Category Archives: independence

Scottish Independence – How Cameron sold England down the river with the Edinburgh Agreement

Robert Henderson

The Edinburgh Agreement was signed By David Cameron and Alex Salmon in Edinburgh on 15 October 2012.

(http://www.scotland.gov.uk/About/Government/concordats/Referendum-on-independence#MemorandumofUnderstanding ).

It established the legal basis for the Scottish independence referendum.

The first point to note is that Cameron went to Edinburgh. As Scotland are a supplicant which wishes to leave the Union, Cameron should have insisted that Salmond came to Westminster. By going to Edinburgh it at best created a spurious equality between UK national government and the devolved Scottish one and at worst that Salmond was controlling the negotiations. .

The gratuitous pandering to Salmond went far beyond the place of negotiation and signing. The clauses in the agreement which pander to the SNP are these:

4. The Order enables the Scottish Parliament to legislate for a referendum that takes place at any point before the end of 2014. The date of the poll will be for the Scottish Parliament to determine and will be set out in the Referendum Bill to be introduced by the Scottish Government. The Order requires the poll for this referendum to be held on a day with no other poll provided for by legislation of the Scottish Parliament.

6. The Order enables the Scottish Parliament to legislate for a referendum with one question on independence. The wording of the question will be for the Scottish Parliament to determine and will be set out in the Referendum Bill to be introduced by the Scottish Government, subject to the Electoral Commission’s review process, as set out in the paragraphs which follow.

9. The Referendum Bill introduced by the Scottish Government will create a franchise for the referendum. Both governments agree that all those entitled to vote in Scottish Parliamentary and local government elections should be able to vote in the referendum.

10. The Scottish Government’s consultation on the referendum also set out a proposal for extending the franchise to allow 16 and 17 year-olds to vote in the referendum. It will be for the Scottish Government to decide whether to propose extending the franchise for this referendum and how that should be done. It will be for the Scottish Parliament to approve the referendum franchise, as it would be for any referendum on devolved matters.

11. The Scottish Government’s decision on what to propose to the Scottish Parliament will be informed by the analysis of responses to its consultation exercise and by practical considerations. The Order does not restrict the extension of the franchise in the case of this referendum.

25. The Referendum Bill to be introduced by the Scottish Government will provide for the spending limits in the regulated period for the independence referendum. Both governments agree that the rules and standards set out in PPERA provide the basis for setting the limits.

Cameron gave away any say in the following matters by leaving it to the Scottish parliament to decide what should be done:

1. The general referendum legislation

2. The date of the referendum

3. The referendum question

4. The franchise

5. The referendum expenditure rules

There is also a clause which may well cause difficulty should there be a vote for Scottish independence, viz:

30. The United Kingdom and Scottish Governments are committed, through the Memorandum of Understanding 4between them and others, to working together on matters of mutual interest and to the principles of good communication and mutual respect. The two governments have reached this agreement in that spirit. They look forward to a referendum that is legal and fair producing a decisive and respected outcome. The two governments are committed to continue to work together constructively in the light of the outcome, whatever it is, in the best interests of the people of Scotland and of the rest of the United Kingdom.

The final sentence is the fly in the ointment. Although it is vaguely worded it could give Salmond a platform to argue for things such as a currency union.

BBC drama goes in to bat for Scottish independence

Robert Henderson

The BBC Radio 4 play Dividing the Union was a crude piece of propaganda for Scottish independence (Broadcast at 2.15pm 14 March – available on IPlayer for six days from the date of uploading this blog post http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03xgsly).

The actor playing Alex Salmond ( Greg Hemphill) sounded and behaved like Salmond, that is, he was aggressive and wilfully patronising. The actor playing David Cameron (Greg Wise) seriously failed represent Cameron’s voice and manner. He spoke with a form of received pronunciation but it did not sound like Cameron, who has a much crisper delivery and somewhat posher voice. However, that weakness in characterisation is dwarfed by the lack of dominant tone and energy in his persona. This Cameron came across as dithering and uncertain, constantly fretting that Salmond will be too clever for him in conversations with his adviser Robert (David Jackson Young). These conversations include the fictional Cameron whining to Robert that he (Robert) should not have left him alone with Salmond when the Edinburgh Agreement was agreed. All that is utterly unlike Cameron, who is naturally aggressive in debate and quick on his mental feet.

Then there is the deal they come to. The play has Cameron agreeing to a currency union, a split of the national debt by population and a division of the oil and gas revenues on a geographical basis favourable to Scotland. What does he get in return? An extension of the period in which the nuclear submarines on the Clyde can be kept there before being transferred to the rest of the UK. That is precisely the type of deal that Salmond has been angling for and saying Westminster would agree to when faced with the fact of independence. Such a deal would be grossly to England’s disadvantage.

Finally, why a play about the YES camp winning this close to the referendum? Can we expect a balancing play in which the independence vote is lost? If not, why not?

What happens if Scotland votes NO to independence?

Robert Henderson

The Scottish independence referendum is deeply flawed as a democratic process because (1) the terms of independence have not been agreed before the referendum is held so Scottish voters will be buying a pig in a poke; (2) the people of England, Wales and Northern Ireland have been allowed no say in whether Scotland should be allowed to secede from the union or, if they are to be allowed to leave, the terms on which they may secede and (3) the political circumstances of the UK if Scotland votes NO to independence have gone largely unexamined.

I have dealt with the points (1) and (2) [1]elsewhere and a great deal of public attention is being paid to what will happen if Scotland votes for independence. Consequently, I shall not further labour those matters. But point (3) does require attention because next to no attention is being paid by politicians or the mainstream media to what happens if Scotland votes to remain within the UK. The question has so far engendered little more than vague talk about DevoMax with unspecified additional powers being given to Scotland. As the vote is likely to be NO, this is a matter which needs to be publicly discussed now not after the referendum when Westminster politicians may cook up any deal they want, a deal which is likely to be, as all the other devolution deals have been, to England’s disadvantage.

The complication of the next General Election

There is a very awkward fly in the post referendum ointment: the referendum will be held in 18 September 2014 and a General Election must be held by 7 May 2015 at the latest. That raises the question of who will be making the post referendum decisions at Westminster. With a General Election so close to the referendum it is improbable that any agreement on what will happen after a NO vote could be reached before the election. The parties might produce their devolution agendas for their election manifestoes but that would be about it. Consequently, it is anybody’s guess as to which party or parties in a new coalition would be making the final decision on any further devolution of powers to put before Parliament. Equally important would be our ignorance of the size of the various parties in the Commons after the General Election, for this is an issue which is fundamental enough to make quite a few MPs vote against the party whip. A government with a small majority could easily find itself outvoted. These facts mean that all the variations of probable governments – Labour, Tory or the LibDems in coalition with either major party – and the effects of the size of the majority of the government need to be considered when judging the likely shape of devolution after a NO vote.

The moral balance after a NO Vote

On the face of it, the narrower the margin of rejection of independence the greater will be the moral bargaining power of the SNP to obtain further powers on favourable terms. However that does not automatically mean generous terms would be forthcoming, because once a vote on independence is lost the politics of the Union come into play.

To begin with it is unlikely that another vote on independence would be held for at least ten years and more probably fifteen or twenty years, even if there was growing support for it in Scotland. Westminster politicians are very short-termist and might well think the subject has been kicked into the long grass sufficiently far to forget about it. The fact that none of the major parties have shown themselves willing to take action to redress the imbalance created by the present devolutionary settlement (with England left out of the equation) suggests they may wish to restrict further devolution concessions to minor matters. However, as there is further substantial devolution of powers to Scotland (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-11863388) and quite possibly Wales (http://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/referendum-news/wales-in-line-for-extra-powers-after-major-review-of-assembly.1393858063) in the pipeline this may not be a serious bar to additional serious devolution.

Then there is the self-interest of the three major British parties. A strong case can be made for both the Tories and Labour not wanting serious amounts of new power given to Scotland. The Tories have ideological reasons; Labour and the LibDems the reason of crude numbers in the Commons.

The Tories are still at heart a Unionist party and want to retain the Union as a matter of policy. Substantial new powers would weaken the Union and new powers given now would inevitably be deemed insufficient in the future, probably in the near future, because devolution is a form of appeasement and the appeased always come back for more. Moreover, every increase in devolved powers acts in effect as preparation for independence. Eventually Scotland would reach the stage where independence would not seem such a frightening thing simply because they were doing so much themselves.

As for Labour and the LibDems, they have a direct vested interest. Greatly increased powers for Scotland would make it next to impossible to justify the present Scottish representation in the House of Commons. Both Labour and the Liberal Democrats have a substantial reliance on Scottish MPs at Westminster. Thus both parties would have a strong incentive to deny Scotland substantial new powers to ensure that Scottish MPs are not severely reduced.

All three major parties have a further reason: if substantial new powers were granted to Scotland it would be next to impossible to deny them to Wales and Northern Ireland and make the denial of an English Parliament ever more outlandish.

If the NO vote was overwhelming, on the face of it there would be no great pressure to devolve substantial new powers. An SNP which had failed to deliver either independence or DevoMax might be seen to have shot its bolt if it cannot deliver on its promises beyond a few superficial changes. At best the SNP would be severely diminished and at worst would so thoroughly discredited that they would be finished as a serious political force, doubtless remaining as an entity but restricted to an ever smaller and shriller cabal of true believers.

But even if the referendum was lost by an overwhelming vote it is unlikely that the demands for further devolved powers would diminish, especially from Scotland. As mentioned above further powers are already on the horizon. Nor would the demands for even more powers than those already proposed necessarily go unsatisfied. Devolution has already created well established regional political establishments and the presence of nationalist MPs in the Commons not only provides a permanent platform for further demands, but the existence of cabinet ministers to represent Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and Commons committees to promote their national interests means that there are powerful administrative mechanisms to promote and develop further devolutionary powers. Unionist MPs may also continue the fatal game (from their point of view) of imagining that giving away more and more power is the way to maintain the Union. Nor should the House of Lords be overlooked because it provides a very useful platform for both advocating further devolution and of influencing the Commons through committees of both houses and voting down and amending legislation

There is also the possibility of nationalist MPs wielding disproportionate influence if there is a hung Parliament and their votes are needed to either help form a coalition or to support a minority government on an ad hoc basis.

The alternatives to an English Parliament

But regardless of whether or not a NO vote was won narrowly or by a large majority, the elephant in the room is an English Parliament. It might be thought that if DevoMax becomes a reality, an English Parliament will be seen as a political necessity by all. That is far too sanguine.

There would be politicians who would try to refloat the idea of the Balkanisation of England through regional English assemblies – an attempt to revivify the project was made in 2012 by Labour MPs (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-16932030). But after the Blair government’s attempt to introduce regional assemblies met with a humiliating rejection (78% voted no) in the area deemed to have the strongest regional identity in England, the North East (http://www.theguardian.com/society/2004/nov/05/regionalgovernment.politics), it is an idea unlikely to fly.

There would also be the practical problem of producing regional devolution throughout England. If each region had a referendum to say whether or not they wanted a regional assembly, it is wildly improbable that there would be a vote for assemblies in every referendum. Indeed the referenda might well result in a universal rejection of such representation The only way all of England could be devolved to regional assemblies would be by Parliamentary action to impose it on England. That would be very unlikely to gain the support of a House of Commons, not least because any government likely to propose such devolution – it would have to be a Labour government or a Labour/LibDem coalition – would almost certainly have to rely heavily on MPs from non-English seats to pass such a measure because of the heavy Labour and LibDem reliance on MPs from the Celtic Fringe (it is rare for a Labour government with majority of landslide proportions to even hold a bare majority of English seats). To force such a change on England through the votes of non-English MPs should be politically impossible.

If there was a Tory majority government or a Tory\LibDem coalition , that would make a majority for the imposition of regional assemblies without referenda very unlikely because the Tory Party has officially opposed regional assemblies. In 2004, the Shadow Minister for the Regions Bernard Jenkin pledged that if Labour set up regional assemblies the Tories would ”l end Labour’s phoney regional agenda. Every power that Labour gives to regional assemblies, we’ll give back to local councils.” (http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2004/oct/07/conservatives2004.conservatives2). Perhaps more importantly many Tory MPs are strongly opposed to regional assemblies on principle so even if the Party leadership wanted to change the policy it is unlikely they would be able to do so. It is also worth noting that even in a coalition with the Liberal Democrats the Tories have managed to abolish unelected the Regional Development Agencies which could have been used as the skeleton for elected regional assemblies and the administration arising from them. (http://www.theguardian.com/uk/the-northerner/2012/mar/31/localgovernment-regeneration-gordon-marsden-regional-development-agencies-leps).

The other alternative which might be tried as an excuse to deny England a Parliament would be English votes on English laws. This would be difficult to implement because of the difficulty of deciding what was and was not legislation which affected England only.

It might be possible to do it simply by saying that any policy area devolved to the Scottish Parliament (which has the broadest devolution power) would also be treated as an English-only area of legislation. However, to do that would require the Welsh and Northern Ireland assemblies to have the same powers, because a good deal of the legislation currently passed at Westminster covers Wales and Northern Ireland as well as England. This happens because Wales and Northern Ireland those countries have much less devolved power than Scotland. Whether Wales and Northern Ireland would be competent to receive such extra powers or would want them is debatable at best. It is worth noting that a recent BBC Cymru Wales poll found that 23% of Welsh voters wanted to abolish the Welsh assembly (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-26378274).

That is the position at present. But if Scotland was to have DEVOMAX the other home countries would have to be given the same enhanced devolved powers otherwise we would be back to a variable geometry devolution. That would greatly increase the importance of the competence and desire questions for Wales and Northern Ireland.

Apart from the difficulty of deciding what was an English-only affecting law, to exclude MPs from non-English seats from participating in English only matters would be to remove them from much of the discussion and decision making of the House of Commons. That would be so even with the current level of devolution enjoyed by Scotland. With DEVOMAX the position could become absurd because MPs for non-English seats could easily end up being restricted to not much more than the classic federal issues of foreign policy, diplomacy, defence and management of the currency. At that point the taxpayer might well ask what are we paying Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs for?

There would be a further complication with the House of Lords. At the moment England uniquely amongst the four home countries has all its domestic legislation subject to Lords scrutiny and approval. That is bad enough as things stand, but if DEVOMAX was granted to Scotland but not England the problem would be greatly magnified. Conversely, if DEVOMAX was granted to all the home countries, then the Lords would become to a large extent redundant because most of the legislation it now deals with would be removed from it.

All in all it is difficult to see how anyone could seriously put forward English votes for English laws as an answer to the injustice England currently experiences with a substantial part of their laws being decided in part by MPs from outside of England while English MPs have no say about the legislation involved in the areas of devolved powers in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

If the regional assemblies and English votes for English laws are ruled out then an English Parliament is the only alternative to the increasingly unfair dichotomy between the governance of England and the rest of the UK. The neatest solution would be to go for a true federal solution. Instead of having separate members elected to the Commons and national assemblies, a member should be elected to serve in both the Commons (when non-devolved matters are dealt with) and their national assembly to deal with devolved matters. The Commons should also serve as the English national Parliament with of course only English MPs sitting. This would prevent any great additional expense from either a new English Parliament or additional politicians. Indeed, there would be fewer with the ending of separate members for the Celtic Fringe national assemblies and the House of Commons.

Whether the Lords needs to be retained is debatable. I do not like single chamber parliaments because they have no brake on them, but it is not obvious what function the Lords would have once and English Parliament was up and running. Perhaps the Lords (or some other second chamber) could deal just with non-devolved powers. That would at least place England on an equal basis with the other home countries with all devolved issues being subject to a single chamber national parliament. If the UK had a written constitution, something sorely needed, the Lords could also act as a form of Grand Jury to decide constitutional questions.

The one thing which is absolutely clear is that the practical need and moral justification for an English Parliament, which is already great, would be substantially advanced by a vote against Scottish independence and an increase in devolved power to Scotland.

[1] http://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2012/10/20/the-english-voice-on-scottish-independence-must-be-heard/ and

http://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2011/07/22/the-wages-of-scottish-independence-england-wales-and-northern-ireland-must-be-heard/

Roger Scruton on the injustice done to England by devolution

Robert Henderson

Below are extracts from a talk by the philosopher Roger Scruton on the position of England within the UK since devolution . They were made one BBC Radio 4 (21 Feb 14) in their Point of View series.

I have omitted the parts of Scruton’s talk which concern the historical and economic background because they are superficial , frequently wrong and often embarrassingly sentimental – the final quote I offer gives a good idea of what has been omitted.

Where Scruton is on solid ground is his description of the situation England finds itself in now. That is what the quotes I offer deal with. It is also very useful to have someone like Scruton with something of a media profile speaking out on the subject of England’s current disadvantaged position.

Roger Scruton: United We Fall: Point of View http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/pov extracts

In all the complex changes leading to the Scottish bid for independence the English have never been consulted. The process has been conducted as though we had no right to an opinion in the matter. It was all about Scotland and how to respond to Scottish nationalism

“As an Englishman I naturally ask why my interests in the matter have never been taken into account. When the Czechs and Slovaks achieved their amicable divorce it was by mutual agreement between elected politicians. What is so different about Scotland that it decides everything for itself?”

The English tend to blame the migration which threatens to overwhelm them on a succession of Labour Governments. By allowing mass immigration into England and refusing to confront the European Union’s commitment to free movement of peoples the Governments of Blair and Brown seriously undermined the English sense of identity . At the same time through the creation of the Scottish parliament gave a new identity to the Scots.

The effect of the Scottish Parliament, however, was not only to ensure the Scots governed themselves, but also to make it more likely that they would continue to govern the English. The Labour Party did not want to lose those Scottish MPs since it was thanks to them and the Scottish vote that the Labour Party had achieved such a large majority at Westminster. Scots were disproportionately represented in the cabinets of both Blair and Brown. Tony Blair owed his position in the Labour hierarchy in part to the networks which had grown in that country.

Elections to the Scottish Parliament show that the Scots have shifted their allegiance from the Labour Party to the SNP, but they still want the English to be governed by the Labour Party. Hence, they vote to place Labour politicians, whom they don’t particularly want at home, in Westminster . As a result of this the English, who have voted Conservative more often than Labour in all post-war Elections, have to accept a block vote of Labour Members of Parliaments sent to Westminster by the Scots. The process that brought this about was one in which the Scots themselves were given the final say in a referendum from which the English were excluded. In other words the process of devolution has an air of gerrymandering, the effect of which has been to secure a Labour bias in the Westminster Parliament while allowing the Scots to govern themselves in whatever way they choose.

And the process continues. In response to Alec Salmond’s bid for Independence the people of Scotland have been granted another referendum but again the people of England have been deprived of a say. Why is this, are we part of the union or not? Or are the politicians afraid that we would vote the wrong way? And what is the wrong way? What way should we English vote given that present arrangement gives two votes to the Scots for every vote given to the English? Should we not vote for our independence given that we risk being governed from a country that already regulates its own affairs and has no clear commitment to ours?

Suppose then we English were finally allowed a say in the matter? Which way would I vote? I have no doubt about it. I would vote for English independence as a step towards strengthening the friendship between our two countries. It was thanks to independence that Americans were able at last to confess to their attachment to the Old Country and to come to our aid in two world wars. Independence is what real friendship requires and the same is true for those like the Scots and the English who live side by side.

Full text of Scruton’s talk at

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26173128

Frank Field calls for an English Parliament on Any Questions

Robert Henderson

Any Questions on 21 Feb 2014 (BBC R4) came from Blundells School in Tiverton, Devon. The panel answering the question were the Secretary of State for Scotland and LibDem MP Alistair Carmichael, Conservative backbench MP Nadhim Zahawi MP, New Statesman columnist Laurie Penny and Labour backbench MP Frank Field. A classic example of the BBC’s idea of political balance one might say with two left leaning MPs in Carmichael and Field, an ethnic minority representative in Zahawi and a hard left ideologue in Penny.

The programme contained this question: Will England be better off without Scotland? Carmichael and Zahawi waffled about how successful the Union had been and Penny exhibited routine hard left bile over the prospect of a Tory government in the rest of the UK if Scotland left the Union. But then came Frank Field who upset the politically correct applecart by berating the present devolution settlement, suggesting that England would be well-rid of Scotland and advocating an English Parliament. I have made a transcript of his words and the programme presenter Jonathan Dimbleby’s interruptions ( The programme can still be heard on the BBC IPlayer http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03vh0d1 – Enter at 33minutes 54 seconds )

Frank Field: “I think this question is a really good example of how the elites whether in England or Scotland stitch up issues in that if you are giving one part of the United Kingdom a vote to say damn you we are leaving, I think that should be a vote for all of us to decide. And I think we should be having actually a say on whether we want Scotland to stay with us. And I think that what we might well find is that England would vote for Scotland to leave and the Scotland would vote to actually stay.”

Dimbleby: “How would you vote?”

Field: “I would vote for them to leave. For this reason, I voted against devolution. I feared that once we started this process the inevitability would be an independent Scotland. We have the unfairness now of this Government proposing issues which affect my constituents but don’t affect Scottish constituents and Scottish MPs vote on those issues affecting my constituents. …“

Dimbleby attempts to interrupt but Field shrugs him off.

Field “And therefore I support Alastair [Carmichael had suggested English devolution without specifying what it would be, but implied he was thinking of English regional devolution not an English Parliament]. I think we actually need as a first step in this an English Parliament. I don’t fear that because as we withdrew from Empire , particularly Scotland but also Wales and also Northern Ireland, began to gain a huge sense of national identity, of not being associated with Empire and actually feeling a proper role for themselves. And I think England has been too giving in this situation, I think we need likewise with Scotland, and with wales and Northern Ireland to begin to find out what our own identity is, how we then join together mix together, govern together is something downstream, but I do think this huge injustice that the others have assemblies or parliaments and yet the English do not have their own Parliament to make their views known …. “

Dimbleby cuts Field off at this point and calls for further remarks from Carmichael who just waffles about England having a voice rather than a vote in the question of Scottish independence.

Dimbleby then tried to distract the debate away from such an alarming idea (for liberal bigots) as an English Parliament by calling for one of the ad hoc pseudo polls of the studio audience the BBC loves to use to propagandise the pc view on anything by asking for shows of hands for those for and against a proposition. In most circumstances they can be certain to get the “right” pc answer because BBC audiences for political programmes are routinely packed to ensure that the “right” pc answer will be given. However, Any Questions audiences are a little less easy to predict and control than most BBC audiences because the programme often goes to parts of England largely untouched by mass immigration. Tiverton is such a place. Any Questions audiences tend to be drawn from the area of the broadcast and consequently the Tiverton audience was less likely to be rigid with political correctness than the ordinary BBC audience simply because it was a genuinely English audience.

Dimbleby put the questions “Who thinks England would be better off if Scotland became Independent? followed by “Who thinks England would be worse of if Scotland became independent?”. This produced the desired pc answer with a large majority saying that England would be worse off.

So far so pc good. Then it all went horribly wrong. Field immediately jumped in and asked Dimbleby to put to the audience the question ”Should England have a Parliament?” Dimbleby did this and an overwhelming number of hands went up to say Yes, we want an English Parliament. Such an open expression of Englishness was made easier for the audience because the politically correct have not made English patriotic sentiment a formal part of pc. Instead they have simply censured it from public discussion. Hence, the audience did not have the normal pressure of fearing that they would be called a un-pc bigots.

When Any Answers went out on 22 February no phone calls were taken or tweets, texts and emails read out on the subject of Scottish devolution and where England should stand in a devolved UK.

The liberal bigot tendency who deny England a Parliament always claim that there is no demand for it. This is the exact opposite of the truth. The only reason there is no overt public demand is because the mainstream media and politicians refuse to address the issue.

Field’s view of England needing to find its identity, and indeed of the other home nations needing to do so after the end of Empire, is mistaken because true nations never lose the habit of knowing who and what they are. Anyone who believes the English doubted the reality of their nationhood even at the height of Empire should read Froude’s History of England (1850–1870), or wonder why when foreigners speak of the UK they to this day more often than not refer to England. It is only a Quisling elite who suppress public signs of English identity and celebration. Take the politically correct brakes off English society and the English will leave the world in no doubt of who they are. The quickest and most certain way to achieve that is the establishment of an English parliament.

SNP 2013 XMAS INDEPENDENCE NOVELTIES

Make you own currency kit

Allows you to name your currency, design your own coins and banknotes, create coins (3D printer included) and banknotes and set up a central piggy bank. Warning: the money will have the same value as that used in the game monopoly. Not to be confused with real life.

IndependenceWorld

Create your own independent Scotland virtual world. The beauty of the programme is that you can make it as improbable as you want and it will still seem plausible if you are an SNP supporter. Lose yourself in pure fantasy.

DevoMaxWorld

A computer game in which players attempt to build an ever more fantastical world in which Scotland is granted wildly improbable privileges to be paid for by England whilst Scotland remains safe within the UK. For the less adventurous player.

Islands

A game for two people. It is played on a magnetic board representing the British Isles. Players are called UK and Scotland The idea is for the player designated Scotland to keep their islands and their oil attached to the Scottish mainland while the player designated UK tries to make them break away and join the UK .

The game proceeds by the use of a special pack of cards with messages such as UK offers to patrol Orkney waters gain 10 watts and Scotland attempts to occupy the Island of Lewis lose 50 watts. The magnetism comes from electro magnets which each player must increase or decrease in power as their cards dictate. The islands move on the board from their current position towards the UK or remain as they are depending on the play of the cards. Trials of game show a remarkably high incidence of the Islands and their oil ending up in UK hands.

My little Alec Salmon

Lifelike figure in the form of the SNP leader. Fully animatronic. Will have you in fits of laughter as it struts up and down and makes ever more ridiculous claims. Also programmed to do impersonations of Will Fyffe, Harry Lauder, Andy Stewart and other Scottish favourites.

Government Independence Contract Monopoly

Played on a board marked out with contracts offered by the UK government. Players move by the use of a dice and there is community chest with cards carrying instructions such as UK takes all defence contracts away from Scotland. Players unsuccessfully attempt to collect 200 million pounds of English taxpayers’ money every time they pass GO or at any other time. Warning: in trial uses of the game no contract has ever been awarded to Scotland.

Independence Sweepstake Game

Before independence Players make their estimates of what the following will be after independence

– The average oil revenue in the first five years of after independence

– The number of English taxpayer funded jobs in Scotland which will be lost

– The cost of setting up a Scottish civil service

– The cost of setting up Scottish defence forces

– The size of the Scottish share of the UK national debt in 2016

– The size of the Scottish share of the UK public service pensions provision in 2016

In the event of a vote for independence, the estimates are compared with the actuality after five years of independence. If it happens, be amazed at the difference between the sweepstake figures (hilariously optimistic) and reality.

SNP Sovereign Wealth Fund Moneybox

Purely decorative. The box is designed without any money cache because none will be needed. Frightening realistic.

English Subsidy Moneybox

A perennial favourite but with a difference. The money box remains open after independence but Scots find that the only money they will get from it will be that which they put in themselves. Hours of innocent fun watching the owner’s expression change from smug expectation to utter dismay.

Warships

A board game for two players where one tries to keep UK warship building in Scotland after independence and the other refuses to award the contracts to Scotland.

Call my SNP bluff

Three players recite what is claimed to be SNP policy while the other players decide which is the real SNP policy amongst the three. Warning: players must make sure the two false policies amongst the three are outlandishly improbable otherwise it will be all too easy to spot the real SNP policy.

Conversational Gaelic DVD

Learn the language of your ancestors and find yourself part of a community of dozens of fellow speakers of our glorious tongue. Warning: due to a lack of Gaelic words for items and ideas created after 1700, speakers may find the range of conversation extremely limited.

Diplomacy

Played on a similar board to monopoly with similar rules. The idea is for players to establish Scottish embassies in all the world’s capitals after independence. Cry with laughter as Scotland rents a bedsitter in Moscow and a Studio Flat in Washington.

EU Jigsaw

Giant jigsaw of the European Union. Players try to complete the jigsaw so that it includes an independent Scotland. Warning: the parts representing Scotland may not fit.

Paint your own Saltire

Paint a glorious Saltire by numbers. Suitable for SNP supporters of all ages.

Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! While the SNP lasts

The Scottish Independence Referendum – unanswered questions

Robert Henderson

NB UK2 stands for the UK containing England, Wales and Northern Ireland

The vote on Scottish independence is in 2014. The next UK general election is scheduled for 2015. The date for Scotland to leave the Union is 2016. Assuming Scotland votes for independence these unanswered questions need addressing:

1. When will existing MPs sitting in Scottish seats be expelled from the Commons? Will they be allowed to continue sitting in the Commons until the 2015 general election?

2. Will Scottish Westminster seats which fall vacant before the Independence referendum be filled in the normal way with a bye-election?

3. What will happen to Scottish Westminster seats which fall vacant after a vote in 2014 to leave the Union but before the 2016 formal departure date? Will there be a bye-election to fill the seat until the formal departure or will the seat be left vacant?

4. What will happen to peers who have hereditary Scottish titles or are Scottish life peers?

Unless they are excluded from the Lords they would continue to have a say in UK2’s politics after Scottish independence. The cleanest solution would be to insist on peers residing in England, Wales or Northern Ireland and make any peer wishing to sit in the Lords divest themselves of any formal nationality other than British. That would mean peers were in a different position to the rest of the population with regard to legal nationality, including MPs, who can at present hold more than one nationality. The answer would be to make illegal the holding of anything other than British nationality by anyone sitting in the Lords or Commons .

5. What will happen to those holding British passports who find themselves in an independent Scotland or wish to have Scottish nationality whilst living elsewhere? This would be a good time to deny dual nationality to British citizens generally.

6. What will be the position of Scotland and the rest of the UK (UK2) respectively with regard to the EU? There is no precedent for an EU member splitting into separate sovereign states and the component parts of the original EU state being taking back into the EU. Both logically and legally it is difficult to see how the EU could allow either or both of Scotland and UK2 back in without a further Treaty agreed by the other 27 states. Several of those states would require referenda before such a Treaty could be approved.

7. What if Scotland or UK2 were refused admission to the EU or decided they did not want to join the EU? If one country was outside the EU it would have to apply the barriers to trade that the EU states apply generally to those outside the European Economic Area (EEA)

8. What would happen to immigration between UK2 and Scotland? The danger is of Scotland allowing large numbers of people to enter Scotland knowing that these people would almost all head straight for England. Whether or not Scotland was a member of the EU, there would have to be strict immigration controls on those coming from outside the EEA and if either Scotland or UK2 was outside the EU, there would be a strong case for imposing border controls.

9.What currency will Scotland use? The position with the Pound Sterling is beautifully simple: Scotland was allowed to use the English currency after they signed the Treaty of Union in 1707, having discarded their Scottish Pound, which was only worth a few English shillings. If they leave the Union they break the Treaty of Union and consequently no longer have any legal right to use the Pound. It would be a disaster for England if Scotland was allowed to use the Pound because in practice England would be the lender of last resort for Scottish financial institutions through the Bank of England and even without a financial catastrophe Scottish fiscal recklessness could generally weaken the Pound. Scotland should have to choose between the Euro or a new Scottish currency. If Scotland has to reapply for EU membership she would probably be forced to take the Euro as all new state are obligated to do so.

10. How will the oil and gas revenues be divided? Even if this was left simply to a matter of what is in whose territorial waters Scotland could get much less than they estimate (around 90%+) if the territorial waters are determined by lines drawn at the angle of the coast at the English/Scottish border. Moreover, a good deal of the oil is around the Scottish islands, who have been making noises about not wishing to be part of an independent Scotland. Shale oil and gas also comes into the picture. Most of the likely UK shale deposits are in England. It would be a grand irony if Scotland cut herself off from a share of the revenues from these by opting for independence.

11. From what date will Scotland’s proportionate share of the UK national debt be calculated? It would be significantly lower if calculated at the time of the 2014 referendum rather than the formal date of leaving in 2016.

12. How will Scotland finance the servicing of her proportionate share of the UK national debt?

If she retains the Pound this could be done simply by paying to the British Treasury the sum needed to service it. Scotland would be able to reduce the servicing charge by making payments to the British Treasury to reduce the debt.

If Scotland does not retain the Pound she would either have to join the Euro or establish a new Scottish currency. Either could be a very dodgy proposition. To safeguard UK2’s interests, Scotland should be forced to raise the money, if she can, through issuing her own bonds, converting these into a safe currency and then passing the money to UK2. Alternatively she could buy safe currency and pass that to UK2.

13. Since the Union in 1707, Scotland has taken far more from the Westminster Treasury than she has raised in tax. What payment is Scotland to make to the rest of the UK to repay this subsidy from the rest of the UK (in effect from England)?

14. What will happen to the state holdings in the banks RBS and Lloyds? At the moment these are both net liabilities not assets because the share value of both means the £45 billion put into them by the UK taxpayer could not be recouped if the shares were sold.

15. How are the assets of the UK to be divided between Scotland and UK2? For the material assets which are physically fixed the only practical way would be for Scotland to retain what is in Scotland and UK2 to retain what is in UK2. The moveable assets such as military ones could be divided, but there would be little point in giving Scotland equipment they could not afford to use, for example, the larger surface ships or submarines. The Trident deterrent must be removed to an English base together with any other ships allocated to UK2 which are currently based in Scotland and warship building retained in Portsmouth. The only substantial overseas assets would be the diplomatic operations in embassies and consulates. However, these have been scaled back over the past thirty years. An agreement would probably have to be made whereby the UK2 kept the properties and offset some of the Scottish share of the UK national debt against their notional share.

I6. If an independent Scotland cannot or will not maintain armed forces equivalent to those now stationed in Scotland, what will happen to the men and equipment? Will the British Army absorb them?

17. There are many public sector jobs in Scotland which service the rest of the UK (http://www.theguardian.com/public-leaders-network/blog/2012/aug/14/unified-scottish-civil-service-not-that-simple). How long after the vote for independence will they be removed to the part of the UK which they actually serve?

18. Who will be responsible for paying the pensions of civil servants working in Scotland but servicing another part of the UK?

19. What proportion of the overall UK public sector pension entitlement at the time of independence will Scotland be responsible for? This pension entitlement will include those paid to the armed forces, British Eurocrats and the diplomatic service.

20. At what date will the accumulated public sector pensions of the UK be calculated? Immediately after the vote for independence, the date of formal independence or what? The later the date the larger the Scottish liability.

21. Will those with Scottish nationality have to have work permits to work in UK2?

22. What will happen to the BBC? At the moment Scotland gets a very good deal because she pays in proportion to her population, but gets the benefit of the entire BBC output, the vast majority of which is paid for by English TV licence payers. There is no reason why an independent Scotland should continue to do so. They should form their own public service broadcaster (if that is what they want) and purchase BBC programmes on the same basis as any other foreign country.

The terms on which Scotland could secede from the Union should be agreed before any Scottish vote on independence. Agreement to the terms should be through a referendum of voters in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Only if accepted by those voters should the independence question be put to the Scottish electorate. That question should be Do you wish to have independence on the terms offered by the rest of UK?

The future of England

Meeting arranged by the Campaign for an English Parliament (CEP)

House of Lords 20^th November

Speakers

Frank Field Labour MP

Lord Maclennan (Lib Dem)

Professor Wyn Jones ( Professor of Welsh Politics, Cardiff U)

Eddie Bone CEP

There were around 100 people attending including a sprinkling of young faces which is always encouraging. The audience was also pretty hostile to any suggestion that England should not have a Parliament or be Balkanised with regional assemblies. This type of audience reaction has been growing in meetings I have attended over the past couple years which have dealt with the EU, immigration and England’s place in the Union. I would suggest it is indicative of a growing anger and desperation amongst the native population to what they rightly see as the selling out of their country one way or another. People have had enough of what in any other time would have been given its true name: treason.

Frank Field MP on the need for an English Parliament

Field began by pointing out that he had been against devolution in 1998 (when he voted against it) because he could see that it was a flawed settlement that was on offer which would inevitably lead to future conflict. The chief flaw in the settlement was the absence of England within the devolutionary plan.

To his credit Field argued for an English Parliament despite the fact that his Party derives great advantage from having many Scottish and Welsh MPs sitting in the Commons and, consequently, Labour would struggle to form a majority in the Commons if either the Union dissolved or it remained intact but with ever more powers being given to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Indeed, even as things stand it is difficult for Labour to get a majority of English seats. His reasoning was this, if Labour does not embrace the cause of an English Parliament the increasing dissatisfaction felt by the English would erode Labour’s electoral base, because sooner or later those in control of the Tory Party would recognise that it is de facto the English party and successfully appeal to the English . This would radically undermine present Party loyalties. Because of this Field saw the only hope for Labour in the long term was for the Party to embrace the cause of an English Parliament and accept that it was desirable for the English to be able to assert their identity.

Field rejected regional assemblies for England because it was clear the English do not want them and would divide the country with different regions competing against one another. Instead he favoured a federal system for the four home countries with foreign policy, defence and finance being federal matters dealt with in a federal parliament and the rest left to the four national parliaments.

I would support this structure (I would even go so far as to invite the Republic of Ireland to join) , but some further matters would need to be decided at the federal level most especially immigration policy. There would also be the problem of welfare benefits, NHS provision and educational facilities if each home country funded its expenditure from taxes it raised within its borders. If there were significant differences in benefit levels in the four home countries, eligibility for the benefits would need to be decided at federal level because otherwise people would flock from the lower benefit level countries to the higher benefit level countries. Nonetheless, a federal government would deal with only a minute part of what Westminster deals with now.

Field’s explanation for the failure of the English in the past to display national identity strongly is the loss of Empire (he seemed to be unaware that the English never had any shyness about doing so at the height of Britain’s imperial power). He argued that while Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland used the occasion to carve out a new national rather than imperial identity for themselves, England did not because her people went on in the imperial mindset because they could not face the loss of world importance.

Frankly, I think this is unsustainable. I was born in 1947 and I have never encountered anyone outside a political group or meeting where any lament for the loss of Empire was heard. The much more likely explanations are that the English being the dominant nationality in the UK never felt to the need to bumptiously press their nationhood. Then came Post War mass immigration with the vast majority immigrants ending up in England. The British elite who permitted the immigration saw the danger that this could and probably would lead to English nationalism being hitched to anti-immigrant feeling and set about ruthlessly suppressing it by the law and the support of the mainstream media. English nationalist became shorthand for racist. But devolution has made it increasingly difficult for them to censor the subjects of England’s place in the Union and with that debate comes the wider one of immigration.

Lord Maclennan (Lib Dem) A Constitutional Convention for England

Maclennan described himself as a man of many allegiances saying he was a Glaswegian (he speaks with an RP accent and anyone would take him for English), a Scot, a Briton, a European and God help us a citizen of the world. Just in case the audience had not got where he was coming from, Maclennan added that he was very pro-EU.

He is in favour of an English Constitutional Convention being but there is a good deal of fudge in it. Maclennan says he wants it have popular input to prevent it being a body which simply hands down its ideas from on high. Rather curiously he thinks that popular involvement means that it should not be time limited. This lack of a time limit could be a device to allow the Convention to be manipulated by those controlling it by choosing the time most favourable to their interests for any final proposals to be made. At worst the process could even be deliberately stretched out until a government favourable to the wishes of those controlling the convention was elected. Moreover, unless the Convention was elected by the general population it is a little difficult to see how popular opinion could override the wishes of those making the final recommendations. It would not even be a question of saying the Constitutional Convention’s recommendations should be put to a referendum, because the electors would still be unable to control what the question was and what the proposals were. Those two things would go a long way to determining the outcome of any referendum.

Maclennan raised the spectre of regional assemblies by speaking warmly about them, something which produced considerable dissent amongst the audience, with people shouting out their disapproval. He tried to justify them by making a comparison between Bismarkean Germany and a UK where England had a parliament to look after her affairs. The newly unified Germany in 1870 was dominated by Prussia and Maclennan said he feared the same would happen if England had her own parliament. This was a poor analogy because the newly unified Germany had two substantial states – Bavaria and Saxony – as well as Prussia while the UK has only one large state, England. Hence, England dominates the UK naturally through her vastly larger population whereas Prussia did so by her political and military standing, the Kaiser being a Prussian. Because England is naturally dominant it will always be so. It is also insulting to the English to suggest that her Parliament or government would abuse their dominant position to the disadvantage of the other home countries.

To justify regional assemblies in a slightly less obviously Anglophobic way, Maclennan introduced the EU concept of subsidiary and trotted out the EU line of “taking decisions at the level at which they could be best implanted”.

In short, Maclennan peddled the Balkanisation of England, just as the last Labour government had done.

Professor Wyn Jones ( Professor of Welsh Politics, Cardiff U) The data on the English

Jones is Welsh. However, that did not prevent him providing a good deal of useful data to knock on the head the claims of the Anglophobes that England is too diverse for Parliament for the entire country to meet the aspirations of devolution or that the English are content with the present constitutional settlement. He drew his data primarily from two papers he had been involved with published by Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR): The dog that finally barked (http://www.ippr.org/publication/55/8542/the-dog-that-finally-barked-england-as-an-emerging-political-community) and England and its two Unions. (http://www.ippr.org/publication/55/11003/england-and-its-two-unions-the-anatomy-of-a-nation-and-its-discontents).

Jones made these points from the research:

1. With exception of London, there are no significant differences by English region of the English attitude towards both seeing themselves as English and their attitude towards the devolutional disadvantage England labours under. In London the presence of large numbers of ethnic and racial minorities makes the attitudes towards devolution and how people see themselves in terms of their nationality less pronouncedly English. However, this is simply a reflection of the attitude of ethnic and racial minorities throughout England where there is a strong tendency to describe themselves as British rather than English.

2. The English are discontented with the constitutional settlement and are growing ever more so: the more English you feel, the more discontented you are.

3. There is a strong correlation between feeling you are English, Euroscepticism and the desire for England to have a Parliament or independence.

4 IPPR research which offers the people being questioned a series of political policy areas to rank in order of importance finds the EU at number one and England’s devolution predicament at number two.

5. The English overwhelmingly do not want regional assemblies. Fewer than 1 in 15 are in favour.

6. In the IPPR research there was a dead heat between those who want an English Parliament and those who want English votes for English laws. This division would almost certainly vanish if the choice was put to a referendum and the matter discussed honestly in the mainstream media, in particular discussion of the severe problems of definition when it comes to deciding what constitutes and English law. Moreover, once it became a matter of public debate with politicians and the media making the case for a Parliament , the public would begin to ask why should England not have what the other home nations have? However, I suspect that if a government simply announced English votes for English laws it would probably dampen English discontent in the short term.

7. English nation feeling is becoming politicised.

8. There is only a weak demand for English independence – 15% according to the IPPR research.

I take issue with the Professor on one major point. Jones, claimed that what he called political Englishness is a recent growth and this explains why there has been so little public dissent from the English following devolution.

The reasons I disagree are very simple. First, there was no English politician let alone Party with substantial representation in the Commons who would voice English anger at what has happened, while the mainstream media has been very reluctant to give the subject any space. To that censorship can be added the gross intimidation offered both by the state in the form of ever greater legal restrictions on what may be said in public, the disgusting eagerness of the police to harass any attempt to provide public demonstrations of English national feeling, the complicity of the media who conduct hue and cries after anyone deemed to be non-pc and large employers, particularly those in the public sector, who routinely sack or demote people “convicted” of pc “crimes”.

If a public voice is denied and the power of the state used to intimidate people it is scarce to be wondered at that no public campaign for an English Parliament has entered the political mainstream.

Eddie Bone CEP

Bone began by pointing out that 32 million people in the last census described themselves as English. He followed this by asserting that people were no longer demonised for being English. (I took issue with this strongly– see under questions from the audience).

Bone then turned his guns on the IPPR (and by implication Jones) for being behind the curve, of concentrating on what Englishness is rather than discussing the governance of England.

On the question of English independence, Bone said that the idea that there was little support as yet did not agree with his personal experience whilst working for the CEP. He believes it is a strong trend and getting stronger.

Bone dwelt on the dismal fact that there is not major British political party producing policy for England. Nor are there regional parts of the major party which are devoted to England, no English Tory Party , no English Labour Party as there have long been in Wales and Scotland.

For Bone an English constitutional convention is wanted before the Scottish referendum on independence is held to both allow policy for England to be made and demonstrate to the Scots what independence would mean.

He described the Blair devolution settlement as stupid and lamented the fact that the cabinet papers relating to the cabinet meeting where the decision on devolution was agreed have not been made public despite FOI requests.

Bone derided regional assemblies as a tool for divide and rule and believed that piece of elite mischief at least was over and done with for ever.

Questions from the audience

The questions from the audience (not that many) centred around particular issues such as the recent sacrificing of warship building capacity in Plymouth in favour of Glasgow to curry favour with the Scots and considerable hostility to any suggestion that England should be Balkanised with regional assemblies. There was also a certain politically correct concern with whom can be considered English following the mass post-war immigration.

Lord Stoddart, who was there simply as a member of audience, said that he had recently put down a question asking whether the government had any plans for an English parliament to which the answer had been a curt no.

The Lib Dem MP for North Cornwall Dan Rogerson raised the question of Cornish separatism claiming that the Cornish “are not English”. Apart from the howling impracticality of Cornwall existing as a sovereign entity, I would doubt whether more than 50% of the present population of Cornwall have been there for two generations, there having been a considerable influx of people from outside the county over the past 50 years. But even if every person living in Cornwall was born there it is difficult to see how they could be anything but English, the county having been effectively part of the English state since the Norman Conquest and arguably before that time.

I managed to put two questions after a decent preamble:

1, Where is the evidence that the English are no longer being demonised for asserting their Englishness?

Against this idea I pointed out the EDL’s crawling adherence to multiculturalism had not saved them from a shameful level of harassment by the state most plausibly because they had English in the movement’s title. When I described their treatment as more suited to a police state than a democracy this brought sounds of approval from the audience but looks of disapproval from some of the speakers. I further pointed out that as far as the Labour Party is concerned, the fact that two of their current MPs, Gisella Stuart and Jack Straw (who both sit for English seats), had referred to English national feeling as being “dangerous”.

I ended that part of the preamble by saying that before the English could feel safe from the persecution by the state all laws which proscribed speech which was un-pc would need to be repealed and the police restrained from their current pathetically eager interference with any public political activity deemed to be un-pc.

2. In the absence of any major British party showing any interest in taking up the English question how will anything change?

I received no meaningful answer to either of these questions.

It is difficult to see how progress can be made while the major political parties are controlled by elites who are resolutely opposed to giving the English a voice and a focus for political action through an English Parliament. Ironically, the most likely instrument for change would be a vote for independence by the Scots.

The other event which could provide impetus is an EU IN/OUT referendum, if one is ever held. A vote to leave would toss British politics up in the air and force the British political elite, whether they want to or not, to concentrate on national rather than supranational issues.

Robert Henderson 22 11 2013

Bruges Group International Conference 9 11 2013

Which Way Out?

Speakers

Prof. Tim Congdon (Economist)

Prof. Ivar Raig (Tallinn University)

Prof. Roland Vaubel (Mannheim University)

Ian Milne (Banker and Industrialist)

Prof. Patrick Minford (Prof of Economics Cardiff Business School)

Christopher Booker (Telegraph journalist)

Dr Richard North (Long time EU campaigner)

Mary Ellen Syon (Irish Daily Mail Journalist)

Kieran Bailey (15-year-old who is shortlisted for the Brexit prize)

This conference is important because it brought together some of the people who are likely to be part of the public face of the OUT campaign if and when a referendum is held on Britain’s future in the EU. Frankly, it was not encouraging, both because there was great deal of conflict between the views of this supposed panel of Eurosceptics and many of the proposals had a Utopian ring for they did not take into account the likelihood or otherwise of their plans being put into operation.

Prof. Tim Congdon

Congdon was the most forthright of the speakers. He wants Britain out of the UK full stop: no Lisbon Treaty Article 50 exit, just the Westminster Parliament repealing the Act which binds Britain into the EU. His main reason for taking this stance was that to commit to the use of Article 50 would mean accepting its legitimacy. That has its dangers because if its legitimacy is accepted before Britain activated the Article , the EU might extend the maximum two year waiting period the Article stipulates before a member state can leave to a much longer time. As this would require a Treaty change over which any member state would have a veto I think this is not a realistic threat provided a referendum is held soon.

Nonetheless, Congdon’s instincts are right, for to tie us into a two year waiting period would allow the EU to create a good deal of mischief. Using the Article 50 route would also provide an escape route for our Europhile political elite because they could argue that b ecayuse of the Article the best deal they could get was one which left us still within the coils of the EU, for example, a similar relationship with the EU to that of Norway or Switzerland, both of whom are signed up to the so-called four EU freedoms: the freedom of unrestricted movement within the European Economic Area (EEA) of capital, services, capital and labour.

Congdon was just as unequivocal on the claims that Britain would lose greatly if she left. He pointed out that the vast majority of UN member states were not EU members but were able to trade successfully both generally and with the EU, and cited various examples of countries, some small, outside the EU which had made treaties with much larger nation states such as the USA and China. Congdon also made much of the EU’s declining share of world trade, which is only around 12% now and is set to decline further.

As for Britain needing a plan as to what exactly she would do after leaving the EU before leaving, Congdon said this was completely unnecessary and cited the fact that some 65 independent countries today had gained their independence from Britain without having such a plan.

I agree wholeheartedly with Congdon’s overall strategy, but there is a presentational problem with the man. This is the first time I have heard him speaking in person. I was astounded by the eccentricity of his delivery. He would be speaking normally when suddenly he would explode into what I can only describe as an hysterical rant. This he must have done at least half a dozen times in his twenty minutes or so of speaking. As he is very likely to figure in any OUT campaign this is worrying. It is odds on he will not go down well with the general public, because eccentricity of any sort, even that which has some charm, will alienate as well as attract and frankly this was not an engaging eccentricity.

Congdon was also caught out by a questioner from the audience. He had cited the recent Canada-EU trade treaty as evidence of what could be done by Britain once she is outside the EU. A questioner asked him for details of the treaty. Congdon had to admit he did not know what they are. That is just plain sloppy. If you are going to cite something as evidence common-sense tells you to mug up the facts because as sure as eggs are eggs you will be challenged on the evidence.

Prof. Roland Vaubel

Vauble detailed the vested interest of the various instruments of the EU – Commission, Parliament, Court of Justice. In every case centralisation of EU powers increased their power. Hence, he saw no likelihood of any repatriation of substantial powers unless Article 50 is activated.

As for the process of leaving, Vauble took a legalistic approach. He maintained that the activation of Article 50 was the only way Britain could leave the EU because he considered the acceptance of the Lisbon Treaty by Gordon Brown made any other exit illegal. The answer to that is simple: treaties signed by a government which cannot be repudiated by a future government are utterly undemocratic.

Assuming Britain activated Article 50, Vauble said that the EU elite would give nothing much to Britain over the two years and the odds were that at the end of two years no agreement would have been reached and Britain would simply exit the EU without any agreement. Because of this Vauble claimed that Britain had to have a strategy for what was to happen after Britain left without a Treaty. Vauble’s solution was for Britain to make alliances with other EU members, especially the smaller ones. His overall message was that Britain could not survive on her own. Vauble further envisaged that a Britain which had left the EU and had some form of alliance with other states, both within and without the EU, could act as a lever to change the centralising tendencies of the EU. He seemed much more interested in using Britain as a tool for other states’ ends than suggesting the best strategy for Britain.

Prof. Ivar Raig

Even making considerable allowances for the fact that English was not his first language, Raig was an awful speaker, mixing incoherent passages with statements of appalling banality , all delivered in what I can only describe as a prolong yell.

Out of the incoherence came a desire for Britain to wrap itself in another supra-national bloc, in this case one based on North America, Germany, Scandinavia and other Northern European states. This he grandiosely labelled the New Atlantic Project. Like Vauble he believed Britain would not be able to go it alone.

Ian Milne

Milne was in favour of using Article 50, although he was less committed to it under all circumstances than Raig and Vaubel.. For Milne activating the Article was more a question of showing willing to preserve legal form than a commitment to observe it. If the EU showed they were going to be obstructive after Britain activated the Article, then he was happy for Britain to simply leave by making a unilateral declaration.

He was far from pessimistic about Britain being able to negotiate a reasonable settlement with the EU, not least because of the disruption of EU’s trade with Britain if there was any serious delay. Milne emphasised how advantageous the EU’s trade with Britain is to the EU , both because of the large trade deficit Britain runs every year with the EU and the supply of goods to EU businesses such as the German car industry. He also pointed out the rest of the world would not take kindly to uncertainty because they also had an interest in Britain and the EU resolving their differences.

The most useful part of his speech was his detailed plan for how the exit should be administratively planned. He wanted a Ministry for EU Transitional Arrangements (META) set up to manage the business. He took his inspiration from large projects such as the Olympics and Crossrail.

There are contentious points in the detail of his ideas, not least his rather too trusting belief in the efficiency of private industry compared with public service. But his basic idea of a ministry devoted solely to the administrative, economic, legal and political issues arising from our departure is sound because it will be a complicated business.

The problem with his plan is that it is difficult to envisage any conceivable British government implementing it, not least because for a government to develop such a detailed plan would be to hamstring both the government of the day and any future government.

Prof. Patrick Minford

A decent speaker but completely out of touch with reality because he is in thrall to the laissez faire quasi-religion. A clear example of a man being captured by one of Richard Dawkins’ memes, in this case by a very harmful one. The problem with Minford is that he has spent his entire working life in either public service or academia. This allows him to maintain his fantasy of perfect markets with perfect information without the evidence of real life intruding.

Minford wants out of the EU because he has the fashionable but untrue idea that the British are in favour of free markets and free trade while the other EU members are locked in a socialist mindset. Towards the end of his offering he made the comment that the British had always been free traders including during the Industrial Revolution. This was a truly incredible statement because the British Industrial Revolution occurred whilst Britain operated arguably the most successful protection system ever seen through the Navigation Acts and the Old Colonial System. That tells you Minford either has a very tenuous grasp of economic history or is willing to deliberately fabricate to maintain the plausibility of his ideology. He might also ask himself how unions became so powerful in Britain if support for free markets and free trade is so heavily stitched in British minds.

From this misreading of both British history and indeed her current realities, Minford built his case for leaving the EU. He wants Britain to depart because he views the EU as a protectionist syndicate which prevents Britain from following her supposedly free market ways.

Having laid out his general scheme of objections to the EU he wandered into the ground of employment and extolled Britain as a far superior job creator than most of the EU whose unemployment was much higher. This difference he attributed to Britain’s free market instincts. From there he moved to the question of immigration and blithely told the audience that immigrants do not take jobs from Britons. He produced what he fondly imagined to be a knock down argument by trotting out the crude classical economic argument about how Britons would find jobs if only they would accept lower wages (which would be facilitated by less welfare provision) or were better qualified. This caused a good deal of anger amongst the audience with quite a few calling out.

When questions were taken I managed to get myself called. I told the meeting that on the question of immigration and jobs I had special knowledge from my time as an Inland Revenue investigator. I proceeded to detail some of the ways that huge numbers of jobs never came onto the open British market because of foreign gangmasters employing only their own nationals, ethnic minority employers employing only their own people, foreign companies bringing in their own nationals and the recruitment of foreigners for jobs by not only British companies but British public service employers. I further pointed out that around 5 million people who were counted as being in work in Britain were not meaningfully employed because they had to draw benefits to provide a living wage. If this 5 million is added to the 2.5 million officially unemployed, the real rate of unemployment in Britain is running at over 20% (the official unemployment rate using the Labour Survey count stood at 7.7% for 2.49 million unemployed in October 2013). That is not so very different from much of the Eurozone.

Having done that, I attacked the idea that Britons were wedded to the idea free market economics, pointing out the evidence against this belief such as I have already mentioned, and ended by asking from where exactly Minford got his fantasy view of Britain and the British. All of this was very warmly greeted by the audience and many came up to afterwards to express agreement.

What was Minford’s response? It was feeble to the point of embarrassment. He just kept on repeating various forms of “You are wrong” with absolutely no attempt to address the detailed objections I had raised to his words.

On the plus side he did reject the “Norwegian Option” on the grounds that it would not only tie us into the single market legislation but force acceptance of the four so-called EU freedoms, namely, the free movement of goods, services, capital and labour within the European Economic Area.

Minford was also on the right track when he pointed out the quite small part of the British economy which is devoted to exports (he put it at 10%). He was also generally confident of Britain’s ability to be successful outside of the EU.

Christopher Booker

Booker is a promoter of the use of Article 50 as the only means by which the EU could be forced to open negotiations. That begs the questions of what negotiations would result with the Europhile British political elite bargaining for Britain and the probable response of the EU if Britain simply announced it was leaving.

The answer to the former question is that the Europhile politicians who would be leading the British side of the negotiations would try to tie Britain firmly back into the EU. If Britain simply repudiated the European Acts which have led to her entanglement in the EU by repealing them that would make it much more difficult for the British political elite to tie us back into the EU. This is because Britain would immediately start operating in a post-EU world and British politicians would have to adapt to that reality whether they liked it or not.

As for the response of the EU elites, they would be unlikely to do much by way of creating heavy protectionist barriers against Britain both because of their healthy trade surplus with Britain and the many economic links between Britain and the rest of the EU and because of the World Trade Organisation’s regulatory framework which binds its members to pretty tight restrictions on protectionist barriers. It is also human nature to be more respectful to those who adopt strong dominant action than to those who display weak cringing behaviour such as has been the norm for British politicians dealing with the EU for over twenty years.

If leaving the EU means we cease to be covered by the many treaties signed by the EU which currently apply to Britain (Booker said there are around 700), so much the better for that would force a re-evaluation of the ones we wished of which to continue to be members. It is wildly improbable that Britain would be denied independent membership of any it chose to sign up.

Booker is also a supporter of the “Norwegian Option”. Hence, much of what he says about wanting Britain to be free of the EU grasping hands is pointless at best and dishonest at worst because the Norwegian Option” would still leave Britain within the coils of the EU.

Mary Ellen Synon

By far the most interesting speaker because she was the most realistic. Synon has worked in Brussels for many years and she is under no illusions about the corrupt and self-serving and above all ideological nature of the EU. Synon said there are instructions to Eurocrats about the language they use in public. They never say people always citizen as in “a citizen of the EU” The word country is used as little as possible and if a Eurocrat is talking about his own country he or she will says “the country I know best” not “my country”. She was generally scathing about British and other EU politicians.

According to Synon said the 2017 date for a proposed referendum was chosen because Britain will take the six-month rotating presidency of the EU Council of Ministers in the second half of 2017. This would give Cameron (or anyone else who is PM) and various cabinet members a great deal of opportunity to bring EU summits to Britain and to posture regularly in front of the cameras.

Synon is sceptical about a referendum being held even if Cameron is PM after the next election. She thinks he will try to wriggle out of it as he wriggled out of the promised referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. I think is unlikely because the situation will be rather different to what it was with the Lisbon treaty. The latter was accepted by a British Government before Cameron came to power. In this case he would be remaining in power. In addition, Cameron has nailed his colours very firmly to the referendum mast. It would be immensely difficult for him to renege on his promises because he would have no one else to blame but himself if the promise was broken.

But even if there is a referendum and it is won by a large majority, Synon thinks that the EU will do what they have done with other referendum reverses such as the Irish rejection of the Lisbon Treaty first time round. They will try to engineer another referendum. In the Irish case they did this despite a healthy vote against ( 53.4 percent against, 46.6 percent in favour) in the original referendum.

The tactic was dependent on the existence of willing collaborators in the Irish government. Synon had no doubt that a Cameron government would find such collaborators, not least because questioned by the Spanish newspaper La Pais in April 2013. Cameron was asked whether, in the event of a vote to leave the EU this question: “Would you be willing to leave the Union?” He replied ”I would not”. (Synon described Cameron as collaborator).

Using the Irish example as a template, Synon then outlined in gory detail what were likely to be Cameron’s tactics if a vote to leave occurred . The government would not accept the vote. There would be a questioning of whether the electorate had understood what they were voting for. This would be followed by the commissioning of an opinion poll designed to either reject the result of the referendum outright or provide a pretext to hold another referendum on the grounds that the electorate had not understood what the first referendum really meant.

In Ireland another referendum had to be held because the constitution required it. In Britain there is no such requirement. The British government could simply ignore the referendum result unless Parliamentary action forced either another referendum or the respecting of the vote of the referendum which had been held that returned a vote to leave the EU.

Synon’s full notes for her speech can be found here http://www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=84482

Dr Richard North

North began his speech by saying no referendum could be held in 2017 because David Cameron has committed himself to “substantial re-writing” of the Treaties before referendum. This he claimed would require an Inter-Governmental Convention (IGC) which would take several years to convene, agree changes and have the changes ratified by the various member states, some of whom would have a constitutional requirement to put the matter to a vote. In principle, Britain would be one of them because of the referendum lock” provisions in the European Union Act of 2011. This requires any substantial change to the EU treaties to be put to the British electorate. In addition, the 2015 European Parliament elections would mean that before any IGC could be called the newly elected Parliament would have to approve a new Commission, a process which North believes would take until the end of 2015. (http://www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=84483)

The obvious objection to that is the fact that the EU has shown itself willing to disregard legal niceties when it suits them. Moreover, it all depends on what “substantial re-writing” would mean. It could be that Cameron (if it is he doping the renegotiation) will simply be tossed a few insignificant bones which the EU elite can claim can be managed within the present treaties. Alternatively, the British government might simply say this is the fruit that our negotiations have born and they will be incorporated into EU law in due course if the vote is to accept them and stay in the EU. It should be remembered that the Wilson renegotiation which led to the 1975 referendum were put to the British electorate without a Treaty change.

The interesting part of North’s speech dealt with the amount of law coming from Brussels which is in reality merely Brussels rubber-stamping decisions made by other supranational bodies. (North claimed that it was most of the EU regulations we toil under). This law is called Dual International Quasi Legislation. It derives from what North describes the EU as having become, namely, “part of a nexus of legislative bodies, linking international agencies of the United Nations with regional, national and local bodies, to form one continuous, seam-free administrative machine.” (http://eureferendum.blogspot.co.uk/2007/03/sucess-of-eu.html)

The rather shadowy bodies which make such laws are the likes of the Codex Alimentarius Commission, (http://www.codexalimentarius.org/) which sets standards for the Food and Agriculture Organisation and the World Health Organisation, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (http://www.ipcc.ch/) and the Bank for International Settlements (http://www.bis.org/about/index.htm). The rules agreed by such bodies go through the EU legalising process on what is known as the “A List” without a vote.

Although the process may be rubber-stamping, it is worth noting that the EU is not legally bound to accept such agreements. However, it suits the EU elites’ purposes to do so because it fits with their anti-democratic supranational agenda for it restricts who makes the decisions to an even smaller group than would be the case if the EU instigated the regulations.

North is in favour of using Article 50 as an exit vehicle. He gives no sign of appreciating the potential damage which two years of prevarication by the EU could do or the opportunities for active collusion with the EU elite by the British elite to trap Britain once more within the tentacles of the EU.

His idea of using the “Norwegian Option” as a staging post to full independence is wishful thinking, because once a new settlement is reached it is highly improbable that a further referendum would be held for many years if at all, not least because the “Norwegian Option” would tie us into the four so-called EU freedoms and the general single-market obligations.

Kieran Bailey

He spoke confidently but, unsurprisingly for a 15-year-old, said nothing of obvious importance. His appearance smacked too much of gimmickry.

An unasked question

Had I had the opportunity I would have posed a question which went unasked, namely, what should be done to tie down Cameron (or any other PM) to what will happen if there is a vote to leave the EU? We need to know before the IN/OUT referendum what the British government is committed to.

What should be done?

If a referendum is to be won the OUT camp must put forward a coherent and attractive message which goes to the heart of British people’s fears and anger resulting from British membership of the EU. Talking legalistically about invoking Article 50, negotiating for a relationship similar to that of Norway or Switzerland or mechanically reciting mantras about free markets and free trade will not do that. Indeed, it will drive voters away.

The British resent and distrust the EU because of the impotence of the British government and legislature to prevent EU law taking precedence over the will of Parliament. However, they are often unclear about which areas of policy have been subcontracted to Brussels. The OUT campaign must keep hammering home exactly how much cannot be done while Britain is entrenched within the EU.

The most important EU issue in British minds is indubitably immigration. That should be made the focus of the OUT campaign. Indeed, the more it becomes an anti-immigration campaign the better because mass immigration affects from the entirety of life. The primary ill is simply the fact that huge numbers of foreigners coming into Britain change the nature of Britain both generally – think of the laws against speaking freely and those imposing “non-discrimination” dictats on the grounds of race and ethnicity – and particularly, for example, here parts of the country are effectively colonised by those of a certain ethnicity or race.

Then there are the secondary ills which immigrants bring: the undercutting of wages, the removal of jobs from the open British market by ethnic minority employers who either employ only those of their ethnicity and foreign gangmasters who supply only those of their own nationality, the use of the NHS, the taking of housing (especially social housing) which forces up rents, the overcrowding of schools in areas of heavy immigrant settlement, the drawing of benefits by immigrants very soon are they arrive in Britain and a disproportionate propensity for crime.

A full throated campaign against these ills, which should encompass non-EEA citizens in Britain as well as EEA citizens, would be something the British electorate would instinctively and enthusiastically respond to. It would also allow those speaking for the OUT campaign to vividly illustrate the extent that the EU affects British life in all the important political policy areas.

The danger is that those running the OUT campaign will, because of the grip that political correctness has on modern Britain, turn away from immigration as a major plank in their platform or even shun it altogether. That will guarantee either a lost referendum or allow Britain to be re-stitched into the EU with something like the “Norwegian Option”.

The BBC way with Scottish independence

Victoria Derbyshire BBC Radio 5 16 Sept 2013 10.00 am -12.000 noon

Debate on the Scottish independence vote

This was a classic example of the BBC’s interpretation of balance and consisted of a number of regulation issue BBC propaganda tricks.

The programme was held in Scotland (Glasgow) which meant that the pro-independence crowd were on home ground. A venue outside of Scotland would have been less partisan for two reasons: first, holding it in Scotland meant the audience was inevitably overwhelmingly Scottish (with a massive overrepresentation of Glaswegian residents) and second, it underpinned the idea that this is s a matter only for Scotland. Those representing England, Wales and Northern Ireland were not only thin on the ground , but either in full agreement with Scottish independence (including English people living in Scotland) or less than full hearted in their presentation of pro-unionist views and, in some cases, unreservedly pusillanimous in their putting their case, with one Englishman saying an Englishman had no right to tell the Scots how to vote.

There were a couple of hundred people involved. Right at the start Derbyshire employed the favourite Any Questions trick of saying the audience was not scientifically selected to represent the population at large (with the implication that its collective opinion was not worth anything), then blandly treating expressions of opinions as though the audience was scientifically selected. In such circumstances the large majority of any audience treat the individual and collective opinion as having the same meaning as a scientifically selected poll. Indeed, it is dubious whether many in any audience would really understand what “scientifically selected” means in this context.

A second favourite BBC trick is to turn the debate into pantomime. In this case the pantomime was created by dividing the audience into three groups which sat apart from one another: those in favour of independence, those against it and the undecided. The for and against camps were mysteriously on 36% each with the undecided on 27% (where the missing 1% went was not explained). This division was seriously at odds with recent polls which show a very significant lead for the NO camp, for example, the latest YouGov poll in Sept for the Times which showed the No camp on 52% and the Yes camp on 32% (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scotland/10316878/Alex-Salmond-on-course-for-defeat-in-independence-referendum.html). It is reasonable to ascribe the discrepancy between the reality of the public opinion and the debate’s audience to being deliberately manufactured by the BBC, because it is wildly improbable that the Yes and NO camps would be equal simply through chance. Why would the BBC do this? Either, for political reasons, to create a spurious equality to weaken the NO camp’s effect or , simply for dramatic effect, to produce a programme which looked as though it was dealing with an issue which was on a knife-edge.

The three groups sat separately and if members of each group changed their minds about where they should be sitting during the debate they moved to a different group. There was not much movement. However, the division did allow the presenter Derbyshire to pretend that there was a meaningful debate going on as she earnestly questioned each person who did move and routinely asked people if they were tempted to move.

There were two people representing the campaign groups Yes Scotland (SNP MEP Fiona Hislop and the comedienne Elaine C Smith best known for her role in Rab C Nesbitt) and two for the Better Together (Labour MP for Glasgow Central Anas Sarwar and Alan Savage an English businessman with the Orion recruitment group). Sarwar had the distinction of being a non-white face amongst a sea of ol’whitey. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/galleries/p01gt3s5). Indeed, I think he may have been the only black, brown or yellow face on show.

The Yes camp displayed a strong hysterical strain with frequent yelling and clapping, and speakers who assumed that bald assertion represented argument with gems such as “Scotland is stinking rich” and “Scottish independence is worth dying for” , mixed with a cloying victimhood with the wicked English cast as the culprits for all that is wrong in Scotland (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b039wz0t/clips). The limits of evidence advanced by the Yes camp began and ended with citations from Wikipedia (I kid you not).

The NO camp were much more restrained and asked a great number of questions which the Yes camp simply could not answer, questions about the armed forces, public sector pensions, immigration and the Pound (The http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b039wz0t/clips).

The various “expert” commentators such as the BBC Scottish staffer Brian Taylor adopted the “there is no clear answer” ploy when asked to comment on, for example, the share of taxpayers’ money Scotland receives.

At the end of the meeting Derbyshire gave out the Yes/NO/undecided figures before and after changes:

At the start of the debate At the end of the debate

Yes 80 84

No 80 83

Undecided 60 53

That will allow the Yes camp to represent it as a victory.

The programme was an amorphous unfocused mess. That helps the Yes camp, because what people will remember is not the arguments about particular issues but the bald assertions, victimhood and emotional outbursts.

What was almost entirely missing was discussion of the position of England. There was one speaker who called for an English Parliament, but this provoked little comment. The position of Wales and Northern Ireland received more attention. The English were also treated differently in one other respect: there were English speakers who live in Scotland putting the independence case in a way which painted the Scots as victims of England. There were no Scots, Welsh or Northern Irish speakers putting the English case.

This debate was almost certainly a taste of what the BBC (and probably the rest of the broadcast media) will provide during the Referendum campaign.

Robert Henderson

Hertfordshire English Democrats Supporters Club

Not Left, Not Right, Just English!

Category Archives: independence

Scottish Independence – How Cameron sold England down the river with the Edinburgh Agreement

BBC drama goes in to bat for Scottish independence

What happens if Scotland votes NO to independence?

Roger Scruton on the injustice done to England by devolution

Frank Field calls for an English Parliament on Any Questions

SNP 2013 XMAS INDEPENDENCE NOVELTIES

The Scottish Independence Referendum – unanswered questions

The future of England

Bruges Group International Conference 9 11 2013

The BBC way with Scottish independence