Square 10am, come along and find out about the 'Campaign for an English Parliament, or if you are a member come along and help the campaign.
On Sunday 7th March the Battlebus will stop at Bromsgrove Asda 10am to hand out leaflets to helpers before touring round and continuing its tour to arrive at the Car Park opposite the Slug and Lettuce in Worcester at 12 pm.
On Sunday 7th March the Battlebus will stop at Bromsgrove Asda 10am to hand out leaflets to helpers before touring round and continuing its tour to arrive at the Car Park opposite the Slug and Lettuce in Worcester at 12 pm.
Saturday 27 February 2010
DO YOU KNOW WHAT IT MEANS TO BE ENGLISH?
I don’t know what it means to be English, because I’ve never been anything else
I am not proud of being English, or think I am better or worse than anyone else
It’s what I am, and I am what I am, and if I’d have been born into any other nation
I would have felt the same and said again without even hesitation
It’s what I am, and I am what I am, a member of that nation
To the British I say this:
I know who I am, and so do you, and we know who you are, and we all know each other, and to pretend otherwise is hypocritical.
What is the difference between being British and being English?
The difference between being British and being English is easily explained;
“If England is playing football against any other country you will always find British people that support the opposing team.
An Englishman would never change his loyalty no matter how bad his team turned out to be.”
Quote by J.M.STANHOPE
I say to Gordon Brown and the rest of the British establishment what Rudyard Kipling’s Norman Barron said to his son and heir has he lay on his death bed.
“The Saxon’s not like the Norman, his manners are not so polite
But he never means anything serious, till he talks about justice and right
When he stands like an ox in the furrow with his sullen eyes on your own
And grumbles “this isn’t fair dealing my son” leave the Saxon alone.”
It is only fair that England and its Nation are given their constitutional
and political identities.
FOLLOW THE CEP BATTLEBUS TOUR AROUND ENGLAND
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1o-lLsm5ho
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.
Fight against British Racism – Fight against racism directed against England and the English
I am not proud of being English, or think I am better or worse than anyone else
It’s what I am, and I am what I am, and if I’d have been born into any other nation
I would have felt the same and said again without even hesitation
It’s what I am, and I am what I am, a member of that nation
To the British I say this:
I know who I am, and so do you, and we know who you are, and we all know each other, and to pretend otherwise is hypocritical.
What is the difference between being British and being English?
The difference between being British and being English is easily explained;
“If England is playing football against any other country you will always find British people that support the opposing team.
An Englishman would never change his loyalty no matter how bad his team turned out to be.”
Quote by J.M.STANHOPE
I say to Gordon Brown and the rest of the British establishment what Rudyard Kipling’s Norman Barron said to his son and heir has he lay on his death bed.
“The Saxon’s not like the Norman, his manners are not so polite
But he never means anything serious, till he talks about justice and right
When he stands like an ox in the furrow with his sullen eyes on your own
And grumbles “this isn’t fair dealing my son” leave the Saxon alone.”
It is only fair that England and its Nation are given their constitutional
and political identities.
FOLLOW THE CEP BATTLEBUS TOUR AROUND ENGLAND
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1o-lLsm5ho
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.
Fight against British Racism – Fight against racism directed against England and the English
Saturday 20 February 2010
Come along and catch the Bus
The Campaign for an English Parliament has loaded up its Battlewagon and heads for Cambridge to start a nation wide tour of England.
A large lorry with a banner and speakers will be touring England’s major towns and cities over the next 4 weeks in a publicity campaign promoting an English Parliament.
The people of England are being starved of information by the media at the behest of a British Government who are trying to promote a British Regionalism on England and are strangling publicity on the results and consequences this is having for England and an English Nation without political recognition.
Besides touring smaller towns and villages on the way the Battle bus will be stopping in the following places to meet you, hand out leaflets, and answer your questions.
22nd February the Battle bus will begin its tour and spend the day at Cambridge then move each day to the next location.
23rd Norwich 24th Nottingham 25th Leeds – 26th Hull 27th York
28th Middlesbrough -1st March Sunderland and Newcastle 2nd Carlisle - 3rd Lakes
4th Liverpool - 5th Manchester 6th Birmingham - 7th Hereford - 8th Bristol
9th Bath - 10th Exeter - 11th Lands End - 12th Plymouth 13th Bournemouth
14th Isle of White 15th Portsmouth - 16th Brighton - 17th Maidstone
18th Reading - 19th Oxford - 20th Watford / St Albans 21st March London.
Can I count on your support, no matter how small or limited?
To maximize the impact of this event would you like to volunteer
to due any of the following -
• Alert people to the campaign and ask for their support
• Write/call your local radio/newspaper to highlight the Bus’ presence
• Hand out leaflets
• Take photos/videos for us to post on YouTube or the CEP website
You, as a local person, will have a far greater impact on the opinion makers in your community.
A well organized event, such as this, can have a seismic effect on our campaign’s effectiveness.
PLEASE offer your support!
Please give the following contact numbers –
To catch the bus ring its mobile number and talk to Eddie – 07980667732
Ian Campbell CEP Media Unit - 0845 6346 108
www.thecep.org.uk www.cepwestmidlands.blogspot.com
J.Stanhope
West Midlands Campaign for an English Parliament
01902 630110
A large lorry with a banner and speakers will be touring England’s major towns and cities over the next 4 weeks in a publicity campaign promoting an English Parliament.
The people of England are being starved of information by the media at the behest of a British Government who are trying to promote a British Regionalism on England and are strangling publicity on the results and consequences this is having for England and an English Nation without political recognition.
Besides touring smaller towns and villages on the way the Battle bus will be stopping in the following places to meet you, hand out leaflets, and answer your questions.
22nd February the Battle bus will begin its tour and spend the day at Cambridge then move each day to the next location.
23rd Norwich 24th Nottingham 25th Leeds – 26th Hull 27th York
28th Middlesbrough -1st March Sunderland and Newcastle 2nd Carlisle - 3rd Lakes
4th Liverpool - 5th Manchester 6th Birmingham - 7th Hereford - 8th Bristol
9th Bath - 10th Exeter - 11th Lands End - 12th Plymouth 13th Bournemouth
14th Isle of White 15th Portsmouth - 16th Brighton - 17th Maidstone
18th Reading - 19th Oxford - 20th Watford / St Albans 21st March London.
Can I count on your support, no matter how small or limited?
To maximize the impact of this event would you like to volunteer
to due any of the following -
• Alert people to the campaign and ask for their support
• Write/call your local radio/newspaper to highlight the Bus’ presence
• Hand out leaflets
• Take photos/videos for us to post on YouTube or the CEP website
You, as a local person, will have a far greater impact on the opinion makers in your community.
A well organized event, such as this, can have a seismic effect on our campaign’s effectiveness.
PLEASE offer your support!
Please give the following contact numbers –
To catch the bus ring its mobile number and talk to Eddie – 07980667732
Ian Campbell CEP Media Unit - 0845 6346 108
www.thecep.org.uk www.cepwestmidlands.blogspot.com
J.Stanhope
West Midlands Campaign for an English Parliament
01902 630110
Tuesday 16 February 2010
SHARE THE PAIN THAT YOUR BANKS CAUSED
Thanks to a Scottish Prime Minister and a Scottish Chancellor, the people of England along with their children and grandchildren have been saddled with paying off enormous debts incurred by the wanton profligacy of the Royal Bank of Scotland and Halifax Bank of Scotland.
Now the First Minister of Scotland, Alex Salmond, is demanding that Scotland's already over-generous Barnett subsidies should be continued untouched, thereby leaving the enormous burden of the Scottish bank bail-out to fall primarily on public services in England whilst leaving Scotland unscathed.
With no Parliament and Politicians of our own to speak up for us and defend our interests, the Campaign for an English Parliament wishes to remind the British Government that any attempt to make England suffer an unfair share of the burden will be neither understood nor forgiven.
Ref: "Hands off Scotland's grant, warns Alex Salmond"
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/news/Hands-off-Scotland39s-grant-warns.6071256.jp
Now the First Minister of Scotland, Alex Salmond, is demanding that Scotland's already over-generous Barnett subsidies should be continued untouched, thereby leaving the enormous burden of the Scottish bank bail-out to fall primarily on public services in England whilst leaving Scotland unscathed.
With no Parliament and Politicians of our own to speak up for us and defend our interests, the Campaign for an English Parliament wishes to remind the British Government that any attempt to make England suffer an unfair share of the burden will be neither understood nor forgiven.
Ref: "Hands off Scotland's grant, warns Alex Salmond"
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/news/Hands-off-Scotland39s-grant-warns.6071256.jp
Wednesday 10 February 2010
Did you know that?
Did you know that the Westminster Parliament in London is not an English Parliament; it is the parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland a ‘BRITISH’ Parliament?
Did you know that the United Kingdom of Great Britain was created in 1707 when England and Scotland gave up their own separate Kingdom’s to be united under one sovereign monarch?
Did you know that by giving up your nation's sovereign rights you are handing over the supreme and indisputable power to rule on those rights to whom you give them? (Today think EU)
Did you know that England and Scotland were made to give up their own separate parliaments and identities in the terms of the ‘Treaty of Union’ and agree to all of the new United Kingdoms subjects taking on its new ‘BRITISH’ identity?
Did you know that Wales was a Principality under England’s control, so Welsh subjects too became part of the new United Kingdom and had to take on its new ‘BRITISH’ identity?
Did you know that articles in the terms of the ‘Treaty of Union’ stated; that all subjects of the United Kingdom of Great Britain shall have full communication of all rights, privileges and advantages, which do or may belong to the subjects of either kingdom, and that all parts of the United Kingdom shall have the same allowances, encouragements and drawbacks?
Did you know that the ‘British’ United Kingdom Parliament broke those articles of the treaty in 1998 with their Devolution Acts, which denied England’s ‘British’ subjects any entitlement to the rights and privileges that the United Kingdom Parliament gave to Scotland and Wales; namely giving them their own separate National Parliaments while denying a National Parliament to England?
Did you know that a National Parliament recognises the political existence of a nation and gives it the power to defend its borders and cultural identity?
Did you know that since 1998 England has been the only nation in the United Kingdom without a National Parliament and the only nation not able to defend and protect itself against ‘British’ Domestic Polices, giving the ‘British’ a free hand to destroy England’s unity and culture by allowing them to break up England into their 9 multicultural ‘British’ Regions, and applying their EU laws with impunity?
Did you know that since 1998 the ‘British’ rather than giving England a parliament to politically recognise the ‘English Nation’ have been using the media, especially the BBC, to try and force the ‘English Nation’ into accepting their multicultural ‘British identity? The ‘British’ media and politicians to hoodwink the general public prefer to talk about Britain when they mean England, and prefer to talk of the Brits and British when they mean English, and show their contempt for England when they refer to the ‘Nations and Regions’ of the United Kingdom to deny England and its nation existance.
Did you know that without an English Parliament to defend the cultural assets of the nation the ‘British’ can continue to sell them off until England will not have the means to regenerate its English identity?
Did you know that since 1998 it has been impossible for the United Kingdom British political parties to set out a manifesto, or a British Government to deliver a set of social and domestic policies that would have to apply throughout the whole of the United Kingdom?
The British political parties will be producing separate manifestos for their Nations and their British (England) Regions for the next General Election.
If you love England and want England’s identity to survive you must gain a defence against British Domestic and EU Policies being forced on the English Nation, and the only way you can do that is to gain political recognition for yourself and your country with an English Parliament. Don’t let the ‘British’ soft soap you with their bull s—t of needing more MPs, costs, England’s too big etc. rhetoric into accepting their British Regions as an alternative.England’s and your future depends on it.
England and Englishness are something to be positively proud about. It is the right of the people of England to have their own distinct particular English national identity acknowledged within the UK and the EU as those of Scotland and Wales have been acknowledged in the 1998 Devolution legislation.
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. Are we going to surrender what our ancestors have fought and died for over centuries, have they died for nothing, or are we going to raise our heads and tell these people who would deny us, that England has a nation too and demand that it be recognised.
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.
Fight against British Racism – Fight against racism directed against England and the English
Did you know that the United Kingdom of Great Britain was created in 1707 when England and Scotland gave up their own separate Kingdom’s to be united under one sovereign monarch?
Did you know that by giving up your nation's sovereign rights you are handing over the supreme and indisputable power to rule on those rights to whom you give them? (Today think EU)
Did you know that England and Scotland were made to give up their own separate parliaments and identities in the terms of the ‘Treaty of Union’ and agree to all of the new United Kingdoms subjects taking on its new ‘BRITISH’ identity?
Did you know that Wales was a Principality under England’s control, so Welsh subjects too became part of the new United Kingdom and had to take on its new ‘BRITISH’ identity?
Did you know that articles in the terms of the ‘Treaty of Union’ stated; that all subjects of the United Kingdom of Great Britain shall have full communication of all rights, privileges and advantages, which do or may belong to the subjects of either kingdom, and that all parts of the United Kingdom shall have the same allowances, encouragements and drawbacks?
Did you know that the ‘British’ United Kingdom Parliament broke those articles of the treaty in 1998 with their Devolution Acts, which denied England’s ‘British’ subjects any entitlement to the rights and privileges that the United Kingdom Parliament gave to Scotland and Wales; namely giving them their own separate National Parliaments while denying a National Parliament to England?
Did you know that a National Parliament recognises the political existence of a nation and gives it the power to defend its borders and cultural identity?
Did you know that since 1998 England has been the only nation in the United Kingdom without a National Parliament and the only nation not able to defend and protect itself against ‘British’ Domestic Polices, giving the ‘British’ a free hand to destroy England’s unity and culture by allowing them to break up England into their 9 multicultural ‘British’ Regions, and applying their EU laws with impunity?
Did you know that since 1998 the ‘British’ rather than giving England a parliament to politically recognise the ‘English Nation’ have been using the media, especially the BBC, to try and force the ‘English Nation’ into accepting their multicultural ‘British identity? The ‘British’ media and politicians to hoodwink the general public prefer to talk about Britain when they mean England, and prefer to talk of the Brits and British when they mean English, and show their contempt for England when they refer to the ‘Nations and Regions’ of the United Kingdom to deny England and its nation existance.
Did you know that without an English Parliament to defend the cultural assets of the nation the ‘British’ can continue to sell them off until England will not have the means to regenerate its English identity?
Did you know that since 1998 it has been impossible for the United Kingdom British political parties to set out a manifesto, or a British Government to deliver a set of social and domestic policies that would have to apply throughout the whole of the United Kingdom?
The British political parties will be producing separate manifestos for their Nations and their British (England) Regions for the next General Election.
If you love England and want England’s identity to survive you must gain a defence against British Domestic and EU Policies being forced on the English Nation, and the only way you can do that is to gain political recognition for yourself and your country with an English Parliament. Don’t let the ‘British’ soft soap you with their bull s—t of needing more MPs, costs, England’s too big etc. rhetoric into accepting their British Regions as an alternative.England’s and your future depends on it.
England and Englishness are something to be positively proud about. It is the right of the people of England to have their own distinct particular English national identity acknowledged within the UK and the EU as those of Scotland and Wales have been acknowledged in the 1998 Devolution legislation.
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. Are we going to surrender what our ancestors have fought and died for over centuries, have they died for nothing, or are we going to raise our heads and tell these people who would deny us, that England has a nation too and demand that it be recognised.
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.
Fight against British Racism – Fight against racism directed against England and the English
Tuesday 26 January 2010
CEP: Make St George's Day a public holiday in England
With the countdown to the likely end of Gordon Brown’s premiership well under way, the Campaign for an English Parliament today calls on the Prime Minister to take decisive action in order to prevent history from recording him as the most anti-English Prime Minister ever.
Having signed the Scottish Claim of Right 1988, which asserts the sovereign right of the people of Scotland to adopt the governance of their choosing, it is hypocritical of Gordon Brown to deny the people of England the same sovereign right to choose how England should be governed.
St George's Day on the 23rd April represents an opportunity for Gordon Brown to start making amends. There is massive public support for a national holiday to mark England's national day, and such a national holiday in England would put the people of England on an equal footing with Gordon Brown's own constituents in Scotland who enjoy a public holiday on St Andrew's Day.
On the 23rd April, 2008, Mr Brown declared that "As far as St. George's day is concerned, it is a matter for public debate on whether this is going to be a holiday." What has happened to that public debate and why isn't the Prime Minister leading it? Or does he only do ‘Britishness’? There is still time for Mr Brown to introduce the change this year – and it would a nice pre-election treat for an England weary of politicians who take but never give.
Gareth Young
CAMPAIGN FOR AN ENGLISH PARLIAMENT
23 January 2010
gpy1973@yahoo.co.uk
CEP Tel: 0797 3296 118
A Tribute to St. George's Day http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YF24LZInNB0
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.
Fight against British Racism – Fight against racism directed against England and the English
Having signed the Scottish Claim of Right 1988, which asserts the sovereign right of the people of Scotland to adopt the governance of their choosing, it is hypocritical of Gordon Brown to deny the people of England the same sovereign right to choose how England should be governed.
St George's Day on the 23rd April represents an opportunity for Gordon Brown to start making amends. There is massive public support for a national holiday to mark England's national day, and such a national holiday in England would put the people of England on an equal footing with Gordon Brown's own constituents in Scotland who enjoy a public holiday on St Andrew's Day.
On the 23rd April, 2008, Mr Brown declared that "As far as St. George's day is concerned, it is a matter for public debate on whether this is going to be a holiday." What has happened to that public debate and why isn't the Prime Minister leading it? Or does he only do ‘Britishness’? There is still time for Mr Brown to introduce the change this year – and it would a nice pre-election treat for an England weary of politicians who take but never give.
Gareth Young
CAMPAIGN FOR AN ENGLISH PARLIAMENT
23 January 2010
gpy1973@yahoo.co.uk
CEP Tel: 0797 3296 118
A Tribute to St. George's Day http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YF24LZInNB0
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.
Fight against British Racism – Fight against racism directed against England and the English
Wednesday 20 January 2010
Make them talk of England
Articles 111, 1V and V1 of the Act of Union state that the United Kingdom of Great Britain be represented by one Parliament; that all the subjects of the United Kingdom of Great Britain shall have full communication of all other rights, privileges, and advantages which do or may belong to the subjects of either Kingdom and that all parts of the United Kingdom shall have the same allowances, encouragements and drawbacks.
By allowing Scotland to take back its own parliament in the Devolution Acts 1998 the British Government destabilised the United Kingdom, and in doing so violated the Articles of Union as set out some 300 years ago in 1707 that created the United Kingdom Parliament.
The people of England were never asked if they agreed to this violation and the British MPs elected by England to represent them in the United Kingdom Parliament never explained what the consequences of this action would mean for the English Nation. England’s MPs did however aid and abet the British MPs elected to represent Scotland in explaining to the people of Scotland Scotland’s benefits, and supported the call for a yes vote in a national referendum that gave Scotland a parliament.
The people of England should realise that it was the people of Scotland with their yes vote along with their British MPs who instigated the violation and devolution; the abomination and violation that has allowed the British in their United Kingdom Parliament to ignore the guarantees that were laid down in those Articles to the people of England.
England can not ignore the fact that it was the ordinary Scottish voter whether they knew it or not that has handed the political power to the United Kingdom Parliament that is being used by its British MPs to deny England its political identity, and its people their homeland and their cultural identity.
British MPs who hated England and loved the EU, many elected from Welsh and English constituencies always new what power they would have when giving Scotland a parliament, and so put Scottish MPs in the top ministerial positions to pull it off. Scotland’s MPs have been rewarded by the British in that they have been allowed to dominate most if not all of the most important ministerial positions in the British United Kingdom Parliament ever since, and these MPs have missed no opportunity with their English hating friends in using this new found power over England.
Scottish elected MPs including the UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Chancellor Alistair Darling have been orchestrating policies for the last 12 years which they knew could not apply to their own Scottish Nation that elected them, and have subjected the people of England to a campaign of discrimination bordering on cultural genocide, and have been and are acting as England’s liquidators in selling off the nation’s assets turning the country into England Plc. Even the country itself as not escaped the liquidator as the British hand it over to every Tom, Dick or Harry that wants to come here and be stamped with their British Brand.
England’s guarantee is up and while England is suffering Scotland is prospering at its expense, and its people either enjoy now or have been promised the luxuries of Free Eye Tests, Free Prescription Charges, Free Dental Check Ups and Reduced Charges, Free Personal Care in Residential Homes – even if they cross the border into England, Free School Milk and Better School Meals being provided as they receive double England’s subsidy, Seriously ill patients are able to receive drugs denied to England’s patients even if they are in an English hospital, Trainee nurses kept on an extra year after qualification, Scotland has 80% more nurses,midwives and health visitors,50% more doctors and dentists, teachers get higher pay and they have less pupils per class,No Hospital Parking Charges, No Wheel Clamping allowed anywhere in the country, Students in Universities have fees waived until they are earning over £25,000 per year and have to pay No Top Up Fees, Council tax frozen at 2007 rate and it has only risen by 40% since 1997 while England’s has risen 100% over the same period, and every young woman living in England should be aware that their life is not as important as a Scottish one as Jade Goody tragically found out to her cost, because England’s young women are not entitled to cancer cervical smear tests until they are 25, in Scotland its 20. The Scots also get a National Holiday on their St. Andrew’s Day and can fly Scotland’s flag from public buildings and use it to promote their products.
Scotland and Wales also have been given louder voices in the UK-EU policy shaping process and can speak up for the specific interests of their nations.
The Scottish and Welsh Development Agencies deal direct with their own National Executives so they can tailor things on a national basis. England on the other hand only has poorly funded regional development agencies fighting each other for resources.
In fact, the devolved countries (Nations) have a multitude of special privileges to get their voice heard on a range of policies and laws.
They have MP’s at Westminster, They have their own parliament or assembly They each have a secretary of state in the UK cabinet They each have a grand committee made up of their Westminster MP’s. They each have a Select Committee at Westminster to deal with their national affairs.
The government is making and changing laws so often that the legislation is not fully scrutinised and more than 4000 Statutory Instruments have been issued in one year alone. Their MP’s in Westminster have had their work load drastically cut because they now have no constituents to look after, which has allowed them more time to study these laws, besides which, they also have the benefit of their own separate institutions that study them and give approval.
Although the devolved nation’s MP’s workload has been drastically reduced they have had no pay cut.
Scottish Fisheries Departments have now taken control of border fisheries and this has already led to the Scots cutting English fishing quotas along the East Coast. How long before the Welsh do the same?
The maritime border was moved to pacify the nationalists and does not now follow international convention gifting a lot of England’s oil and gas to Scotland.
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. Scotland is now in control of all of its own domestic policies and a British and EU recognised nation. England too is a nation and we must demand that recognition.
Not one British political party wants to talk about England in their election manifestos preferring to obscure its existence in a Britain, because if they were forced to tell the people of England the truth their house would fall down, and in the meantime the entire British establishment with its social engineering and tax policies seems to be set on a course of turning the next generation of England into a nation of bastards.
Make them talk about England and bring them down - stop the rot get rid of the lot
We need our own MPs in our own English Parliament now tomorrow could be to late
By allowing Scotland to take back its own parliament in the Devolution Acts 1998 the British Government destabilised the United Kingdom, and in doing so violated the Articles of Union as set out some 300 years ago in 1707 that created the United Kingdom Parliament.
The people of England were never asked if they agreed to this violation and the British MPs elected by England to represent them in the United Kingdom Parliament never explained what the consequences of this action would mean for the English Nation. England’s MPs did however aid and abet the British MPs elected to represent Scotland in explaining to the people of Scotland Scotland’s benefits, and supported the call for a yes vote in a national referendum that gave Scotland a parliament.
The people of England should realise that it was the people of Scotland with their yes vote along with their British MPs who instigated the violation and devolution; the abomination and violation that has allowed the British in their United Kingdom Parliament to ignore the guarantees that were laid down in those Articles to the people of England.
England can not ignore the fact that it was the ordinary Scottish voter whether they knew it or not that has handed the political power to the United Kingdom Parliament that is being used by its British MPs to deny England its political identity, and its people their homeland and their cultural identity.
British MPs who hated England and loved the EU, many elected from Welsh and English constituencies always new what power they would have when giving Scotland a parliament, and so put Scottish MPs in the top ministerial positions to pull it off. Scotland’s MPs have been rewarded by the British in that they have been allowed to dominate most if not all of the most important ministerial positions in the British United Kingdom Parliament ever since, and these MPs have missed no opportunity with their English hating friends in using this new found power over England.
Scottish elected MPs including the UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Chancellor Alistair Darling have been orchestrating policies for the last 12 years which they knew could not apply to their own Scottish Nation that elected them, and have subjected the people of England to a campaign of discrimination bordering on cultural genocide, and have been and are acting as England’s liquidators in selling off the nation’s assets turning the country into England Plc. Even the country itself as not escaped the liquidator as the British hand it over to every Tom, Dick or Harry that wants to come here and be stamped with their British Brand.
England’s guarantee is up and while England is suffering Scotland is prospering at its expense, and its people either enjoy now or have been promised the luxuries of Free Eye Tests, Free Prescription Charges, Free Dental Check Ups and Reduced Charges, Free Personal Care in Residential Homes – even if they cross the border into England, Free School Milk and Better School Meals being provided as they receive double England’s subsidy, Seriously ill patients are able to receive drugs denied to England’s patients even if they are in an English hospital, Trainee nurses kept on an extra year after qualification, Scotland has 80% more nurses,midwives and health visitors,50% more doctors and dentists, teachers get higher pay and they have less pupils per class,No Hospital Parking Charges, No Wheel Clamping allowed anywhere in the country, Students in Universities have fees waived until they are earning over £25,000 per year and have to pay No Top Up Fees, Council tax frozen at 2007 rate and it has only risen by 40% since 1997 while England’s has risen 100% over the same period, and every young woman living in England should be aware that their life is not as important as a Scottish one as Jade Goody tragically found out to her cost, because England’s young women are not entitled to cancer cervical smear tests until they are 25, in Scotland its 20. The Scots also get a National Holiday on their St. Andrew’s Day and can fly Scotland’s flag from public buildings and use it to promote their products.
Scotland and Wales also have been given louder voices in the UK-EU policy shaping process and can speak up for the specific interests of their nations.
The Scottish and Welsh Development Agencies deal direct with their own National Executives so they can tailor things on a national basis. England on the other hand only has poorly funded regional development agencies fighting each other for resources.
In fact, the devolved countries (Nations) have a multitude of special privileges to get their voice heard on a range of policies and laws.
They have MP’s at Westminster, They have their own parliament or assembly They each have a secretary of state in the UK cabinet They each have a grand committee made up of their Westminster MP’s. They each have a Select Committee at Westminster to deal with their national affairs.
The government is making and changing laws so often that the legislation is not fully scrutinised and more than 4000 Statutory Instruments have been issued in one year alone. Their MP’s in Westminster have had their work load drastically cut because they now have no constituents to look after, which has allowed them more time to study these laws, besides which, they also have the benefit of their own separate institutions that study them and give approval.
Although the devolved nation’s MP’s workload has been drastically reduced they have had no pay cut.
Scottish Fisheries Departments have now taken control of border fisheries and this has already led to the Scots cutting English fishing quotas along the East Coast. How long before the Welsh do the same?
The maritime border was moved to pacify the nationalists and does not now follow international convention gifting a lot of England’s oil and gas to Scotland.
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. Scotland is now in control of all of its own domestic policies and a British and EU recognised nation. England too is a nation and we must demand that recognition.
Not one British political party wants to talk about England in their election manifestos preferring to obscure its existence in a Britain, because if they were forced to tell the people of England the truth their house would fall down, and in the meantime the entire British establishment with its social engineering and tax policies seems to be set on a course of turning the next generation of England into a nation of bastards.
Make them talk about England and bring them down - stop the rot get rid of the lot
We need our own MPs in our own English Parliament now tomorrow could be to late
Thursday 14 January 2010
I’M DYING FOR AN ENGLISH EDUCATION
Even before all the British political parties have finalised their manifestos for the forthcoming General Election, they are not disguising the fact that they are going to continue treating the people of England as second class citizens. Not once have we heard the word ‘England’ mentioned by any British political party, even though the parties have spoken about policies on the Health Service and education, which they know could only apply to England. If this is the new political policy for regaining the trust of the English people after all the shenanigans of the present corrupt government, then we should have a lot to fear from the next one.
England will continue to suffer at the expense of the devolved nations. Depending on which party is elected to form the next government, England’s children could face ‘slavery’ or the orphanage with the prospect of their parents becoming heroes, England’s elderly face the prospect of having to sell their homes to get care, England’s sick will be allowed to go blind or will have to be terminally ill in order to get free prescription drugs, England’s council tax will continue to rise; yet not one of these policies will apply to the Scots, the Welsh or the Irish, because they have their own parliaments that stop such policies being forced on them.
Gordon Brown, the leader of the Labour Party, Prime Minister, and England’s unelected ‘First Minister’, said that his clear expectation is that all the young people of England will be made to do community service (the like of which is now reserved for criminals) which would be linked to a ‘clear system of accreditation’, meaning that children who refuse to take part in this ‘slave labour’ scheme would be marked down or fail their Citizenship exams.
Because of costs, Nick Clegg’s Liberal-Democrats party has now dropped its worthwhile policies for the English Health Service and for education (without mentioning ‘England’) that would have gone a long way to right the wrongs against England. This party, like all the British parties, obviously considers the quality of an English life to be less than that of a Scottish, Welsh or Irish one.
It is hard to find out what is likely to be in David Cameron’s Conservative party manifesto but what we do know is that the Conservatives have gone one step further than any of the other British parties on England’s higher education policy. This party’s policy on English education shows the contempt all the British political parties have for our nation; at a time when it is being reported that one in five of our troops are not fit to fight in Afghanistan, partly because of mental illness, this party’s education policy tells England’s servicemen and women that if they get themselves killed the British will fund their children’s university education, which is tantamount to asking them to commit suicide in order for their children to get the same provision of the free education the British already provide for Scotland’s children.
These British policies do nothing to bring the Union together, but go a long way in breaking it apart and shows once again that it is no longer possible since devolution for any British political party or government to deliver a set of social and domestic policies that would have to apply to the whole of the United Kingdom and the people this government is supposed to be elected to represent.
John Stanhope
Campaign for an English Parliament
14 January 2010
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.
Fight against British Racism – Fight against racism directed against England and the English
England will continue to suffer at the expense of the devolved nations. Depending on which party is elected to form the next government, England’s children could face ‘slavery’ or the orphanage with the prospect of their parents becoming heroes, England’s elderly face the prospect of having to sell their homes to get care, England’s sick will be allowed to go blind or will have to be terminally ill in order to get free prescription drugs, England’s council tax will continue to rise; yet not one of these policies will apply to the Scots, the Welsh or the Irish, because they have their own parliaments that stop such policies being forced on them.
Gordon Brown, the leader of the Labour Party, Prime Minister, and England’s unelected ‘First Minister’, said that his clear expectation is that all the young people of England will be made to do community service (the like of which is now reserved for criminals) which would be linked to a ‘clear system of accreditation’, meaning that children who refuse to take part in this ‘slave labour’ scheme would be marked down or fail their Citizenship exams.
Because of costs, Nick Clegg’s Liberal-Democrats party has now dropped its worthwhile policies for the English Health Service and for education (without mentioning ‘England’) that would have gone a long way to right the wrongs against England. This party, like all the British parties, obviously considers the quality of an English life to be less than that of a Scottish, Welsh or Irish one.
It is hard to find out what is likely to be in David Cameron’s Conservative party manifesto but what we do know is that the Conservatives have gone one step further than any of the other British parties on England’s higher education policy. This party’s policy on English education shows the contempt all the British political parties have for our nation; at a time when it is being reported that one in five of our troops are not fit to fight in Afghanistan, partly because of mental illness, this party’s education policy tells England’s servicemen and women that if they get themselves killed the British will fund their children’s university education, which is tantamount to asking them to commit suicide in order for their children to get the same provision of the free education the British already provide for Scotland’s children.
These British policies do nothing to bring the Union together, but go a long way in breaking it apart and shows once again that it is no longer possible since devolution for any British political party or government to deliver a set of social and domestic policies that would have to apply to the whole of the United Kingdom and the people this government is supposed to be elected to represent.
John Stanhope
Campaign for an English Parliament
14 January 2010
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.
Fight against British Racism – Fight against racism directed against England and the English
Tuesday 5 January 2010
What’s the point of an English Parliament in the first place? Why bother?
Well. Try putting that same question to the Scots, the Welsh, the Northern Irish, the people of Eire, the Isle of Man, Guernsey, Jersey and Alderney, to the Germans, the Dutch, the French, the Spanish, the Chinese, the Kazachs, the Americans, the Indians, the Palestinians, and any and every other people you can think of. They would all say that having their own parliament is definitely in their interest. For all sorts of solid reasons. But we English are the Kurds of Europe, the only nation in Europe which does not have its own parliament. Even the people of tiny Sark has its own parliament! And why? Because a national parliament or assembly means something, something very significant. First, it is the most positive statement going of being a distinct nation, which is also precisely what the people of England are. In fact, England was the first unified nation in the whole of Europe. And now the only one without its own parliament! Second, it means self rule. And that is a basic human right for any people. Then third, a parliament is the way to protect and improve the welfare of the people it represents.
What’s more, it is fascinating to think a moment about the people in the United Kingdom Parliament who oppose England having its own parliament. Let’s just take one such person. Gordon Brown. He was the keenest supporter going for Scotland having its own parliament, he was the engine behind the Scottish Constitutional Convention which formulated all the legislation which in 1998 got Scotland its parliament, he was one of the many Scottish MPs and MEPs who signed the Scottish Claim of Right stating that they would put the interests of Scotland first and foremost in everything they did. Brown’s calculation is that Scotland is best served if it has its own parliament and with it the astonishing degree of self-rule within the Union he and his Scottish colleagues achieved for his country while keeping their power to legislate for England in every single one of England’s internal affairs. It is the gross unfairness of the power of Scottish MPs like Brown to legislate on England’s internal affairs that blocks the possibility of England having its own parliament. Well, what’s ok for Scotland is also ok for England. And what everyone expects for their own people we can rightly expect for ours.
In spite of having their own Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly, Scottish and Welsh MPs still attend the Westminster Parliament as of right and vote on all matters coming before the House, even on those which concern only English affairs, such as health and education provision in England and English transport matters etc. However, English MPs are not entitled to vote on any matters internal to Scotland or Wales or NI. Furthermore, the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer just to mention two in the British Parliament, are Scots representing Scottish constituencies. The whole situation is now grossly unfair and discriminatory.
Constitutionally and politically England does not exist.
Constitutionally there are four sorts of people in the United Kingdom. There are those who are Scottish and British, those who are Welsh and British, those who are Northern Irish and British and those who are just British. No prizes for guessing who this last group is. Constitutionally and politically the English just do not exist, while the Scots, the Northern Irish and the Welsh do. Now do you see why England must have its own Parliament? England and the people of England are non-entities as far as the British state is concerned. The English should get the same national recognition.
England doesn’t need such bureaucracies as regional assemblies to reflect its diversity. It has been unified in its diversity and diverse in its unity for 1500 years. It has its counties and its great cities. It has its own six ancient geographical regions rooted in the language, familiar to all English men and women: the North of England, East Anglia, the Midlands, London and the Home Counties, the South and the West Country. And how strange that this was only being said about England. The UK Government, and the Scottish ministers in it, and the Scottish MPs and MSPs have never said it about Scotland. Scotland is far more diverse politically, economically and culturally than England. The Western Isles and the Highlands are Celtic in language and culture, quite distinct from the Anglo-Saxon regions of the Central Belt and the Lowlands. Edinburgh is much closer in every form of culture to London and Manchester than it is to Argyll, Skye or Lewis. Orkney and Shetland are Norse in their history and culture, not Scottish at all. Yet a single Scottish Parliament is seen fit to preside over all this diversity which comprises Scotland. No one suggests that Scotland should be balkanised into regions. Why just England? England is the oldest unified nation in the whole of Europe, its unity and self of identity has been the source of its amazing cultural, political, economic and scientific contribution to both European and world civilisation, admired and acknowledged everywhere. One wonders why members of the Union government would even contemplate its balkanisation into ‘regions’ which have no roots whatsoever in its history or in the sense of identity the English people have always had of themselves. When Mr Blair, who was born and educated in Scotland, gave his reasons for a Scottish Parliament in 1998 in his Preface to the Scottish Devolution White Paper, he wrote: ‘Scotland is a proud historic nation’. So is England. Very much so. Regrettably –and curiously- he never made that statement about England. England is indeed a proud historic nation, distinct from the rest, and should therefore for that reason have its own parliament.
England is a most beautiful country, a green and pleasant land, loved intensely by its people, its poets, its artists and its writers. But for too long the Union Kingdom government has regarded and treated England as nothing more than a trading estate, a shopping mall. an employment park. The English countryside is shrinking rapidly, and much of it could disappear within 80 years unless there are curbs on new developments. Alarm over the loss of undisturbed areas of the landscape is being raised by the Campaign to Protect Rural England. Almost 50 per cent of England is now disturbed by roads, industrial developments, out-of-town retail and business parks and new housing estates. Motorways and roads, power stations, airports, railway lines, power lines, wind farms, mines, and quarries have adversely affected the countryside. According to the CPRE, only 26 per cent of England’s land area had been disturbed by urban intrusion before the 1960s. This grew to 41 per cent by the early 1990s, and this year to almost 50 per cent, 25,614 square miles; and the calculation of the incursion would be even greater if the impact of aircraft noise were taken into account. The Union Government in recent years has shown no concern for the English countryside, has never shown any understanding of the close relationship between environmental tranquillity and beauty on the one hand and the mental and cultural welfare of people on the other and has only ever regarded England as a business. Unless and until England is governed by its own people in their own parliament, who love it and feel for it as theirs, just as Scotland and Wales are, its destruction will get worse.
An NOP opinion poll in April 2002 showed that in England 47% wanted an English Parliament, whereas only 28% said they wanted Regional Assemblies (25% don’t knows). Tellingly, the strongest support came from the 15 to 24 age group and from women voters. On St. George's Day that year BBC Radio 2 invited listeners to ring in whether or not they supported an English Parliament. 94% (14,556 people) rang in with a Yes, a mere 6% (930 people) voted No.
The next decisive milestone was the referendum on regional assemblies in England’s North East two years later November 4th 2004. The Union government spent millions of pounds on propaganda and dispatched every Cabinet member to argue for the policy. It knew England was becoming more and more bitter at the way it had been completely left out of the devolution programme and at the huge immense advantages Scotland and Wales were getting from having their own parliaments and home rule, 80% of which was being paid for by the English taxpayer. But the government was completely opposed to England getting its own parliament, it was pushing the division of England into regions instead, each with their own assembly. The people of the North East rejected that proposal overwhelmingly by 78% to 22%. That was an historic moment in England’s history. The Union government’s attempt to abolish England and replace it with regions competing against each other had been stopped dead in its tracks.
Two more polls more than confirmed the trend. The ICM poll November 2006 recorded 68% in support of ‘England having its own parliament with similar powers to those of the Scottish Parliament’, and the BBC poll January 16th 2007, the 300th anniversary of the Act of Union, found 61% of people in England supporting an English Parliament.
There is an extra factor which reveals the special significance of this degree of support and which cannot be ignored. It has been achieved without much more than a penny being spent in promotion of an English Parliament, without adverts being placed in newspapers, without a single Government minister or Shadow minister campaigning for it, indeed with the Government and all three main parties actively opposing it, without any celebrity being involved, with very few leaflets and brochures being distributed, let alone pushed through the letter boxes of households, without any publicity on English TV and radio and in newspapers. It has been achieved despite the public opposition of all three major political parties, all backing alternatives if anything at all, and despite the opposition of the BBC, which is hostile to any political recognition of England qua England. The BBC operates a BBC Scotland, a BBC Wales, a BBC Northern Ireland and a British Asian Network but despite all our requests adamantly refuses to have a BBC England. When pressed by us for its reason it stated that ‘England is too big’ which of course is nonsense. There is a BBC World Service. The prejudice against England within the British cultural and political Establishment runs very deep indeed.
A union between partners is always stronger when each one is treated equally and fairly. At present the English are showing more and more resentment at the financial and political injustice they are suffering from the UK government. A glance at the website page "England Disadvantaged' illustrates it pretty adequately. It is this resentment that might prove to be the greatest threat to the Union. After all, economically, financially, politically and culturally England does not need union with Scotland or Wales or Northern Ireland. England in fact subsidises them. It provides them with a huge job market. The fact is, it is in the best interests of the Union that the UK government acts quickly to restore fairness and justice within the United Kingdom and gives to England what it has so happily given to Scotland. The fact is that Scotland, undoubtedly because of the positions held by Scottish MPs in the Labour government since 1997 to the present day, has received a degree of self-rule and advantage much greater than that received by Wales and Northern Ireland, while of course England has received none at all. Nothing threatens the continuation of the Union more than unfairness like that. The Union will only survive if each partaking nation stands in the same relationship to the Union government and to each other. Nothing destroys a union more than unfairness.
At present there is no relationship at all between England and the EU. There is however between the UK and the EU, between Scotland and the EU, between Wales and the EU and between Northern Ireland and the EU. All four are represented in different ways at the EU. All four are recognised officially by the EU. The EU however, does not recognise England at all. The EU, which showed Scotland, Wales and the UK on its map of Europe, did not show England on it at all but nine EU ‘regions’ instead. Only when pressed by members of the CEP with letter after letter did the EU map-makers change their map and put England on it.
In the event that England gets its own parliament, the relationship between it and the EU will then be the same as that between Scotland and the EU. That relationship is to have official recognition within the EU, to have an office in the EU, to be able to make representation on behalf of the people of England as distinct from the rest of the UK and to receive and distribute EU subsidies and grants pertaining to England directly exactly as Scotland does. England qua England, after all, is and will remain with France and Germany one of the three biggest contributors to the EU budget.
The Campaign for an English Parliament is a single-issue political campaign. We have members from all major political parties and none. Our members are pro-EU and anti-EU, pro-monarchy and anti-monarchy, for absolute free-trade and for regulated markets. We do not tolerate extremist views or illegal activity, but otherwise if you agree that there should be a parliament for England, please join the CEP now.
What’s more, it is fascinating to think a moment about the people in the United Kingdom Parliament who oppose England having its own parliament. Let’s just take one such person. Gordon Brown. He was the keenest supporter going for Scotland having its own parliament, he was the engine behind the Scottish Constitutional Convention which formulated all the legislation which in 1998 got Scotland its parliament, he was one of the many Scottish MPs and MEPs who signed the Scottish Claim of Right stating that they would put the interests of Scotland first and foremost in everything they did. Brown’s calculation is that Scotland is best served if it has its own parliament and with it the astonishing degree of self-rule within the Union he and his Scottish colleagues achieved for his country while keeping their power to legislate for England in every single one of England’s internal affairs. It is the gross unfairness of the power of Scottish MPs like Brown to legislate on England’s internal affairs that blocks the possibility of England having its own parliament. Well, what’s ok for Scotland is also ok for England. And what everyone expects for their own people we can rightly expect for ours.
In spite of having their own Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly, Scottish and Welsh MPs still attend the Westminster Parliament as of right and vote on all matters coming before the House, even on those which concern only English affairs, such as health and education provision in England and English transport matters etc. However, English MPs are not entitled to vote on any matters internal to Scotland or Wales or NI. Furthermore, the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer just to mention two in the British Parliament, are Scots representing Scottish constituencies. The whole situation is now grossly unfair and discriminatory.
Constitutionally and politically England does not exist.
Constitutionally there are four sorts of people in the United Kingdom. There are those who are Scottish and British, those who are Welsh and British, those who are Northern Irish and British and those who are just British. No prizes for guessing who this last group is. Constitutionally and politically the English just do not exist, while the Scots, the Northern Irish and the Welsh do. Now do you see why England must have its own Parliament? England and the people of England are non-entities as far as the British state is concerned. The English should get the same national recognition.
England doesn’t need such bureaucracies as regional assemblies to reflect its diversity. It has been unified in its diversity and diverse in its unity for 1500 years. It has its counties and its great cities. It has its own six ancient geographical regions rooted in the language, familiar to all English men and women: the North of England, East Anglia, the Midlands, London and the Home Counties, the South and the West Country. And how strange that this was only being said about England. The UK Government, and the Scottish ministers in it, and the Scottish MPs and MSPs have never said it about Scotland. Scotland is far more diverse politically, economically and culturally than England. The Western Isles and the Highlands are Celtic in language and culture, quite distinct from the Anglo-Saxon regions of the Central Belt and the Lowlands. Edinburgh is much closer in every form of culture to London and Manchester than it is to Argyll, Skye or Lewis. Orkney and Shetland are Norse in their history and culture, not Scottish at all. Yet a single Scottish Parliament is seen fit to preside over all this diversity which comprises Scotland. No one suggests that Scotland should be balkanised into regions. Why just England? England is the oldest unified nation in the whole of Europe, its unity and self of identity has been the source of its amazing cultural, political, economic and scientific contribution to both European and world civilisation, admired and acknowledged everywhere. One wonders why members of the Union government would even contemplate its balkanisation into ‘regions’ which have no roots whatsoever in its history or in the sense of identity the English people have always had of themselves. When Mr Blair, who was born and educated in Scotland, gave his reasons for a Scottish Parliament in 1998 in his Preface to the Scottish Devolution White Paper, he wrote: ‘Scotland is a proud historic nation’. So is England. Very much so. Regrettably –and curiously- he never made that statement about England. England is indeed a proud historic nation, distinct from the rest, and should therefore for that reason have its own parliament.
England is a most beautiful country, a green and pleasant land, loved intensely by its people, its poets, its artists and its writers. But for too long the Union Kingdom government has regarded and treated England as nothing more than a trading estate, a shopping mall. an employment park. The English countryside is shrinking rapidly, and much of it could disappear within 80 years unless there are curbs on new developments. Alarm over the loss of undisturbed areas of the landscape is being raised by the Campaign to Protect Rural England. Almost 50 per cent of England is now disturbed by roads, industrial developments, out-of-town retail and business parks and new housing estates. Motorways and roads, power stations, airports, railway lines, power lines, wind farms, mines, and quarries have adversely affected the countryside. According to the CPRE, only 26 per cent of England’s land area had been disturbed by urban intrusion before the 1960s. This grew to 41 per cent by the early 1990s, and this year to almost 50 per cent, 25,614 square miles; and the calculation of the incursion would be even greater if the impact of aircraft noise were taken into account. The Union Government in recent years has shown no concern for the English countryside, has never shown any understanding of the close relationship between environmental tranquillity and beauty on the one hand and the mental and cultural welfare of people on the other and has only ever regarded England as a business. Unless and until England is governed by its own people in their own parliament, who love it and feel for it as theirs, just as Scotland and Wales are, its destruction will get worse.
An NOP opinion poll in April 2002 showed that in England 47% wanted an English Parliament, whereas only 28% said they wanted Regional Assemblies (25% don’t knows). Tellingly, the strongest support came from the 15 to 24 age group and from women voters. On St. George's Day that year BBC Radio 2 invited listeners to ring in whether or not they supported an English Parliament. 94% (14,556 people) rang in with a Yes, a mere 6% (930 people) voted No.
The next decisive milestone was the referendum on regional assemblies in England’s North East two years later November 4th 2004. The Union government spent millions of pounds on propaganda and dispatched every Cabinet member to argue for the policy. It knew England was becoming more and more bitter at the way it had been completely left out of the devolution programme and at the huge immense advantages Scotland and Wales were getting from having their own parliaments and home rule, 80% of which was being paid for by the English taxpayer. But the government was completely opposed to England getting its own parliament, it was pushing the division of England into regions instead, each with their own assembly. The people of the North East rejected that proposal overwhelmingly by 78% to 22%. That was an historic moment in England’s history. The Union government’s attempt to abolish England and replace it with regions competing against each other had been stopped dead in its tracks.
Two more polls more than confirmed the trend. The ICM poll November 2006 recorded 68% in support of ‘England having its own parliament with similar powers to those of the Scottish Parliament’, and the BBC poll January 16th 2007, the 300th anniversary of the Act of Union, found 61% of people in England supporting an English Parliament.
There is an extra factor which reveals the special significance of this degree of support and which cannot be ignored. It has been achieved without much more than a penny being spent in promotion of an English Parliament, without adverts being placed in newspapers, without a single Government minister or Shadow minister campaigning for it, indeed with the Government and all three main parties actively opposing it, without any celebrity being involved, with very few leaflets and brochures being distributed, let alone pushed through the letter boxes of households, without any publicity on English TV and radio and in newspapers. It has been achieved despite the public opposition of all three major political parties, all backing alternatives if anything at all, and despite the opposition of the BBC, which is hostile to any political recognition of England qua England. The BBC operates a BBC Scotland, a BBC Wales, a BBC Northern Ireland and a British Asian Network but despite all our requests adamantly refuses to have a BBC England. When pressed by us for its reason it stated that ‘England is too big’ which of course is nonsense. There is a BBC World Service. The prejudice against England within the British cultural and political Establishment runs very deep indeed.
A union between partners is always stronger when each one is treated equally and fairly. At present the English are showing more and more resentment at the financial and political injustice they are suffering from the UK government. A glance at the website page "England Disadvantaged' illustrates it pretty adequately. It is this resentment that might prove to be the greatest threat to the Union. After all, economically, financially, politically and culturally England does not need union with Scotland or Wales or Northern Ireland. England in fact subsidises them. It provides them with a huge job market. The fact is, it is in the best interests of the Union that the UK government acts quickly to restore fairness and justice within the United Kingdom and gives to England what it has so happily given to Scotland. The fact is that Scotland, undoubtedly because of the positions held by Scottish MPs in the Labour government since 1997 to the present day, has received a degree of self-rule and advantage much greater than that received by Wales and Northern Ireland, while of course England has received none at all. Nothing threatens the continuation of the Union more than unfairness like that. The Union will only survive if each partaking nation stands in the same relationship to the Union government and to each other. Nothing destroys a union more than unfairness.
At present there is no relationship at all between England and the EU. There is however between the UK and the EU, between Scotland and the EU, between Wales and the EU and between Northern Ireland and the EU. All four are represented in different ways at the EU. All four are recognised officially by the EU. The EU however, does not recognise England at all. The EU, which showed Scotland, Wales and the UK on its map of Europe, did not show England on it at all but nine EU ‘regions’ instead. Only when pressed by members of the CEP with letter after letter did the EU map-makers change their map and put England on it.
In the event that England gets its own parliament, the relationship between it and the EU will then be the same as that between Scotland and the EU. That relationship is to have official recognition within the EU, to have an office in the EU, to be able to make representation on behalf of the people of England as distinct from the rest of the UK and to receive and distribute EU subsidies and grants pertaining to England directly exactly as Scotland does. England qua England, after all, is and will remain with France and Germany one of the three biggest contributors to the EU budget.
The Campaign for an English Parliament is a single-issue political campaign. We have members from all major political parties and none. Our members are pro-EU and anti-EU, pro-monarchy and anti-monarchy, for absolute free-trade and for regulated markets. We do not tolerate extremist views or illegal activity, but otherwise if you agree that there should be a parliament for England, please join the CEP now.
Where's England's Dave
The leader of the Conservative Party, David Cameron, has outlined his draft manifesto for this year's general election and knowing that elections are won and lost in England, has sensibly opted to base his election campaign on the English health service.
You would, however, be forgiven for thinking that the manifesto announced today applied to the whole of the UK as David Cameron failed to mention the country he was talking about once.
David Cameron's draft manifesto mentions "Britain" and "the UK" once, "our country" twice and "this country" three times despite the fact he was talking about England. The word England doesn't appear once in his manifesto.
This can mean one of two things: either David Cameron is trying to deliberately mislead voters into thinking that if they voted for the Conservatives he would be in charge of the NHS in the whole of the UK or he simply doesn't understand what he would and wouldn't be able to do as British Prime Minister. Whichever if these is the case, it really doesn't say a lot about his ability to govern the country.
The Campaign for an English Parliament is urging all voters in England to give their vote to the candidate that will give equal rights to English people. David Cameron can't even bring himself to mention our country, how can he be trusted to do what is right for by the 50 million English people who have been discriminated against for over a decade by this anti-English British government?
Stuart Parr
Campaign for an English Parliament
stuart.parr@thecep.org.uk
07973296118
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.
Fight against British Racism – Fight against racism directed against England and the English
You would, however, be forgiven for thinking that the manifesto announced today applied to the whole of the UK as David Cameron failed to mention the country he was talking about once.
David Cameron's draft manifesto mentions "Britain" and "the UK" once, "our country" twice and "this country" three times despite the fact he was talking about England. The word England doesn't appear once in his manifesto.
This can mean one of two things: either David Cameron is trying to deliberately mislead voters into thinking that if they voted for the Conservatives he would be in charge of the NHS in the whole of the UK or he simply doesn't understand what he would and wouldn't be able to do as British Prime Minister. Whichever if these is the case, it really doesn't say a lot about his ability to govern the country.
The Campaign for an English Parliament is urging all voters in England to give their vote to the candidate that will give equal rights to English people. David Cameron can't even bring himself to mention our country, how can he be trusted to do what is right for by the 50 million English people who have been discriminated against for over a decade by this anti-English British government?
Stuart Parr
Campaign for an English Parliament
stuart.parr@thecep.org.uk
07973296118
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.
Fight against British Racism – Fight against racism directed against England and the English
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