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.