Category Archives: democracy england

LEFTISTS DON’T UNDERSTAND EITHER DEMOCRACY OR NATIONALISM!


LEFTISTS DON’T UNDERSTAND DEMOCRACY OR NATIONALISM


I recently had this exchange of views on Twitter with a Leftist troll:-

Robin Tilbrook 
What are British Laws when there are several jurisdictions in the UK? look at >>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNu8XDBSn10
The Difference between the United Kingdom, Great Britain and England Explained

“Chris” 
British Laws are the collective laws of the UK over which the Supreme Court has jurisdiction.

Tilbrook‏ Jan 24

Not so. It isn’t a proper “Supreme Court” like the US one. It has jurisdiction over the parameters of eg Scots’ Devolved Powers

“Chris” Jan 24 
think you need to do a bit more research on their jurisdiction. Either way, UK Supreme Court, not of E&W, so British correct

Tilbrook Jan 24 
As a litigation solicitor, I suspect I know more about the “Supreme Court’s” jurisdictions than most. http://robintilbrook.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/brexit-befuddled-and-be-judged.html …

“Chris” Jan 24 
As a member of a fascist group, I suspect you’re more blinded by ideological hatred than anything else, but there we are.

Robin Tilbrook‏ Jan 24 
Not true and shows what a hypocrite you are, being that you are the one who is blinded.

“Chris” 
so, despite your profile, you’re not a member of a far right party with fascist beliefs?

Robin Tilbrook‏ 
The English Democrats are:- “Not Right, Not Left, Just ENGLISH!”

“Chris” 
Are you even English? Have you had a DNA test? How long have your family been in this country? Do you test members?

Robin Tilbrook‏ 
Now who is being the Nazi?

“Chris” 
Pointing out the absurdity of your ideology. Personally, I’m proud of my mixed background – Norman, Anglo-Saxon, Irish

Whilst it would be hard to summon much sympathy for “Chris”, as an individual, in fact he does express, albeit “through a glass, darkly” the commonly held Left-wing confusion between Racism, Nationalism, Nazism and Democracy.

Of course, as I put into the exchange, many Leftists, like “Chris”, are not interested in engaging in a sensible discussion about these matters. Their only purpose is to use what they think are ‘nasty’ words to smear people who they regard as political opponents. For this purpose Nationalist, Fascist and Nazi are all interchangeable, even if that usage tells you nothing about the real meaning of those words or the differences of political outlook that these words encompass.

We should try to be more sensible than “Chris” and have a look at the meanings of these words. Let’s start with “Democracy”. The word “Democracy” derives from the ancient Greek word for the rule of the “Demos” which means “the People”.

As regards the modern movement for democracy, whilst there were strands of it in the English tradition, which burst forth into full bloom in the foundation of the United States, the real impetus for much of democratic development comes from the French Revolution. The Revolutionaries talked of the “People” aka le Peuple”, and “liberté, égalité, fraternité”. The Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars overturned the assumptions, practices and politics of most of Europe.

The history of the remainder of the 19th Century and quite a bit of the 20th Century can be referred back to the forces of Democracy and Nationalism which had been unleashed by the French Revolution and by Napoleon.

In particular Democracy and Nationalism were seen by people as two sides of the same coin. Nationalists wanted to see their national group and its interests properly represented in Governmental systems and the “Nation” was seen as the same thing as the “People”. The rule of the “People” was thus expanded to be the rule of the “People of the Nation.”

One of the things we see in the modern world is that where a state occupies territory over which there is no concept of a single nation, it is impossible for that state to be democratic.

It is also worth observing that while nationalism and democracy have a large overlap there are of course versions of nationalism which are undemocratic, such as Fascism. Fascist leaders tended to claim that they were doing what the people of the nation wanted or was in their interest. Nevertheless Fascism was always opposed to representative parliamentary democracy.

Nazism and Fascism are basically both heretical offshoots of Marxist/Leninism. I would remind everybody that in 1932 Hitler made a well publicised speech in which he stated:-

We are socialists, we are enemies of today’s capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions. 


And of course Hitler’s Party’s proper name translated into English, was the “National Socialist German Workers Party”. 

Where Hitler departed from the basis on which nationalism had previously proceeded was in his ideology that there was an objective “Aryan” race the struggles of which are the basis of history. This is an idea in some respects similar to the Marxist delusion of there being an objective class, the “International Proletariat”. It’s also perhaps not all that surprising that Hitler wasn’t a German nationalist since he was after all Austrian!

Before we leave the subject of Democracy and Nationalism it is perhaps worth considering what Count Klemens von Metternich said in the early 19th Century about the Italian nationalist movement. He said:- 

“The word “Italy” is a geographical expression, a description which is useful shorthand, but has none of the political significance the efforts of the revolutionary ideologues try to put on it, which is full of dangers for the very existence of the states which make up the peninsular”.

So comprehensively has that early 19th Century Statesman’s view of Italy been swept aside that I have met quite a few people who think that Italy has always been a nation! That Italy is a single nation state going back to ancient Rome.

It is worth remembering that Mussolini’s political objective was partly to try to bolster a sense of Italy being an united nation state, when in fact Italy had only become united in 1863 and the First World War had tested the idea of Italy almost to destruction. But he then went on to found the first nationalist movement which was not avowedly democratic i.e. the Fascists.

On the other side of the concept of representative democracy we have the emerging idea of “Liberal Democracy”, which “Chris” mentioned. 

In England “Liberal Democracy” was really formed on the ideas of, amongst others, John Locke. The right to vote and to hold office was mostly dependent on owning property and therefore on being somebody with a stake in society. It was after all only in the late 19th Century in England that the right to vote was no longer limited to those people with property. Even until the 1960’s those who served on juries had to be rate payers and therefore householders.

Liberal Democracy’s roots therefore are not in Nationalism. 

We have seen this very clearly in the outcome of the Brexit case, in which most of the judges have firmly stated that legally the terms of the constitution is not a “Democracy” in which the “People” would be the sovereign body. Instead the Judges ruled that the “Crown in Parliament” is “Sovereign”, the “People’s” view therefore merely advisory. This is the position of Liberal Democracy clearly expressed.

Nationalists and Democrats on the other hand would say with one voice that it is the “People” that should be “Sovereign” not the Crown in Parliament. Both would also say that Parliament, the Monarchy, Councillors, Local Government, etc., should be seen as all merely the institutions by which the Peoples’ Will is expressed.

As we are seeing the development of Brexit is exposing one of the great divides in the world!

MY SUBMISSIONS TO THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT ASSOCIATION – Better Devolution for the Whole UK Inquiry

MY SUBMISSIONS TO THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT ASSOCIATION

APPG for Reform, Decentralisation and Devolution in the UK Better Devolution for the Whole UK Inquiry


The Local Government Association, which is a strongly Regionalist association of British Political Establishment apparatchiks, has recently launched an enquiry entitled:- “APP for Reform, Decentralisation and Devolution in the UK Better Devolution for the Whole UK Inquiry.” I thought I ought to respond to this on behalf of, not only the English Democrats, but also of the English Movement generally. I set out the response that I have sent in below, but first here are the terms of the Inquiry.

A panel, appointed by the qualifying officers of the Reform, Decentralisation and Devolution APPG, will consider written evidence and oversee the oral evidence sessions. The panel will be cross-party and drawn from both Houses and the four nations of the UK. The panel may appoint external expert advisers where it deems this necessary. As part of this inquiry, the Group would like to hear from businesses and voluntary organisations and their representative bodies, academics, and local government. The panel will seek evidence on the following areas:

1. Devolved nations: –

Devolution of legislative and fiscal competence to and within England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, including in the Scotland Bill and the Wales Bill. 
Federalism in the UK.
English Votes for English Laws.

2. Local government: –

Devolution of legislative and fiscal competence to local authorities within the United Kingdom, including in the Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill.

Governance arrangements for decentralisation.

Sustainable funding system for local government.

3. Central powers in the UK and intra-UK relations: –

Implications for the role of Whitehall

Implications for the role of the Houses of Parliament

4. Wider constitutional reform: –

The reform of the electoral system

The reform of the House of Lords

Procedures to govern the consideration and implementation of any future constitutional reforms.

Written and oral evidence will inform the final report. The final report and its recommendations will be submitted to the Minister for Constitutional Affairs and the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government.

Here are my submissions to the Local Government Association Inquiry:-

As Chairman of the English Democrats I am writing to submit evidence to your enquiry. Here are some key facts about the English Democrats:-

The English Democrats launched in 2002 and are the only campaigning English nationalist Party. We campaign for a referendum for Independence for England; for St George’s Day to be England’s National holiday; for Jerusalem to be England’s National Anthem; to leave the EU; for an end to mass immigration; for the Cross of St George to be flown on all public buildings in England; and we supported a YES vote for Scottish Independence.

The English Democrats are England’s answer to the Scottish National Party and to Plaid Cymru. The English Democrats’ greatest electoral successes to date include:- in the 2004 EU election we had 130,056 votes; winning the Directly Elected Executive Mayoralty of Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council in 2009 and also the 2012 mayoralty referendum; in the 2009 EU election we gained 279,801 votes after a total EU campaign spend of less than £25,000; we won the 2012 referendum which gave Salford City an Elected Mayor; in 2012 we also saved all our deposits in the Police Commissioner elections and came second in South Yorkshire; and in the 2014 EU election we had 126,024 votes for a total campaign spend of about £40,000 (giving the English Democrats by far the most cost efficient electoral result of any serious Party in the UK!). In the 2015 General Election we had the 8th largest contingent of candidates in England.

We would be happy to give oral evidence to the enquiry.

OUR EVIDENCE

In your Terms of Reference you have stated you want evidence on various defined areas:- 1) Devolved Nations; 2) Local Government; 3) Central Powers; and 4) Wider Constitutional Reform. The English Democrats on behalf of the Party itself and on behalf of the wider English nationalist movement would respond as follows:-

1. Devolved Nations


‘Devolution within England’[ cannot properly be described as “Devolution” at all by comparison to Scottish and Welsh national devolution. The only devolution that would be properly so called for England would be of an English Parliament, First Minister and Government with at least the same powers as the Scottish ones within a Federal UK.

It is the English Democrats opinion that the time for a Federal UK has already passed. For that to happen what should have happened in the first place when devolution occurred was that a coherent and fair national devolution for each of the constituent nations of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland should have been set up with each assembly or parliament having the same powers and a defined relationship with central government, as per every proper Federal State in the world. The fact that this was not done and that England’s just and fair interests have been consistently ignored and derided has led to mounting resentment in England.

It also would have been possible for the UK to have been turned into a Federal Regionalist State in conformity with the EU regionalist objectives but that would have required Scotland and Wales to have been regionalised and not for them to have national devolution. That window of opportunity has now firmly passed.

EVEL or English Votes for English Laws is a bogus, populist positioning policy which does not even properly answer the representational element of the wider English question.

The Conservative Government’s proposals are in any case the weakest of all the proposals for English Votes for English Laws. They will certainly disappoint all those people in England who think that the political system should allow a proper and fair voice for English interests to be expressed. The EVEL proposals do not of course even touch the executive side of the question as there is no proposal to have either a First Minister or Government for England, nor does it touch the administrative side of the question as there is no proposal to have an English Civil Service and not even to have a Secretary of State for England and therefore there is no parity with these proposals with what has been created for Scotland and Wales.

2. Local Government


It is not part of England’s tradition for legislative competence to be devolved from the National Government. However it is part of England’s tradition for our local government structures to be as independent of central government as possible. It is partly the United Kingdom’s increasing obsession with centralisation which has created the demand for Decentralisation. The English Democrats would like to see traditional local government structures re-empowered and there to be a substantial decentralisation of powers.

As the power to raise their own funds is an important part of the effectiveness and independence of governmental structures we would also support decentralisation of tax raising powers to enable local government to fund itself. Those aspects of so-called local government which are little more than local structures being deputised to do exactly what central government wants done should be dealt with by separate agencies rather than continuing with the pretence that they are genuinely part of local government.

The governance of Local government should also be made more democratically accountable with the universal implementation of Directly Elected Executive Mayors for all principal local authorities.

3. Central Powers


The role of Whitehall should be reduced and the role of the Houses of Parliament should be confined much more to those areas which under the current and evolving situation have not been devolved to Scotland.

4. Wider Constitutional Reform


Electoral System


Scotland’s electoral system has shown that despite the whiff of gerrymandering that accompanied the way it was set up, it has enabled a diversity of political opinion to be expressed in the Scottish Parliament. It is therefore to be preferred to an electoral system, such as the current first past the post system for the House of Commons which gives a bogus cloak of democratic majority to a party voted for by only 26% of the electorate in the last election and, with one sole exception, almost wholly denied representation for the votes of nearly 4 million voters. Such an electoral system is not only unfair but it is undemocratic.

House of Lords


The current composition of the House of Lords is completely unsatisfactory and too often appears to rest on cronyism, patronage and donations. Having moved from the original composition of mainly hereditary peers, there are only three options:- 1) Abolition of the House of Lords; 2) Reform to be a democratic UK Senate, as suggested by Lord Salisbury; or 3) A wholly elected Upper Chamber.

Those are the basic submissions of the English Democrats which we would be happy to expand upon in oral evidence if called.

What do you think?

MY SPEECH FOR AFTER THE COUNT TONIGHT

MY SPEECH FOR AFTER THE COUNT TONIGHT

Ladies & Gentlemen

I would also like to thank the Returning Officer and all his/her helpers who have worked on this election and also those voters who have voted for me and for the English Democrats.

I have enjoyed standing in this election and playing my part in flying the flag for England and for English nationalism.

I am going to be very interested in seeing what now happens. If, as the polls suggested, Labour is able to form a minority government only with the assistance of the Scottish National Party, Plaid Cymru and possibly Sinn Fein and other Irish nationalists, then I fully expect many voters who voted for other parties to wish that they had voted for the English Democrats to be a voice for England. 

That voice will be sorely missed because for the next 5 years we may have a government which is more anti-English than any government that England has had since the Norman Conquest.

As I speak poor England is now being delivered into the hands of our Nation’s enemies.

I hope that the experience of the next 5 years will ensure that never again will anyone who cares for England vote for any party which hasn’t got “Putting England First” at its very heart!

750th Anniversary of the First English Parliament:- 1265 – 2015

OUR PRESS RELEASE

20th January – English Parliament – First Meeting


The English Democrats are calling for all English people to have pride on the 20th January that our Nation held its first meeting of the first Parliament on the 20th January 1265. This Parliament is the ancestor of every Parliament on earth today and is one of the many unique, historic and important contributions the English Nation has made to the foundation of the modern world and in creating representative democracy.

Whilst Simon de Montfort’s Parliament in 1265 was a revolutionary development, subsequent adoption by Edward I of Parliament and its embodiment into Medieval English Royal Government was a reflection of Parliament’s usefulness in getting consent for Royal tax raising powers.

Robin Tilbrook, the Chairman of the English Democrats said:- “Sadly on the 20th January 2015 almost unnoticed by officialdom in England there will pass an anniversary which demonstrates even more than the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta, how ancient some of England’s institutions are.”

“The Earl of Leicester, Simon de Montfort, called his parliament the first proper English Parliament on the 20th January 1265 and so began the progress towards representative democracy.”

“A progress which has been of huge importance, not only in English history, but in the history of the entire modern world and is yet another unique and hugely significant contribution of the English Nation to the culture of the whole human race!”

Robin Tilbrook
Chairman,
The English Democrats

Independence Debate hots up!

Ian Bell, the Sunday Herald Columnist, wrote for his Scottish readers this article published on Sunday 24 August 2014

The Anglophobia that never was


IT all sounded ominous.

IT all sounded ominous.

“English backlash”; “Scots will pay a heavy price”; “English reject”: no matter the ending, the independence referendum would be tear-stained. Salty tears, too, familiar to those greetin’-faced Jocks.

In headline patois, the proposition was this: vote Yes and you’ll be sorry; vote No and it’s sorrow all the way. Affirm independence and you can forget a shared currency or a helping hand internationally. Reject independence and the bribes will stop. We’ll have you by the Barnett consequentials. Westminster over-representation no more. West Lothian Question no more.

GK Chesterton’s people of England, the ones who have “never spoken yet” in his poem The Secret People, appeared to suffer a change of heart. That they spoke through a sociological survey didn’t add much to the poetry. That they were talking through researchers in Edinburgh and Cardiff was a small contribution to the irony stockpile. The crack of backlash, predicted so long and so eagerly by some, was loud.

Well, yes and no (so to speak). The latest instalment of the Future of England Survey of 3695 adults, conducted by YouGov as part of research by the universities of Cardiff and Edinburgh, had a discord in the battle hymn. When they were done backlashing, the (surveyed) people of England expressed a wish – 59% to 19% – for the United Kingdom to continue. There was a nuance to their alleged exasperation.

It was as much as to say: stick around, and welcome, but we’re changing the terms of the lease. Stick around – for we like having you around – but once you’ve done trashing the place you’ll pay your whack, or lose the privileges we granted. No more hush money. No more hogging the parliamentary conversation. And if you must flounce off, don’t come running to us for a sub or a reference. But, Scotland, please don’t go.

Otherwise, the stats spoke. So 56% to 12% were reported as believing that levels of public spending in Scotland should be cut to levels – notional and in practical terms fictitious – called the UK average. So the claim on a post-independence currency union was rejected by 53% and supported by just 23%. So 62% said Scots MPs should be banned from voting on “England-only” laws.

In one question, the largest number (36%) thought the residual UK should have no truck with supporting Scotland’s membership of the EU and Nato. Elsewhere, fully 37% (against 21%) agreed that England and Scotland are drifting apart regardless. A big number – 53% against 10% – denied the claim promoted by Alex Salmond that it will be happy families after independence.

The survey found some English pragmatism to suit the Scottish majority taste. There were 42% (to 25%) prepared to say that Holyrood should control “most” of domestic taxation, given the removal of what’s called a subsidy, in the event of a No vote. There was a better than two-thirds showing that border controls would be a nonsense in the event of Yes. Still, it all made the “Scotland, don’t go” idea seem anomalous.

Personally, I’ve always thought it the easiest argument for independence. If you happen to be English, and if you happen to be fed up with what you call Anglophobia, and griping subsidy junkies, and the denial of English democracy, and appeasement of the northern neighbours, and Scots who refuse to see what’s glorious about Britain, put your back into Yes. It can all be solved in a few weeks.

That pat solution would not answer all of England’s questions, however. For one thing, the survey findings seem (to me) to have far less to do with a backlash, or with an animosity towards Scotland, than with Chesterton’s ordinary folk speaking up, finally, to say: “What about us?” Those ordinary people are less interested in withdrawing public spending or the chance of democracy from Scots than in asking why they can’t have the same. A very good question.

A truly representative parliament? An NHS still holding out against private-sector zombies? Free, mostly free, personal care for the elderly? So on and ever on. If you happen to be in Liverpool or Newcastle and contending with a government that, as usual, you didn’t vote for, what might you say? You might say Scots are subsidised while you struggle. You might notice one set of numbers and ignore another to show the first isn’t true. But you will find a reason to speak, finally.

The singer Billy Bragg and a few others have pursued this line for a while. They treat a Yes vote in Scotland as an opportunity, even an inducement, for England. They see profound imbalances and inequalities in that country, especially in the relationship between overbearing London and the rest, and they accept that it might not be Scotland’s job to make up the numbers should progressive England falter. It is an idea of solidarity by inspiration and emulation.

Pick through the survey stew and you find some sense. If Scotland can say it is not well-served by the nexus of Westminster, City and media, much of England can say the same.

Ken Livingstone used to like to remind Scots that some boroughs in his London were as poor as any districts in the islands. This was, and is, absolutely true. It was also beside the point. Part of the reason why England’s democracy needs to be broken apart on the wheel of devolution is to prove that you needn’t point a finger at others to get justice for yourself.

An English majority for a continuing UK suggests that animosities, where they exist, do not run deep. The desperate search for demented Scottish phobias has not been well-rewarded. The cheering-for-all during the Commonwealth Games turns out to have been more typical than the Daily Mail’s internet cybernat hunts. True hatred between Scotland and England is as hard to come by as truly irrational people.

The sole reason to worry comes from those behind the headline trench warfare. Did they want that English backlash so badly? Did they reason that Scots would react, for we have form, to old-fashioned provocation and show our colours as – what’s the formula? – ethnic separatists with weird notions about our neighbours? It didn’t work. It won’t work. It’s not true.

Just before the First World War, GK Chesterton published a novel containing a few poems. One of those has to do with St George. The writer called it The Englishman. I always think the last lines would suit those who sit in London offices and yearn for a resentful England.

But though he is jolly company

And very pleased to dine,

It isn’t safe to give him nuts

Unless you give him wine.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/comment/columnists/the-anglophobia-that-never-was.25112516
My reply was:-

Dear Mr Bell

Re: The Anglo-phobia that never was” – Sunday, 24th August

I enjoyed your article, but, with respect, the point about the opinion polls is somewhat undermining the No Campaign’s pitch as they demonstrate that the inducements to vote No which have been promised by Unionists in fact may be politically undeliverable.

In particular any promise to maintain the proportion of public spending currently spent in Scotland stands little chance of being honoured. So NO voters may well be voting for a £1,500 per annum cut in their living standards!

Do you think that thought will make a difference?

Yours sincerely

Robin Tilbrook

Chairman,
The English Democrats

ALL EU NOMINATIONS IN FOR THE ENGLISH DEMOCRATS!

ALL EU NOMINATIONS IN FOR THE ENGLISH DEMOCRATS!
This is the text of our Press Release:-
The English Democrats are pleased to announce that all 60 of our candidates for the EU Parliamentary Elections, which will be taking place on the 22nd May, have now been accepted as valid nominations by the Regional Returning Officers.  The English Democrats are standing in all 9 of the English EU Parliamentary Constituencies which means that the English Democrats have put up a “full slate” of candidates for the second time running. 
In the last EU elections in 2009 we gained 279,801 votes after a total EU campaign spend of less than £25,000 (giving the English Democrats by far the most cost efficient electoral result of any serious Party in the UK). 
Robin Tilbrook, Chairman of the English Democrats and the Party’s National Election Agent said:-  “I am delighted that yet again the English Democrats have managed to stand a full slate of candidates across England.  That means that every English voter will have a chance to vote for the English Democrats and for the only genuine English nationalist party.  England has been very poorly served for many years by our increasingly ineffectual, self-interested and careerist British Establishment political class. It is time that England was properly represented politically by our own political party now that Scotland has the SNP and Wales has Plaid Cymru, it is time that English nationalism was properly represented too!”
Robin added:-  “If just 4% of the electorate vote for the English Democrats then we will get some MEP’s elected.  In recent elections our percentages have been increasing in line with peoples increasing awareness of their English national identity.  The 2011 Census results showed that over 60%, that is over 32 million people consider themselves to be “English Only” and not “British”.  England needs independence from the tired old Union, just as much as Scotland and Wales do!”

Scottish Tory Splitter Ends Delusions Of Unity – Will It Mark The Dawn of a Federal UK?

For years, the British Establishment parties in Scotland have operated as minor branches of their larger, UK/Unionist British head offices. Despite Scotland now having a powerful and evermore independent legislature, the Unionist parties have in Scotland remained subordinate to their organisational masters in London, pretending to be different but forever tethered to Westminster. Last May the SNP took effective advantage of this situation, winning an historic majority on the back of a campaign that they are the only truly Scottish party.

Murdo Fraser MSP, the favourite to be the next leader of the Scottish Tories, is attempting to change all that, claiming:

“If I am elected as leader of the party, I will turn it into a new and stronger party for Scotland. A new party. A winning party with new supporters from all walks of life. A new belief in devolution. A new approach to policy-making. A new name. But, most importantly, a new positive message about the benefits of staying in and strengthening our United Kingdom. A new party. A new unionism. A new dawn.”

There have been some rumblings of support from some Tories in Westminster, and the general belief is that Mr Fraser’s democratic mandate (should he win) will allow him to manage the party as he sees fit.
On the other hand some Westminster Tories have reacted with knee jerk anger to any threat to their dominance within their Party but fears that the move will encourage independence are perhaps misplaced. The centre right is pro-unionist and will resist the move to destroy the current constitutional status quo. However, the move could do more to advance the march of federalism than any other event since devolution, even perhaps more than the recent electoral successes of the SNP.

Some commentators have likened the move to situation in Germany where the Bavarian CSU operates as an ally of the CDU a Party which covers the rest of Germany. This argument has its merits, but also its limitations. Germany has 16 states, meaning the CDU contests and represents the vast majority of Germany. Without Scotland, the rump of the Tory Party will contest only England and Wales.

Although Wales does not have a politically effective Nationalist party, the Scottish Tory split could lead to demands for a dedicated English Conservative Party organisation and, in the light of the unresolved West Lothian question and the Scottish Parliament’s increasing power, confidence and independence, the calls for an English Parliament will surely grow as will the demand for a truly English Nationalist Party like the English Democrats.

This sequence of events depends on the success of the new party. If the new Scottish Tories do manage to reinvent themselves, regain the trust of the electorate and create a united centre-right party to challenge the diverse and dominant left in the country, Labour and the Liberal Democrats may feel inclined, even obliged, to follow their lead and create separate entities to competitively contest elections. With this, a federal UK becomes the inevitable medium term consequence.

To suggest that the rebranding and reforming of even one of the main Establishment parties could lead to a historic change in the UK itself is an ambitious suggestion and one that relies on a fair degree of speculation. However, it will undoubtedly put the Conservatives (or whatever they become) on an equal footing with the SNP as a dedicated party for Scotland and demonstrates the ever-diverging political trends between Scotland the rest of the UK.

It is interesting to note that the “Blue Labour” movement has also been talking about becoming more pro-English and UKIP, the leading traditional British Nationalist party, is also considering adopting some measures to address England’s democratic deficit –both moves are considered only in order to try to preserve an increasingly constitutionally precarious “United” Kingdom and for tactical electoral advantage.

A new dawn for Scotland?

The Scotsman:-

Salmond’s Government in focus: 100 days is a long time in politics

First Minister Alex Salmond is greeted by Nicola Sturgeon after the landslide victory in May that signalled a new era of power for the SNP

By Eddie Barnes

May’s landslide victory marked a new emboldened SNP, but also asked some serious questions of Alex Salmond, writes Eddie Barnes

NO FUSS this time round. Four years ago, in a 20-page congratulations card to himself, Alex Salmond declared himself “proud to report back” on the new SNP administration’s first steps. Student fees had been abolished; tolls scrapped; A&E Unit closures overturned. The new Scottish Government had just passed its first test in dealing with the attempted terrorist attack on Glasgow Airport – and come through with flying colours. For the SNP, it was a glad new dawn.

“There’ll be no glossy brochures,” says a source close to the First Minister this week by contrast. Salmond’s second 100-days mark arrives on Thursday. It comes hot on the heels of another less welcome anniversary which occurred yesterday: the second year since the SNP administration freed the Lockerbie bomber, which brought with it a welter of bad publicity for Salmond’s administration. A second-term government must always carry baggage – good and bad. And so, while this week the SNP Government will no doubt issue the usual list of achievements to mark its 100 days in office, it seems that Team Salmond has opted against making a song and dance of the first milestone of SNP 2.0. After all, his aides note, it’s the same faces in many of the same jobs – why make a big deal of it?

On one level this is true. Ministers such as Nicola Sturgeon, Mike Russell and John Swinney have returned to the same desks they left in April, with the same bulging in-trays warning of the same issues – the most pressing of which is the fact they are running an ever more costly public sector without any new money. But, on another, it is misleading. For this SNP Government is a very different one from its predecessor. May’s incredible landslide victory for the party, which handed them an overall majority in parliament, and ensured the certainty of an independence referendum saw to that.

Ironically, the voters liked the last SNP Government so much – the one constrained by its slim minority rule – that they ended up returning a completely different one – one which now holds complete power. The verdict of the Scottish people was a resounding request for seconds, please. Instead they ended up with an entirely different menu. This new government now sets forth trying to keep the existing show on the road, while campaigning to persuade Scots that a new dawn is required. How have they begun?

The new SNP Government is nothing if not emboldened by the people’s resounding vote of approval. The pace has risen notably in the 100 days since May, when it became clear that the referendum would be taking place at some point in this parliamentary term.

St Andrew’s House, the government’s Edinburgh HQ, is signed up entirely to the SNP’s credo, with Sir Peter Housden, the Permanent Secretary, said to be utterly committed to Salmond’s leadership.

Four years ago, 100 days in, the first Nationalist administration had limited itself to discussions about devolving firearm legislation to Scotland. Four years on, with those powers having been willingly handed over by the UK government, such a small request seems almost quaint. The new Government isn’t mucking about. Today sees Salmond publish a detailed paper to the UK government urging them to consider a Plan B on the economy – by spending heavily on capital investment. That comes hot on the heels of another paper last week, proposing the devolution of corporation tax to Scotland. That itself was part of a flurry of demands, issued by Salmond in the weeks after the election result, when he handed over a shopping list to the UK government of items he would like – including powers over alcohol excise, the Crown Estate and borrowing.

For voters who may only have latched on to the policy most paraded by the SNP during the election campaign – to freeze council tax for five years – this shopping list, issued in their name, may have come as something of a surprise. The charge from the SNP’s opponents, most notably Lib Dem leader Willie Rennie, is that the new SNP Government isn’t therefore acting on what voters backed in April, and has become a “steamroller government”, twisting the mandate it received from the people (to freeze council tax, maintain police numbers and ring-fence the NHS) into the one it wants for itself (to run a permanent campaign demanding every power going). At least we’ve got wheels, reply SNP MSPs, who have mocked Rennie for his “cheek” in even having the temerity to challenge the Nationalists after May saw them returned as “the Orkney and Shetland party”. Armed with the people’s mandate, they are having none of it.

This hints at the new sense of entitlement that has emerged within the new SNP administration since May. The day after the result, Salmond described the SNP as Scotland’s “national party”. His aides have talked of forming a “big bothy” in which all of Scotland’s views are represented within the party tent. But, for some, what this really is about is a new attitude which says: “If you don’t like what we’re doing, tough – we’re doing it.” A few straws in the wind have emerged into public view. In May, Education Secretary Mike Russell declared a moratorium on school closures – with local authority chiefs, to their fury, learning via the media. A few weeks later, Alex Salmond waded into judges on the UK Supreme Court over their decision to uphold Nat Fraser’s appeal against his sentence.

Last week, it was selectively leaked that the SNP would be introducing a new single police force in Scotland – a move bitterly opposed by some in the forces and across local government.

One source involved in the discussions claims: “Kenny [MacAskill, the justice secretary] is out to gag dissent by leaking this and hoping to silence chief constables over the next couple of weeks. The hope is that this kills off any criticism of the proposals because they are somehow inevitable.” Meanwhile, the cluster of interest groups which deal with the Edinburgh administration speak almost weekly of the regular hauling over the coals being doled out by Salmond’s advisers for those who step out of line by criticising SNP policy.

So what, you might ask. Such heavy-handed tactics are what well-drilled political outfits do – and were exactly the tactics used by the Labour UK government after the SNP won in 2007, when the same interest groups received some none-too-subtle reminders to remember whose side they were supposed to be on. The SNP can equally claim with justification that the complaints are coming from “the forces of conservatism”, opposition parties aiming pot-shots, or unionist opponents in the public sphere who will always spoil for a fight anyway.

The problem for Salmond, however, is that – whether motivated by partisan politics or not – a pattern has emerged which could stick. The fact is that the new SNP Government is incredibly powerful. Using that power brutally will therefore lead, as night follows day, to charges of bullying. The words of the Scottish Parliament’s former presiding officer Lord Steel last week, as he revealed he had resigned his advisory role to the Scottish Government because of Salmond’s comments on the Supreme Court, were particularly damaging. Declaring himself “appalled” by the way Salmond, MacAskill and an authorised spokesman for the government had spoken, he added, “I told Alex that I hoped this was not the way they were going to continue now that they had an overall majority, because if so I expected a growing number of complaints against ministers.”

Much of the backlash, it is fair to say, is caused by the massive personality of Salmond himself, and the fact that he so clearly enjoys and relishes flexing his power. One senior public figure in Scotland notes: “The truth is that if Alex likes you, then you’re his best pal and he can’t do enough for you. But if he doesn’t, be prepared. You’re out.”

No matter how Salmond chooses to lead, and no matter how successful electorally he is in the short-term, this period in office looks like a hard graft. There is not just the pressure of the referendum but also the crisis in the public finances to manage as well. The conflict between the two could be debilitating – and may prevent the SNP from doing the hard thinking that it knows it must on presenting a robust case for independence ahead of the big vote.

Independent MSP Margo MacDonald notes: “They are too busy doing devolution to be revolutionary.” Overworked by the pressing demands of keeping the country going, the likes of MacDonald fear that the hard work selling and explaining independence will go amiss (the current confusion over the party’s stance on what currency it will have after independence is a case in point). “It is a revolution that is needed such is the upheaval that we have seen across the world. I don’t think Alex has had the time to do some thinking. Maybe he thinks he can’t fight too many battles at once,” MacDonald adds.

The good news for the SNP is that this negative picture hasn’t yet stuck in the public eye. On Friday, it saw off its opponents once again to win a by-election in Edinburgh’s city centre. With Scottish Labour still in recovery mode after the election, and with no sign yet of a new leader emerging, there is every reason to expect that next year’s local authority elections when they come will see further SNP gains.

Strathclyde University politics professor James Mitchell, who is close to many SNP figures, adds that there is every reason to expect that whatever turmoil the next few years bring financially, it won’t be the SNP Government which gets the blame, but the Conservative-led administration in London. “They will get the blame whether it is their fault or not,” he declares.

He also believes that the SNP ministers, the civil service and the whole Nationalist team have only become stronger and more competent over four years in office – and that they will use the crisis in the public finances over the coming years as an opportunity to show off their credentials.

Certainly it is true that, whatever faults the Salmond administration has, the unambiguous evidence is that voters are overwhelmingly prepared to give it a fair wind.

And with a weak opposition, and an unpopular UK government in power, the Nationalists look set to maintain their position as Scotland’s domestic party of choice for the next few years.

Several Labour figures have already privately declared they do not believe they have a chance of winning the 2016 Scottish elections, meaning that the SNP is likely to remain in power for the next nine years.

Whether the referendum is won or lost, a government with such power can change a country for ever. This is within Salmond’s grasp. But no-one needs reminding about the perils of absolute power. One hundred days on, Salmond and the SNP Government has never looked stronger. Therein lies his greatest danger.

http://www.scotsman.com/features/Salmond39s-Government-in-focus-100.6822242.jp?articlepage=1

A different tale in two nations?

Compare this Scottish news item with the line that Labour tries to spin in England about “Britishness”:-

HENRY MCLEISH: SCOTLAND NEEDS FREEDOM TO RUN ITS FINANCES

Former First Minister Henry McLeish has called for Labour to back Scottish financial independence.



Sunday August 21,2011

By Ben Borland

FORMER First Minister Henry McLeish has called for Labour to back Scottish financial independence or face political oblivion north of the Border.

Labour veteran Henry McLeish said yesterday that complete fiscal freedom from the UK is the only way his party can return to the front foot against the SNP.

He has put the case for the sensational policy U-turn to UK Labour leader Ed Miliband and senior Scots MP Jim Murphy and said he is “very optimistic” they will agree.

Mr McLeish also described secret plans to bring in a Scottish leader from outwith Holyrood as an “own goal”.

The SNP welcomed his comments, but warned that the rest of Scottish Labour is still “out of touch”.

Mr McLeish, who was First Minister from 2000 to 2001, said the Labour-backed Calman plan to give Holyrood more power was “not sufficient”.

He added: “Fiscal autonomy or devolution max, when Labour gets to that point then we will have a credible alternative to put against independence and there is no doubt it would win the support of the Scottish people in a referendum.

“I have talked to a lot of people in the party about this, including Ed Miliband. This is Labour’s time. Labour can’t afford to have another humiliating defeat like 2011 or 2007.

“The reason why the SNP is talking up fiscal independence or devo max is they know they can’t get full independence past the Scottish people.

“The SNP is softening its rhetoric on independence and it is important that Labour is not outmanoeuvred again. We can claim that alternative position.”

Mr McLeish also said it would be a mistake to form a “Unionist alliance” with the Conservatives ahead of the SNP’s independence referendum.

Mr Murphy, the shadow defence secretary, and MSP Sarah Boyack are carrying out a review of Scottish Labour following its ballot box hammering on May 5. One of the main issues under consideration is who should replace Iain Gray as leader.

Mr McLeish confirmed rumours that some within the party want to recruit a Scottish leader from Westminster, who would promise to stand down in 2015 and move to Holyrood.

Although supposed ‘heavy hitters’ like Mr Murphy and Douglas Alexander have ruled themselves out, new MPs Tom Greatrex and Gregg McClymont are being considered.

Mr McLeish said: “I’m not sure that the people who think this is a solution have fully thought through the practical implications.”

SNP MP and Treasury Spokesman Stewart Hosie said the former Fife MP and MSP is “right” to back financial independence.

He said: “Henry McLeish joins leading job creators Sir Tom Hunter and Jim McColl in recognising the importance of Scotland having full financial responsibility.”

http://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/266249

Is the UK really a democracy at all?

Can the UK properly call itself a genuine and free democracy when a leading historian and academic cannot even publically express his point of view without being vilified by the political and media Establishment?

Here is the link to the appallingly badly chaired discussion on Newsnight:- http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14513517

And here is Dr Starkey’s article in the Daily Telegraph of today, (note – Ed Miliband’s attack on free speech):-

UK riots: It’s not about criminality and cuts, it’s about culture… and this is only the beginning. Condemned as a racist for his comments on ‘Newsnight’ following the riots, the historian David Starkey speaks out against those who tried to silence him for confronting the gangster culture that has ruptured our society.

‘My friends believe my greatest error was to mention Enoch Powell’: historian David Starkey. Photo: MARTIN POPE

By David Starkey

What a week! It’s not every day that you’re the subject of direct personal attack from the Leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition. On Tuesday, after he had spoken at his old school, Haverstock Comprehensive, about the riots, Ed Miliband was invited by a member of the audience to “stamp out” the now-infamous opinions I had expressed on the same subject on last Friday’s Newsnight.

Mr Miliband might have replied that he disagreed with what I said, but in a liberal democracy defended my right to say it since it broke no laws. Not a bit of it, I fear. Instead, Miliband – the son of a refugee who fled from Nazi Europe to preserve his life and freedom of thought – agreed enthusiastically with the questioner. Mine were “racist comments”, he said, “[and] there should be condemnation from every politician, from every political party of those sorts of comments.”

Strong words. But what do they mean? Well, the following statements are verbatim quotations of some of the principal points I made on Newsnight: “A particular sort of violent, destructive, nihilistic, gangster culture has become the fashion.” “This sort of black male [gang] culture militates against education.” “It’s not skin colour, it’s cultural.”

“Disgusting and outrageous”, are they? In which case, those who agree with Miliband must believe the opposite of all these. They are therefore convinced that gang culture is personally wholesome and socially beneficial.

But how, then, to explain the black educationalists Tony Sewell and Katharine Birbalsingh defending the substance of my comments on “gangsta” culture, as well as Tony Parsons, who wrote in the Labour-supporting Daily Mirror that, “without the gang culture of black London, none of the riots would have happened – including the riots in other cities like Manchester and Birmingham where most of rioters were white”.

Even stranger is Miliband’s apparent notion that, far from militating against educational achievement as I suggested, “the gang culture of black London” must therefore be a seedbed for scholarship and sound learning. Odd, isn’t it, that Waterstone’s bookshop was the only business unlooted in the Ealing riots? And odder still that Lindsay Johns, the Oxford-educated mixed-race writer who mentors young people in Peckham, argues passionately against “this insulting and demeaning acceptance” of a fake Jamaican – or “Jafaican” – patois. “Language is power”, Johns writes, and to use “ghetto grammar” renders the young powerless.

“So why,” some of my friends have asked, “didn’t you stop there?” “Why did you have to talk about David Lammy MP sounding ‘white’? Or white chavs becoming ‘black’?” The answer is that I thought my appearance on Newsnight was supposed to be part of a wide-ranging discussion about the state of the nation. Central to any such discussion, it seems to me, are the successes and failures of integration in Britain in the past 50 years. And it was these that I was trying to address.

On the other hand, there is no doubt that my remarks on this subject produced especial outrage. I was accused of condemning all black culture; of using white and black culture interchangeably to denote “good and bad”, and of saying that blacks could only get on by rejecting black culture. Actually, I said none of those things and nothing that I did say could have been construed as such by any fair-minded person.

Instead, I was trying to point out the very different patterns of integration at the top and bottom of the social scale. At the top, successful blacks, like David Lammy and Diane Abbot, have merged effortlessly into what continues to be a largely white elite: they have studied at Oxbridge and gone on to Oxbridge-style careers, such as that of an MP.

But they have done so at the cost of losing much of their credibility with blacks on the street and in the ghettos. And here, at the bottom of the heap, the story of integration is the opposite: it is the white lumpen proletariat, cruelly known as the “chavs”, who have integrated into the pervasive black “gangsta” culture: they wear the same clothes; they talk and text in the same Jafaican patois; and, as their participation in recent events shows, they have become as disaffected and riotous.

Trying to explain why, led me to what all my friends agree was my greatest error: to mention Enoch Powell. Tactically, of course, they are right, as the “Rivers of Blood” speech remains, even 40-odd years after its delivery, an unhealed wound.

Unfortunately, the speech and still more the reaction to it, are also central to any proper understanding of our present discontents. For Powell’s views were popular at the time and the London dockers marched in his support. The reaction of the liberal elites in both the Labour and Tory parties, who had just driven Powell into the wilderness, was unanimous: the white working class could never be trusted on race again. The result was a systematic attack over several decades: on their perceived xenophobic patriotism, on symbols like the flag of St George, even – and increasingly – on the very idea of England itself.

The attack was astonishingly successful. But it left a void where a sense of common identity should be. And, for too many, the void has been filled with the values of “gangsta” culture.

Consider the converse. One of the most striking things about the England riots is where they did not happen: Yorkshire, the North East, Wales and Scotland. These areas contain some of the worst pockets of unemployment in the country. But they are also characterised by a powerful sense of regional or national identity and difference that cuts across all classes and binds them together. And it is this, I am sure, which has inoculated them against the disease of “gangsta” culture and its attendant, indiscriminate violence.

Scotland, Alex Salmond says smugly, is a “different culture”. It is indeed, since the Scots are allowed – and even encouraged – to be as racist as they please and hate the English with glad abandon.

I do not want a similar licensed xenophobia here. But an English nationalism we must have. And it must be one that includes all our people: white and black and mixed race alike.

Fortunately, there is a powerful narrative of freedom that runs like a golden thread through our history. “The air of England is too pure for a slave to breathe in,” counsel declared repeatedly in Somersett’s Case, about the legality of slavery in England, in 1772.

We must focus on the righting of the wrong rather than the original wrong itself. The former heals; the latter divides. And we have had enough of division. There is a final point. If all the people of this country, black and white alike, are to enter fully into our national story, as I desperately hope they will, they must do so on terms of reciprocity. In other words, I must be as free to comment on problems in the black community as blacks are to point the finger at whites, which they do frequently, often with justice, and with impunity.

For the other pernicious legacy of the reaction to Powell has been an enforced silence on the matter of race. The subject has become unmentionable, by whites at any rate. And any breach has been punished by ostracism and worse. As the hysterical reaction to my remarks shows, the witch-finders already have their sights on me, led by that pillar of probity and public rectitude, Piers Morgan, who called on Twitter for the ending of my television career within moments of the Newsnight broadcast.

But the times have changed. Powell had to prophesy his “Tiber foaming with blood”. We, on the other hand, have already experienced the fires of Tottenham and Croydon. Moreover, the public mood is different from the acquiescent and deferential electorate of the Sixties. We are undeceived. We are tired of being cheated and lied to by bankers and MPs and some sections of the press.

We will not continue, I think, to tolerate being lied to and cheated in the matter of race. Instead of “not in front of the children”, we want honesty.

But this is only the beginning. The riots are the symptom of a profound rupture in our body politic and sense of national identity. If the rupture is not healed and a sense of common purpose recovered, they will recur – bigger, nastier and more frequently. Can we stop bickering and address this task of recovery and reconstruction – all together?