Category Archives: The Scots

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

The gratuitous denigration of things English – the reign of Elizabeth I

Robert Henderson

Allan Massie, a Scot be it noted, decided to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II with a deprecating piece on her great predecessor and namesake, Elizabeth I designed to pour cold water on the idea that hers was a glorious reign. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/9307110/Lets-not-overlook-the-gory-details-of-Gloriana.html). He complains of the general treatment of Catholics, the use of torture on Catholic priests and those who harboured them, nudges the reader to consider the likes of Francis Drake to be hovering on or going over edge of piracy and in best liberal bigot fashion invokes the ultimate condemnation of English adventurers of the time by dwelling on Sir John Hawkins’ involvement in the slave trade. In addition, Massie belittles the defeat of the Armada and Elizabethan military exploits on the continent, bemoans English involvement in Ireland and stands aghast as he considers the Earl of Essex’s execution of one in ten of his army after they failed to press hard enough in battle. As for the great intellectual glory of the reign, the sudden flowering of literature symbolised by Shakespeare, this is dismissed as being a mere tailpiece to the Elizabethan age.

Massie, a professional historian so he has no excuse, has committed the cardinal sin of historians by projecting the moral values and customs of his own time into the past. For a meaningful judgement Elizabeth’s reign has to be judged against the general behaviour of European powers of the time and that comparison , ironically, shows Gloriana’s England’s to be considerably nearer to what Massie would doubtless consider civilised values than any other state in Europe.

There were no terrible wars of religion as there were in France ; no Inquisition as there was in Spain.; no burning of those deemed heretics as there was under Mary Tudor. Torture was used in Elizabeth’s England, and in the reigns which immediately followed, but sparingly and only for cases which had national importance, normally involving treason, such as those involved in the Gunpowder Plot which took place only two years after Elizabeth’s death . On the continent it was a commonplace of judicial process. English law, by the standards of the time, was generally remarkably fair, not least because of the widespread use of juries. Those who gasp with horror at Essex’s execution of his troops should bear in mind that in the First World War several hundred British soldiers were shot for behaviour such as desertion and failing to go forward when ordered over the top.

In Elizabeth’s reign the first national legislation anywhere in the world to provide help to the needy was passed, a legislative series which began in 1563 and culminated in the Poor Law of 1601. This legislation put a duty on every parish to levy money to support the poor and made it a requirement to provide work for those needing to call on the subsistence provided by the Poor Law. Educational opportunities, whilst far from universal, increased substantially. Despite , by pre-industrial standards, very high inflation and the inevitable bad harvests, which included a series of poor years in the late 1590s, the population grew substantially, possibly by as much as a third from 3 to 4 million (http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/tudors/poverty_01.shtml). London expanded to be the largest city in Europe by the end of the Elizabeth’s reign with an estimated population of 200,000 by 1600 (http://www.londononline.co.uk/factfile/historical/ ).

It was also in Elizabeth’s reign that Parliament began to take on aspects of modernity as opposition to Royal practices and policies were made unambiguously not on the sole ground that the monarch was ill-advised, the traditional ground of complaint, but simply because of what we would now call ideological differences between the growing Puritan group and the still newly minted Anglicanism. This laid the foundations for the evolution of Parliament from being little more than a petitioning and tax raising assembly to what eventually became parliamentary government with the monarch at the will of Parliament not Parliament at the will of the monarch, an evolution which was to take several centuries more to be complete. That Parliament was already seen as being central to the process of government by the end of Elizabeth’s reign is shown by the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. That the conspirators thought blowing up Parliament was a necessary act or even just the most effective way of reducing England to a state of headless misrule speaks volumes.

The importance of the English Parliament under Elizabeth cannot be overstated because it is from the English Parliament that all modern assemblies take their inspiration. There were many mediaeval assemblies in Europe, but by the end of the 16^th Century most of them had been rendered obsolete through disuse and the few meaningful assemblies which remained had not moved nor ever did move to Parliamentary government. It was only in the English Parliament that the step to placing executive power within Parliament and away from the monarch occurred. Had the English Parliament been suppressed by, for example, the conquest of England by Phillip II or the early Stuarts’ adherence to the doctrine of the Divine Right of kings, it is difficult to see how representative government could have arisen because the seventeenth century was the century of absolute monarchs, or as near absolute as it was possible to get. These were rulers who were utterly opposed to the idea of sharing power. Consequently, if England had not made the jump to representative government it is most improbable any other country would have done so. Monarchies would have probably been overthrown in time, but they would have been almost certainly been replaced by dictatorships not elected governments.

Elizabeth’s reign was also a time of great artistic and considerable intellectual achievement. The development of the theatre and poetry may have come in the last 12 years or so of her time, but their legacy was seen in the 35 years running up to the Civil War. Music, particularly in the form of the madrigal, flourished. William Gilbert examined magnetism in a manner which was essentially scientific in the modern sense, arguably the first example of such research. Francis Bacon, the progenitor of the scientific method, spent most of his life as an Elizabethan having been born in 1561.

Catholics were rightly seen to be a fifth column. Most English Catholics did not actively seek to commit treason, but they had varying degrees of sympathy with those who did, whether it was the hiding of priests or a secret wish to see a foreign Catholic monarch on the throne. Not only that, but all English Catholics had by definition an allegiance to a foreign power (the papacy) which was hostile to England under a Protestant monarch. Throughout Elizabeth’s reign popes funded and generally encouraged, both morally and materially, Catholics in England to subvert the laws against Roman Catholicism and for much of the reign the papacy was actively working for her overthrow. No pope was more enthusiastic in this behaviour than Pius V who in 1570 published the papal bull Regnans in Excelsis which declared Elizabeth I a heretic and a false Queen and released Elizabeth’s subjects from their allegiance to her.

Those who plotted to reintroduce Catholicism to England were unambiguous traitors. They did not simply seek to overthrow the existing monarch, but to entice a foreign Catholic king to invade and seize the throne with the primary purpose, in their eyes, of enforcing the return of Catholicism.

Elizabeth’s reign took place in the context of a world in which England had to guard against many enemies from the counter-revolutionary forces on the continent to the threat of Scotland attacking England when she was distracted by continental matters or still Catholic Ireland being used as a sidedoor for the invasion of England by continental powers . The most forbidding threat came from Spain, the greatest power in Europe at the time. Phillip II’s marriage to Mary I gave Phillip a permanent interest in England – he tried to marry Elizabeth and considered a plan to use his departure from England for Spain in 1559 following Mary’s death as cover to land troops as he sailed down the Channel (http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/tudors/adams_armada_01.shtml )- and , quite reasonably, placed in English minds the idea of a constant threat of Spanish invasion of England and its enforced reconversion to Catholicism – in 1584 Philip II of Spain signed the Treaty of Joinville with the French Catholic League, with the aim of eradicating Protestantism. Attacks on Spanish treasure ships can reasonably be seen not as simple piracy but as acts of war engendered by the Spanish threat. In addition, the claim of Spanish and Portuguese ownership of the New World was really no more than a self-arrogated exclusion zone created by the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494 and the English attacks on Spanish ships and New World settlements were in response to this exclusion. (It is important to understand that the scramble for overseas colonies by European powers was driven as much by the fear that monarchies such as Spain and France would become too powerful in relation to the monarchies which did not have colonies as by a desire to simply conquer new territory or personal gain).

Massie’s dismissal of the defeat of the Armada as a victory for the elements rather than the Elizabethan navy is distinctly odd. He overlooks the fact that before the Spanish were sunk by the weather the English navy had prevented the Spanish from clearing the Channel of English warships in readiness for the embarkation of the Spanish invasion troops who were waiting at Dunkirk. Massie also makes no mention of the raid on Cadiz in 1587 by Drake which probably delayed the Armada for a year giving the English time to prepare against the intended invasion.

As for English military continental adventures, there were failures, but the most important contributions of England to the battle between the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation was her financing of Protestant powers on the continent, most notably the United Provinces, and the very fact of England remaining unconquered, the latter being of immense importance because the Protestant states on the continent were weak and fragmented and England was by far the most important Protestant power of the time. If England had fallen to Spain, it is doubtful whether Protestantism could have survived, if it had survived at all, as more than a family of persecuted sects.

The casting of John Hawkins as beyond the Pale because he was a slave trader clankingly misunderstands the mentality of the age. Forms of legal unfreedom, ranging from full blown chattel slavery to indentured labour (which could be for years particularly in the case of apprenticeships), were common throughout Europe. Moreover, the poor who were not formally legally restrained in their freedom were under severe economic restraints to do what they were told and take what work they could get. Slavery was not seen as an unmitigated , unforgivable evil. It is also worth bearing in mind that although serfdom was never formally abolished in England, by Elizabethan times it had practically vanished through a process of conversion of the land worked for themselves by serfs to land held by copyhold tenancies. The reverse took place in central and Eastern Europe where feudal burdens became more stringent and widespread in the sixteenth century and even France retained serfdom in some places, most notably, Burgundy and Franche-Comté, until the Revolution in 1789 and seigneurial privileges which required freemen holding land of the seigneur to have a relationship which in practice was not so different from that of the serf.

The great triumph of Elizabeth’s reign was that both she and Protestantism survived. This meant that England was never again in thrall to a foreign power until Edward Heath and his fellow conspirators signed away Britain’s sovereignty by accepting the Treaty of Rome in 1972 and entangling Britain within the coils of what is now the EU. It was not that Protestantism was in itself superior to Catholicism, rather that in embracing Protestantism the question of divided loyalties between monarch and papacy was removed.

It is true that the idea of Gloriana was propaganda both during the reign itself and in the Victorian period most notably in the hands of the historian J A Froude painted too sunlit a picture. But the reign was of immense importance in creating the England that became writ so large on the history of the next four centuries. If it had not been Elizabeth who came to the throne in 1558 the odds are that Phillip II would have conquered England. Had she not reigned for so long Protestantism would not have become the irrevocable religion of England. If she had not called Parliament regularly it would not have laid the ground for eventual Parliamentary government and any other monarch would almost certainly have emasculated the Commons. The existence of behaviour which offends Mr Massie’s twenty-first liberal bigot sensitivities is irrelevant.

The utilitarian case for the monarchy

Robert Henderson

The utilitarian case for the monarchy is not about pageantry, deference or the vulgar belief that it is worth keeping because it acts as a tourist magnet. It is not about the cost of the monarchy compared with a president. It is not about whether the individual members of the Royal family are worthy beings or if its very existence is an insult to ideas of politically correct equality. The utilitarian case is purely political: our monarchy underpins Parliamentary government.

In resisting the abuse of the many by the few, Britain begins with the great advantages of a parliamentary system and an in practice non-executive head of state chosen by a means utterly outside political manipulation short of the outright criminality of murder, blackmail, illicit threats and bribery, namely birth. These provide a massive barricade against a Prime Minister who would be a despot. He cannot act without the support of an elected parliamentary majority. His cabinet in practice must be overwhelmingly drawn from elected politicians. He may change his cabinet but he cannot do so without regard to a cabinet member’s status and popularity within the party on whose support he depends.

Most importantly, the prime minister (or any other politician) cannot become head of state. This is of central importance, because whether the powers of a president be executive or ceremonial, the mere existence of the office of president provides an avenue for those who would subvert parliamentary control of the executive. The example of De Gaulle in France
in the early years of the Fifth Republic demonstrates how easily a President’s powers may be extended by the overtly democratic means of a referendum against the wishes of a Parliament. As things stand, a would be British dictator would have to do one of two things. The constitutionally legitimate path would require him to first persuade Parliament to
adopt the idea of an executive presidential system and then win the backing of the electorate for a change to a presidential system either through a referendum or an electoral mandate. His illegitimate path would consist of either a referendum put to the country against the wishes of Parliament or an outright coup backed by the military and police.

This is not to say that a prime minister equipped with a large majority cannot have a great deal of freedom and personal power. Both Thatcher and Blair achieved this. But however big their majority or great their personal authority they could not routinely make policy without some regard to the wishes of their ministers, backbenchers and the electorate. Whatever dark thoughts Thatcher may have had about mass immigration or membership of the EU, she was in practice hamstrung in doing anything about it by the opposition of powerful ministers such as Nigel Lawson and Geoffrey Howe. Tony Blair’s desire to severely reduce the welfare state was thwarted over many years by his Chancellor Gordon Brown. To those leashes on their dictatorial desires can be added the fact that both Thatcher and Blair left office before they wanted to as a result of dissent amongst their parliamentary parties. Had either been an elected president operating outside parliament, neither would have been removed before the end of their term of office.

A parliamentary system such as that of Britain has other restraints on abuses of power. First-past-the-post elections based on constituencies means that MPs are not solely beholden to their party elite s as is the case with a party list system, and general elections, at least since 1945, have normally produced a single party with a majority in the House of Commons.
This latter fact means that the vast majority of modern British government have not been able to fail to honour their manifestos on the grounds that they were part of a coalition.

If a demand for a president arose in Britain there would be an opportunity for those pressing for such a change to seek an executive president with the executive removed from Parliament on the grounds that it was “more democratic” and provided a check on the power of the executive. . Anyone who thinks this is a good idea should look at the American experience where the powers of the president are constrained by a division of powers outlined in a written constitution administered by a supreme court. The President appoints his cabinet subject only to the agreement of the Senate, the President’s nominees being normally accepted. Supreme Court judges are also nominated by serving presidents and vetted by the Senate. These nominations meet more Senate opposition, but most of those nominated are passed and if one is rejected, the President still gets to nominate an alternative. That means a president will broadly speaking get a judge into the court who is sympathetic to the president’s political views. As Supreme Court judges are elected for life, a president
who is able to get even two new judges onto the court may affect its political bias for decades.

Even if a supposedly non-executive president was adopted with the executive remaining in Parliament, the relationship between the prime minster and head of state would be different. If the president was elected, there would be a second font of democratic authority regardless of the president’s powers. This would mean that there would be a constant temptation for a powerful politician to get themselves or a stooge elected to the presidency and then use their control of Parliament to increase the president’s powers. If the president was simply appointed by politicians a prime minster with a large majority could either take the presidency themselves and use his parliamentary control to increase his powers or place a stooge in as president, use Parliament to increase the presidential powers then control the stooge.

None of this is to pretend that the British system of government is perfect for the executive has found many ways of thwarting proper parliamentary oversight and control . The way it does this is fivefold (1) the entanglement of Britain in treaties, most devastatingly those related to the EU, which remove sovereign power from not only Parliament but Britain; (2) the increasing grip of party elites on the selection of candidates for Westminster seats, something of particular importance with the rise of the career politician who has never done
a job outside of politics; (3) an ever swelling use of secondary legislation, particularly statutory instruments, which provide much less opportunity for parliamentary scrutiny than primary legislation; (4) the increasing appointment of peers as ministers and non-politicians as “Tsars” for particular policy areas and (5) the use of the Royal Prerogative by prime ministers.

There are ready cures for these ills. Treaties could be repudiated to regain sovereignty; the power of selection of Parliamentary candidates invested solely in local constituency parties would greatly reduce the power of party elites; a requirement that a Parliamentary candidate should have ten years work experience unconnected with politics before being able to stand for Parliament would end the career politician; withdrawal from the EU would greatly reduce the amount of secondary legislation and increased time to scrutinise what was left and the use of peers and non-politicians banned.

That leaves the Royal Prerogative which represents a particularly danger to democratic control because the powers exercisable under it are large. This is because of the long, organic
development of the relationship between Parliament and the Crown, the powers and rights of the Crown are little circumscribed by law, although most, and all the important ones, are now invested in practice in the office of PM. The dissolution or proroguing of Parliament and the calling of elections are by the prerogative. The PM and his ministers are appointed by
the Crown. In principle, the monarch could appoint a Government in which none of its members sat in Parliament. No Bill can become a law without the monarch’s signature. Treaties and the making of war and peace can and are made without the assent of Parliament. All foreign relations are in principle within the monarch’s remit. Justice is the monarch’s. The Monarch can do no wrong. Many senior state appointments such as appointments to the higher judiciary and bishoprics are one by the prerogative. The monarch is head of the armed forces. There is prerogative power which allows the Crown to expropriate or requisition private property (with proper compensation) in time of war or apprehension of war. The Crown has limited powers of legislation under the prerogative, principally as respects the civil service and UK dependent territories. This legislation is made by Orders in Council, ordinance, letters patent and royal warrant. A ragbag of other rights such as treasure trove and bona vacantia (the reversion to the Crown of property where there is no inheritor) and arcane rights such as the monarch’s right to (most) swans also exists.

The simplest thing would be to cancel all prerogative rights which have a serious political dimension. This would reduce greatly the power of the PM and consequently pass power to Parliament. Such powers as are left to the monarch should be laid down clearly in law. That would do a great deal to increase the power of Parliament and the ordinary member.
However, more could be done without producing a situation which would leave a Parliament with an executive unable to act. I would ban the whipping of MPs, restrict the size of government to reduce the government “payroll vote” ( modern governments draw in more than 100 MPs) and make the justice system truly independent by removing the political officers – Lord Chancellor, Attorney-General and Solicitor-General – from the process of justice.

The banning of whips would not mean a government with a working majority was constantly defeated because most party members will vote for their party programme. Governments would have to get used to accepting the odd defeat on even important policies as a fact of life not a cause to call a motion of confidence. The reduction of the “payroll vote” would lead
to more independent minded backbenchers who would see being a backbencher as an honourable and worthwhile end it itself. The removal of the politicians from the process of justice is necessary to observe natural justice.

Two other things would be s desirable as a check on the executive: a written constitution designed not to promote a political agenda but to protect democratic control and prevent governments from undertaking anti-democratic policies or reckless behaviour which self-evidently will be damaging to the country. If there is a Supreme Court to administer it, judges should be selected for a fixed period of five years and chosen by a free vote of the Commons. Alternatively, the administration could be done by a reformed second chamber (see below).

The second thing is electoral reform. To address the problem of parties with even less than 40% of the popular vote ending up with large majorities, for the Commons I would suggest double member constituencies with each elector having a single vote. The two candidates receiving the most votes in each constituency would be elected. This would probably both reduce the size of majorities whilst giving any elector a choice of two MPs to go to rather than one.

As for the Lords, if you want a house which will not engage in a democratic mandate war with the Commons or simply replicate the party dominance of the Commons, I suggest selecting a house by lot from all those who put themselves forward to serve a single term of ten years, sufficient time for them to become proficient as a revising chamber.

Skintland: The Economist spells out the wages of Scottish Independence

Robert Henderson

Alex Salmond, the leader of the Scottish Numpty Party (SNP), has been at full impotent froth over an article in the Economist which describes Scotland as Skintland and carries a map of Scotland with puns on place names such as Glasgone”, “Edinborrow”, the “Loanlands” and the “Shutland Islands” and a headline “It’ll Cost You” (http://www.economist.com/node/21552572). The article concluded that an independent Scotland would be ”one of Europe’s vulnerable, marginal economies”. Salmond vowed the Economist will “rue the day” they engaged in such honesty ..er.. impertinence, although like Lear he was rather short on actual ideas for the ruing*.

The Economist pointed out many of the weaknesses of the Scottish economy: the over-dependence on oil – in 2010/11 18% of the Scottish GDP was derived from offshore activity; the uncertainty of the oil revenues – in 2009/10 oil tax revenues were around £12 billion: in 2010/11 they dropped to about £6 billion; the fact that oil is a declining asset; the heavy costs of decommissioning oil platforms in Scottish waters; the recklessness in pinning high hopes on “green” energy which is heavily dependent on (English) taxpayer subsidies; the likelihood of firms relocating from Scotland if independence arrived and the declining fortunes of the Scottish financial sector : “ Since 2007 Edinburgh has slipped from 15th to 37th on the closely-watched Z/Yen ranking of global financial centres, behind Guernsey, Stockholm and Wellington, in New Zealand.”

Then there are the problems for an independent Scotland of using the Pound . The Economist pointed out the disagreeable fact that an independent Scotland using the Pound would have no control of over the decisions made which affected the currency or any hope of money being transferred from the rest of the UK to Scotland if the country ran into the type of economic trouble being experienced by the likes of Greece and Spain in the Eurozone.

To these problems the Economist added the question of the debt Scotland would inherit as their share of the financial liabilities the UK at the point of independence. The UK national debt is projected to be £1.4 trillion by 2015 which would be the date for independence envisaged by the SNP. A share proportionate to Scotland’s part of the total UK population would be £115 billion (8.2% of £1.4 trillion). That is without allocating any portion of the hundreds of billions which have been pumped into the Scottish banks RBS and HBOs (via the Lloyds Banking Group). Even if that sum was split between Scotland and the rest of the UK on the same basis as the national debt, Scotland’s share would probably push her starting national debt towards £200 billion, an absurd amount for a country of 5 million.

To whatever vast sum the Scottish national debt started from, these costs would have to be added: the costs of oil installation decommissioning (the Economist estimates these at £30 billion by 2040 as things stand, but it could be more if fresh installations are made); the decommissioning of nuclear power stations in Scotland – the Economist gives a figure of £4 billion for this; the cost of servicing all public sector pensions in Scotland and the funding of public spending generally which is, according to the Economist 13% per head greater than in the rest of the Uk.

An independent Scotland would have to fund all that from a national GDP of around £145 billion (assuming it does not shrink from its present size after independence). Nor has the Economist covered all of the additional costs involved with independence. There would be the cost of establishing administrations for all the public service functions now undertaken by the UK on Scotland’s behalf such as foreign affairs and defence; the loss of the lucrative UK government contracts which are currently pushed Scotland’s way and the repatriation of the public sector jobs in Scotland not servicing Scotland , for example, much of England’s social security administration, to the UK.

There is also the other side of the public finances equation: tax revenue. Scotland would lose the comfort of the assured Westminster Treasury payment she presently receives which provides most of the money that the Scottish Parliament spends. (Because of the higher per capita figure Scotland receives compared to England, this gives Scotland around £8 billion pa more than she would get if the Scottish figure was set at the English per capita figure). The SNP would argue that the tax revenues from oil would more than offset this loss. Sadly, as with so many things the SNP claim, it is simply wrong both historically and projected into the future. A 2009 Scottish Office paper shows that even allocating all of the tax Revenue from the North Sea to Scotland (that is, none to England) since 1980 shows Scotland cumulatively gaining £20 billion more from the higher per capita Treasury payment than was taken in tax from the oil (see page 1 –http://www.scotlandoffice.gov.uk/scotlandoffice/files/Scotland%20and%20Oil%20-%20Background%20paper.pdf). As a significant proportion of the North Sea oil was not in Scottish waters so the actual gain was even greater.

As for collecting tax generally, a distinction has to be made between tax collected from public servants and those employed by companies which derive all or a large part of their revenue stream from public contracts and tax collected from private institutions which receive no money from the taxpayer. The tax and national insurance collected from public servants’ wages and the tax and national insurance taken from those employed by private companies who pay wages from the money they receive from public contracts is not new money, but simply the regaining by government of tax which they have paid out. In short , obtaining tax from these sources is merely a book-keeping exercise. The taxpayer gives out the money with one hand and collects it with the other. The only tax which counts as new tax revenue is that derived from companies and other employers who do not receive any taxpayers’ money.

Scotland has a larger public sector than England – (25% as against 20% of jobs in England (http://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2011/05/19/the-wages-of-scottish-independence-public-sector-employment/) with more than 60% of Scottish GDP being derived from public spending (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scotland/4217793/Scotlands-dependence-on-state-increasing.html). This means that an independent Scotland would have to fund all its public expenditure from less than 40% of the economic activity in the country.

It is worth adding that notional tax takes and tax actually collected are very different things. At present the Scottish government has an assured income stream because they know that Westminster will pay over what is due each year under the Barnett Formula. This means the Scottish government can plan. Once they have to collect the tax themselves they move into the realm of uncertainty. An analogy would be between a publicly funded body and a private company deriving its revenue purely from what it can make in the market. The Scottish government at present is like a publicly funded body: after independence it would be like a private company.

I have been pointing out these problems (and others) arising from Scottish independence for yonks – see my http://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2011/07/23/the-complete-wages-of-scottish-independence/ . Because of these difficulties there is a strong probability that an independent Scotland would be churchmouse poor and dangerously reliant on a few industries and publicly funded employment (the proportion of Scottish GDP dependent on public money is heading towards 70%) .

The English reader might shrug their shoulders and say so what, they made their bed let them lie on it. If only it were that simple. There is a very real danger that England would be left picking up many of the debts Scotland could not pay if Scotland became independent and got into a financial mess which was beyond her economic strength to repair.

The clean way for Scotland to divorce from the Union would be for her to raise money by issuing bonds sufficient to pay the rest of the UK what Scotland owed as her share of the UK national debt and the debts arising from the RBS and HBOS bailouts. (The other liabilities mentioned above would automatically rest with Scotland). Once the bonds were sold, the proceeds of their sale would be given to the Westminster government who would reduce their borrowing accordingly. That would make a clean break with the risk that the bonds were not serviced resting entirely on the Scottish government’s ability and willing to pay the interest and ultimately for the redemption of the bonds.

The problem is a newly independent country the size of Scotland would not be able to come close to raise the money to cover her proportionate share of even the national debt, let alone the payout resulting from RBS and HBOS bailouts. This would mean that the debt would remain with the rest of the UK, (effectively with England ) with Scotland paying so much a year to Westminster. If Scotland was unwilling or unable to meet her payments to Westminster the English would end up paying because the debts would legally still be the UKs.

But practical financial liabilities for England do not stop there. An independent Scotland which ran into serious financial trouble would, at best, present England with the same problem that the Republic of Ireland (RoI) presented when the Eurozone ran into problems. It is probable that any likely Westminster government would feel obliged to bail them out just as they bailed out the RoI. If Scotland continue to use the Pound the position would be much worse, because any Scottish financial crisis would have a damaging effect on the currency as a whole. It would place the remainder of the UK in the same position as Germany is in with the Erurozone, a currency union without political union, with all that entails.

What should the Coalition do? A little ridicule does no harm, especially when dealing with preternaturally thin-skinned creatures such as Salmon because it makes them behave in outlandish ways. But the prime tool in unscrewing the SNP platform is not to pander to them or to Scottish sensibilities generally, but to demolish the SNP’s claims of Scottish self-sufficiency by a straightforward description of what independence for Scotland will mean. Tell them that they will not have the Pound. Make it clear they must take on the debts of the UK at the time of independence. Spell out the facts about jobs which will be removed from Scotland. Veto the DevoMax option. Make it clear that independence will mean independence. Faced with that dire reality, few Scots would vote for independence.

*”I will have such revenges on you both

That all the world shall—I will do such things—

What they are yet I know not”

“but they shall be

The terrors of the earth.

King Lear Act 2, Scene 4.

Bring the Nuclear Deterrent to England now

Robert Henderson

A Daily Telegraph report of 27 January 2012 ”Nuclear subs will stay in Scotland” ( James Kirkup –http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/9043092/Nuclear-subs-will-stay-in-Scotland-Royal-Navy-chiefs-decide.html) is most disturbing. The essence of the story is that should Scotland votes for independence the UK nuclear deterrent would for years have to remain in what would then be a foreign country.

Why could the subs, warheads and missiles not be brought to England? Kirkup claims the Ministry of Defence (MoD) believes the provision of new facilities for the nuclear deterrent in England could take up to ten years to build.

The Trident missiles carrying Vanguard-class submarines are based at Faslane on the Gare Loch; the missiles and warheads are stored and loaded from the nearby Royal Naval Armaments Depot Coulport, on Loch Long. Kirkup quotes an unnamed source: “Berths would not be a problem – there are docks on the south coast that could be used without too much fuss. But there simply isn’t anywhere else where we can do what we do at Coulport, and without that, there is no deterrent.” In other words, the subs could be accommodated immediately in England but the storing and arming facilities of Coulport could not.

The official description of Coulport is:

The Royal Armaments Depot at Coulport, eight miles from Faslane, is responsible for the storage, processing, maintenance and issue of key elements of the UK’s Trident Deterrent Missile System and the ammunitioning of all submarine-embarked weapons.

It also stores conventional armaments for Royal Navy vessels.

Because of the nature of its work, the site is subject to the most stringent external security regulators who authorise the depot to process nuclear weapons and provide support to nuclear submarines berthed at the Explosive Handling Jetty. (http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/The-Fleet/Naval-Bases/Clyde/RNAD-Coulport

The claim that there is and will be the “most stringent external security” is questionable because the site has fallen prey to the privatisation mania with the day-to-day management moving in February 2012 from the MoD to a commercial consortium led by the Atomic Weapons Establishment in alliance with Babcock and Lockheed Martin (http://wmcnd.org.uk/news/nuclear-power-fukushima-and-chernobyl and http://www.nti.org/gsn/article/lockheed-group-to-manage-uk-nuke-installation/).

Kirkup reports an unnamed source saying “Maintaining the deterrent is the first priority for any UK government, so ministers in London would have to pay Salmond any price to ensure we kept access to [the Clyde bases]…It would be an unbelievable nightmare.”

The idea that it would take ten years to replace the facilities Royal Naval Armaments Depot at Coulport is surely absurd. We know how quickly things can be done in wartime. This should be treated as a situation of equivalent urgency. Salmond must not be allowed to use it as a bargaining chip on the conditions of either independence or DEVOMAX.

Even if the referendum vote goes against independence, you may be sure that something like DEVOMAX will be granted to Scotland by the current Westminster Government which appears to have no sense of protecting English interests. That will simply be a stepping stone to full independence. If the nuclear facilities are left in Scotland in such circumstances they would ever be a hostage to fortune. The Government should not wait for a referendum, but begin the process of removing the nuclear deterrent facilities to England now.

If the nuclear deterrent was left in Scotland for years after independence it is almost certainly going to cause problems, not least with the Americans who supply the UK with the delivery system to for the British made and owned warheads. They might well be reluctant to allow their technology to be sited in what would then be a foreign country with all the security implications that carries. (Amazingly, you may think, the UK only leases the missiles and they are pooled with the Atlantic squadron of the USN Ohio SSBNs at King’s Bay, Georgia).

In addition, there could be no certainty about what a future government of an independent Scotland would do, or indeed how resolute a future Westminster government would be. The example of the three Irish Free State “treaty ports” the Royal Navy continued to use after the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty is not encouraging. This agreement was abruptly terminated in 1938, a year before the feared U-Boat menace to British shipping became a reality. The most dismaying thing with that episode was that the British government behaved in the most supine way – they gave and the Free State took – simply to end a long-standing trade war with the Free State.

The worst case scenario would be to do nothing before the referendum, the vote is for independence and Salmond then insists on the removal of the deterrent immediately because of the Scotch Numpty Party’s long-standing commitment to a nuclear free Scotland.

The MoD declined to discuss details of Kirkup’s story but a spokesman said “The UK government position is clear and we are arguing the case for Scotland to remain within the Union. However, any decisions on Scotland’s future are for people in Scotland to decide.” This points to the coalition taking the Micawber strategy of waiting for something to turn. That will be unreservedly to England’s (and the British Isles) disadvantage.

SNP 2011 XMAS Novelties

Independence Puzzle

Based on the Rubik Cube principle, when solved the puzzle represents a map of the Scotch mainland with the word INDEPENDENCE in the its centre. WARNING: this is a very demanding puzzle and even the brightest players will almost certainly find it impossible to solve

Guess the English Subsidy Sweepstake

Each player puts part of their English subsidy into a pot. Players write down their guess for a given year. The winner is the person with the guess which is closest to the actual figure. They collect the pot. The other players say it isn’t fair and send a petition to Westminster asking for even more English money.

Educational moneybox

The money box is in the shape of mainland Britain. When money is to be saved it is put into an opening situated over central London from where it slides quickly to a point north of the Tweed. When money is to be spent a lever is pressed and the money is disgorged from another opening placed over Edinburgh.

Jock-in-a-box

When opened a figure modelled on Alex Salmond pops up saying with the characteristic whine of the Jock-in-a-box either INDEPEEENDENCE or DEVOOO MAXXX . The choice of word uttered when the box is random. Bet on which it will be every time the box is opened. Hours of innocent fun from this traditional favourite!

Independence Crystal Ball

Look into the Crystal Ball to see when Independence will be gained. WARNING: an inability to see any date is not evidence of the item not being of merchandisable quality.

Tartan Snap

The cards contain various tartans. When two cards with the same tartan are placed down consecutively SCOTT is shouted in honour of Sir Walter Scott who created the idea of clan tartans to amuse George 1V on his visit to Scotland.

Animatronic SNP Member

Dressed in a kaleidoscope of various clan tartans with a shape which resembles a beachball in human form, the toy Has a library of 50 phrases including “It isnae fair”, “t’Anglish are stealin’’ ouir oil”, “We wunt muir t’Anglish money” , “Independence an’ t’Anglish money” , “It’s the fault of t’Anglish”. Unlike the 2010 model , the phrases “Arc of Prosperity” and “Independence in Europe” are not included in the repertoire of phrases. Startlingly lifelike

The deep-fried cookbook

Contains SNP MSPs’ favourite recipes. Everything from the classic deep fried Mars Bars to deep fried porridge balls. Base your diet on these and look like your average SNP MSP!

My little Loch Ness Monster bath toy

Spends most of the time submerged but surfaces every now and then to display the words “Independence for Scotland Sometime! ” illustrated on its coils. Bright pink, it will appeal to girls as an alternative to My Little Pony.

Devolution Max Jigsaw

This is a jigsaw with a difference. It comes with the pieces marked with legends such as “Armed Forces”; Unemployment Benefit”, “Sick Benefit”, “State Pension”, “Westminster Parliament”, and “Continuing English Subsidy”. The trick is to form the jigsaw picture with the “Continuing English Subsidy” at the centre even though the pieces are cut so as not to fit together.

Oil Monopoly

A game for a maximum of six players. Instead of a board marked “Victoria Station”; “Mayfair” and “Gasworks” and so on , there is one consisting of squares carrying legends such as “Shetlands”, “Aberdeen Refinery” and “English North Sea Oil and Gas” . When players pass GO they receive £200 of English money. The Community Chest and Chance cards are marked with messages such as “There is a LibLab Coalition government, collect £1,000 extra from England” and “Independence is cancelled. Return the “Wee Pretendy Parliament money to England” . The winner is the player who accumulates most of the oil and gas assets around the UK. Oil and gas in English waters scores treble.

Porridge Oats Modelling Set

A kit consisting of a set of moulds, oats, mixing bowl and measuring jug. Oats and water are mixed and then poured into the mould. Moulds include Alex Salmond, The Wee Pretendy Parliament and the Edinburgh tram system.

Warning: toxic: not to be put in mouth

HURRY…HURRY…HURRY… WHILE JOCKS LAST