Category Archives: tory

LEADING REMAINER ADMITS SYSTEMATIC LYING TO THE PUBLIC

LEADING REMAINER ADMITS SYSTEMATIC LYING TO THE PUBLIC 

LEADING “LIBERAL” TORY CONFIRMS HIS ELECTIONS BASED UPON SYSTEMATIC LYING TO THE PUBLIC

Matthew Parris, the former Conservative MP who has made many bigoted remarks about Leave voters, has just published the article below, in which he admits systematically lying to the public throughout his political career in order to get himself elected and also he admits deliberately acting in such a way to undermine popular democracy. 

In reading his damning confession it is worth remembering that, not only are there others in the Conservative Party, such as Ken Clarke, Anna Soubry, Dominic Grieve and indeed Theresa May, by whom I suspect very similar confessions could also have been made, but also there are many within the Labour Party whose conduct I suspect is exactly the same. 

This kind of behaviour is wholly par for the course amongst elitist Westminster British Establishment supporters of “Liberal Democracy”!

Here is the article:-

Why I don’t, never have, and never will trust the people – by Matthew Parris (former Conservative MP)

It was late, and a friend and I were left to talk Brexit. He’s a keen and convinced Tory Brexiteer MP but to stay friends we have tended to steer off the topic. This, however, felt like a moment to talk.

The conversation taught me nothing about Brexit, something about him, and a lot about myself and the strain of Conservatism I now realise I’m part of — and which is part of me. Oddly, then, this column is not really about Brexit, but about trusting the people. I don’t. Never have and never will. Our conversation forced me to confront the fact.

My friend knows well enough why I’m a Remainer, but guessed correctly that I’ve puzzled about why he isn’t. I had not quite expected what I heard. He understands business and finance and is good at facts and figures, so I’d supposed his wish for a ‘clean’ Brexit would be all about the economic advantages. He’s a firm believer in individual choice, too, so I had supposed he would dwell on the need to ‘take back control’.

No doubt he holds to these strands of the Leave argument — but talking to me he hardly mentioned the practical benefits of Brexit. No, there was something else that seemed to drive his anxiety that we leave the EU. Otherwise, he said: ‘I just worry about our democracy, respect for our constitution and the effect that a betrayal of the 2016 referendum result would have on the people who voted for me and our party last year.’

He returned to this repeatedly, and I saw that he was sincere. As a democrat, and a Conservative who owed his position in Parliament to a little piece of England that he came from, that he knew, that knew him, and whose electors’ minds and feelings he had come to understand over the years, my friend felt with a quiet passion that he must not break his word to them, must not slither away from undertakings that had been given.

He felt the same about the electorate nationally, the British people’s trust in the Conservative party, and their confidence in politics itself. He felt, in short, conscious of an unseen bond between parliament and people, and fearful of the wider consequences should it be broken.

I did not say much, because I could see he meant it; and what he meant was not really the kind of assertion one can confound with counter-argument or counter-assertion. It was about weighing things and, the scales being within his own breast, the way the scales tipped was for him just a fact, and undeniable.

But for me they tip differently; and for me too that is a fact, and undeniable. I lay in bed that night thinking about this; and my conclusions follow. As I’m not running for office I shall not pull punches.

Tories like me, and I think we used to be in the majority, see good governance as an effort to live with democracy rather than to an effort to live by democracy. It is why we were so chary about referendums in the first place. We are wary of the populace and instinctively hostile to the instincts of the mob. We see the popular will as a sometimes dangerous thing, to be handled, guided, and on key occasions (and subtly) thwarted.

We know, however, that the people’s will cannot be overlooked. We see it as a corrective to the over-mighty and a warning to those who govern not to lose touch with popular feeling. But at the idea that the people should dictate the policies of government on a daily basis, we shudder.

Our kind of Conservatism is either in temporary abeyance, or going permanently out of fashion — I do not know which. Its decline since the middle of the 20th century has been so gradual as to mask its extent over time. At the beginning of that century it was possible for Arthur Balfour to remark: ‘I have the greatest respect for the Conservative party conference, but I would no more consult it on a matter of high policy than I would my valet’ without this being thought anything but wit; today its utterance would end a political career.

When I first went into politics, initially as a researcher, in 1977, it was commonplace among us Tories to see and describe ‘the will of the people’ not as our mentor but as a rock to be navigated. Capital punishment and judicial flogging were very popular with the public. The hanging debate at party conferences was an annual nightmare for our leading spokesmen, but I never heard it suggested, even by colleagues who supported the return of these punishments, that we should bring them back because the people wanted it.

As for colleagues opposed to both, our challenge was to find ways of ducking the issue. Once I became an MP, I did so by voting for the principle and against the practice. This subversion of democracy (in Theresa May’s phrase) caused me embarrassment, but not a second’s guilt. Sod democracy: hanging was wrong.

In the late 1970s, we Tories were painfully aware that popular feeling opposed any confrontation with the trade unions, but we believed this would prove necessary. Our response was, so far as possible, to tiptoe round the issue during the 1979 general election. We succeeded. Among ourselves we talked cheerfully about subterfuge. The Britain of 1979 and 1983 most emphatically did not vote for a massive confrontation with the coal miners. We made sure the electorate was never asked.

Even today, of course, politicians can and sometimes must dodge the popular will, and they know it. But who now dares say these things? And what today we do but no longer dare say we do, tomorrow we may not dare do. Tory paternalism is in long, slow retreat. People like me will stay where we are, increasingly exposed as our friends melt back. But what the heck.

Here is a link to the original article>>> https://www.spectator.co.uk/2018/12/why-i-dont-never-have-and-never-will-trust-the-people/

THERESA MAY AND HER GOVERNMENT MAKE FAKE NEWS

THERESA MAY AND THE TORY GOVERNMENT ARE EXPOSED AS MAKERS OF FAKE NEWS
The above is an image of Theresa May talking about the UK Government’s Housing Plans in terms as if that is a “British” issue. 
However the key point to remember is that housing is not an issue which the British Government has any legal competence to deal with in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland.  It is only in England where the British Government has direct rule over England and we English are not properly represented by our own Government that they have any jurisdiction over housing. 
It is thus not surprising that the vast programme of house building that this Government is proposing is to be built only in England.  The English will not be properly asked about this and the members of the Government who are imposing it, although they can still calls themselves members of the Conservative Party, the leadership of it has in fact abandoned traditional Conservatives and traditional values in favour of globalism, multi-culturalism and diversity. 
It is for this reason that housing is being deceitfully represented as a domestically generated need, whereas in fact the primary generator of housing need is the vast wave of immigration that we have had, primarily into England.  This has led to at least 12 million immigrants coming to England in the last 20 years. 
Although some people have left, often to escape the consequences of mass immigration, nevertheless it does mean that, if the Government’s targets are to be met, a new Greater London is to be built on England’s “green and pleasant land” without any proper consultation with the English Nation as a whole. 
Fake news or what?
Below is the report of what she says:-
‘Do your duty to Britain’, Theresa May tells property developers in major speech on ‘restoring dream’ of home-ownership
Prime Minister to pledge to ‘rewrite planning laws’ and force private housebuilders to ‘step up and do their bit’ as she attempts to place housing at heart of policy agenda
Theresa May to tell property developers to ‘do your duty to Britain’ in major speech on restoring ‘home-ownership dream’
Theresa May will announce plans to penalise property developers who do not build homes quickly enough, as she uses a major speech to warn housebuilders they must “do their duty to Britain”.
The Prime Minister will criticise developers who profit from building expensive properties rather than the quantities of new homes the country needs, telling them it is time to “step up do your bit”.
She will vow to “rewrite the laws on planning” in order to help more people get on the housing ladder.
The Government will also adopt a tougher approach to local councils, including setting targets on how many homes each authority needs to plan for.
Number of social homes to fall by 230,000 by 2020, analysis reveals
Key workers such as nurses, teachers and firefighters should be the priority for affordable homes, Ms May will say, and local authorities will be given powers to implement this.
The speech marks another strand of Ms May’s attempt to flesh out a domestic policy agenda that goes beyond Brexit. Last month she delivered a keynote education speech promising to review how universities are funded.
However, opponents said the “feeble” changes had already been announced in the Government’s housing white paper, published last year.
They are also likely to demand the Government make more funding available or allow councils to borrow more to invest in housing. Town halls have long insisted that restrictions on their ability to borrow to fund new homes is the biggest barrier to housebuilding.
Questions are also likely to be raised over the future of Starter Homes – one of the Government’s flagship policies for boosting home-ownership. The Independent revealed late last year that not a single one of the properties, which will be sold to first-time buyers at a discount, has yet been built.
Accepting the failings of current housing policy, Ms May will say “for decades this country has failed to build enough of the right homes in the right places”.
She will once again place housing at the heart of her agenda, saying: “We cannot bring about the kind of society I want to see unless we tackle one of the biggest barriers to social mobility we face today: the national housing crisis.”
The Prime Minister has previously said she will make tackling the housing crisis her “personal mission”.
Speaking at a planning conference in London, she will argue that “in much of the country, housing is so unaffordable that millions of people who would reasonably expect to buy their own home are unable to do so” because the “failure to match demand with supply really began to push prices upwards”, and also drove up rents.
“The result is a vicious circle from which most people can only escape with help from the bank of Mum and Dad. If you’re not lucky enough to have such support, the door to home-ownership is all too often locked and barred,” she will say.
Recounting her own experience of buying a home, she will add: “I still vividly remember the first home I shared with my husband, Philip. Not only our pictures on the walls and our books on the shelves, but the security that came from knowing we couldn’t be asked to move on at short notice.’ 
“And because we had that security, because we had a place to go back to, it was that much easier to play an active role in our community. To share in the common purpose of a free society.”
“That is what this country should be about – not just having a roof over your head but having a stake in your community and its future.”
Flagship government housing plan fails to deliver a single home in three years
Ms May will take a tougher line against private developers, criticising the “perverse incentive” that allows property executives to profit from building expensive homes rather than greater numbers of affordable ones.
She will suggest a company’s past record of delivering affordable housing should be taken into account when it bids for planning permission for new properties.  
She is expected to say: “The bonuses paid to the heads of some of our biggest developers are based not on the number of homes they build but on their profits or share price.
“In a market where lower supply equals higher prices that creates a perverse incentive, one that does not encourage them to build the homes we need.
“I want to see planning permissions going to people who are actually going to build houses, not just sit on land and watch its value rise.”
The Prime Minister will also point out that developers have failed to build thousands of homes that have been given planning permission, warning that “the gap between permissions granted and homes built is still too large”.
Analysis by the Local Government Association (LGA) earlier this year revealed 420,000 homes that received planning permission last year are still waiting to be built.  
Calling on private housebuilders to “step up and do their bit”, Ms May will say: “I expect developers to do their duty to Britain and build the homes our country needs.”
Sajid Javid, the Housing Secretary, has already hinted the Government is considering giving councils “use it or lose it” powers to take land away from developers who are refusing to build homes on sites they own.
Ms May will also criticise David Cameron’s legacy, saying her predecessor had presided over “a great and welcome increase in the number of planning permissions granted” but not “a corresponding rise in the number of homes being built”.
Budget 2017: Hammond commits £ 44bn to housing and commits to delivering 300,000 net additional homes per year by mid 2020’s
Although the Prime Minister will announce that 80 proposals from the Government’s housing white paper will be implemented, housing insiders will be watching closely to see what type of housing the Government will prioritise and whether any new funding will be made available.
Since 2012, the Conservatives have prioritised the more expensive “affordable housing” over social housing, leading to the loss of hundreds of thousands of the cheapest homes.
Ms May is also likely to face calls to reverse some of the provisions of the Housing and Planning Act 2016, which forced councils to sell off social homes and extended the controversial Right to Buy to housing association tenants. The scheme is another leading cause of the fall in the number of low-cost homes.
John Healey, Labour’s Shadow Housing Secretary, said: “The Prime Minister should be embarrassed to be fronting up these feeble measures first announced a year ago. After eight years of failure on housing it’s clear her Government has got no plan to fix the housing crisis.
“Since 2010, home-ownership has fallen to a 30-year low, rough sleeping has more than doubled, and deep cuts to housing investment have led to the lowest number of new social rented homes built since records began.
“This housing crisis is made in Downing Street. It’s time the Tories changed course, and backed Labour’s long-term plan to build the genuinely affordable homes the country needs.”
The Prime Minister was also warned by Conservative peer Lord Porter, who chairs the LGA, that planning changes would be largely meaningless without new funding.
He wrote on Twitter: “If we want more houses, we have to build them, not plan them.
“The [Housing Department] need to push back against [the Treasury] or the nonsense will go on and nothing will change. Less homes built next year than there were this year.
Ms May will insist that building on green belt land is not the answer to tackling the housing crisis. She will instead announce new protections for woodland and coastlines.
Here is a link to the original article>>> https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/theresa-may-housing-speech-property-developers-homes-affordable-john-healey-labour-right-to-buy-a8239466.html

THERESA MAY’S JUNE 8TH GENERAL ELECTION DEBACLE


THERESA MAY’S JUNE 8TH GENERAL ELECTION DEBACLE

What a difference two months make in the new weak and wobbly British political landscape!

Two months ago we had the usual county council local elections occurring with some of George Osborne’s new “Metro” mayoral elections. Theresa May and the Government was regularly reassuring people that there was not going to be any General Election until 2020.

We are told that Theresa May then, on a walking holiday with her husband in Wales, decided that she was going to call a General Election.

Certainly in terms of the strategic and logistical background it does generally seem to have been an ill-considered and whimsical decision. One thing that we do know about May is that she does not consult widely. She only talks candidly to an inner circle of loyalists who are said to number no more than eight, including her husband and Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill West.

It has been leaked that nobody in the Cabinet was consulted about the decision and they were simply presented with a fait accompli that the decision had been made and that they were going for it. The same appears to be true about the disastrous manifesto and her further poor decision not to take part in any head-on TV debates with Corbyn.

The result is that her reputation has gone from Machiavellian Mastermind to Blithering Blunderer within the space of a few weeks!

Jeremy Corbyn on the other hand, to listen to journalist reports, has gone from Unelectable Loony Lefty to Populist Pied Piper in the same period!

Ignoring the hype what can sensibly be identified as the elements of May’s poor decision-making!

Politicians often think that they are the masters of electional planning. It is however true that whilst they have a lot of experience of the tactics of electioneering, they may not be the best judges of strategy and what needs to be considered at a strategic level.

Two startling examples of Mrs May’s failure to think through the strategy is that, if she had merely had the election a month later, the students from the universities would have been dispersed to their homes all over the country, in many cases not having a vote registered there and the string of Conservative losses such as Canterbury, Bath, Bristol West, etc. and Nick Clegg’s loss of Sheffield Hallam would not have taken place. Those are completely explicable in terms of the student vote. The fact that issue wasn’t even considered before timetabling the election must demonstrate vividly the lack of strategic planning within her process of decision making to call the election.

Another issue which is difficult to reconcile with any suggestion that there was a strategic element in the decision-making process is that the Government only needed to wait until October 2018 before the new House of Commons boundaries would come into force. These boundaries have been calculated on current populations and are thought to make it much easier for the Conservatives to get an overall majority. For a Conservative Leader to ignore that advantage in deciding to call an election shows a staggering lack of strategic thinking.

More generally I do not think that Theresa May succeeded in persuading voters that the election was really necessary for the purpose that she claimed to be calling it, i.e. as a mandate to push through her Brexit negotiations. Her unwillingness to take part in televised debates helped to make Jeremy Corbyn look a much more effective leader than she was. Her frankly rather silly slogans didn’t help to improve her standing.

We can’t however ignore the further example of catastrophic decision-making process which led to her producing her manifesto, without proper consultation with her Cabinet colleagues. It made even pensioners in English country towns and villages all across the land who had never voted for any other party other than the Conservatives in their lives, question whether they really wanted to support such a blunt attack on their interests. 

Indeed the manifesto was so bad in terms of populist appeal, that if you were minded towards a conspiracy theory then you might think that Mrs May had actually tried to lose the election! Personally I generally are more inclined to “cock-up” this “conspiracy” theory. I think that what has happened is not only a demonstration of Mrs May’s inadequacies, but also more generally how poor the British parliamentary system is at producing people to occupy leadership positions who genuinely have any real leadership abilities and characteristics.

Theresa May is one example of somebody with virtually no natural leadership ability. So of course was Gordon Brown another example. Jeremy Corbyn seemed to be similar but the fact is that when he was able to break out of the Westminster bubble effect, he does seem to have shown some considerable personal leadership qualities. The fact remains though that the establishment’s party system regularly seems to give people leadership titles and puts them into leadership roles which they are clearly personally unsuited to filling.

BREXIT – BEFUDDLED AND BE-JUDGED!


BREXIT – BEFUDDLED AND BE-JUDGED!


The High Court of Justice of England and Wales has made a preliminary and sensational ruling on how Brexit must be approached. The case, in addition to being politically significant, is of course legally and constitutionally significant as the High Court did pull out all the stops knowing that that was the case, with no less than three of the most senior judges in the England and Wales jurisdiction sitting on the case; the Lord Chief Justice, the Master of the Rolls, and Lord Justice Sales. The case itself is :- The Queen on the application of (1) Gina Miller & (2) Deir Tozetti Dos Santos – and – The Secretary of State for Exiting the EU. It can be found on the court website here:- https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/judgment-r-miller-v-secretary-of-state-for-exiting-the-eu-20161103.pdf

The case is worth reading if you are at all interested in the law of Constitution. 

There is however a potted summary here for those less interested in legal details >>>

https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/summary-r-miller-v-secretary-of-state-for-exiting-the-eu-20161103.pdf

Here is the text of the Summary:-

“R (Miller) v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union

Summary of the judgment of the Divisional Court

References in square brackets are to paragraphs in the judgment.

The Question

1. The issue before the court is whether, as a matter of UK constitutional law, the Government is entitled to give notice of a decision to leave the European Union under Article 50 by exercise of the Crown’s prerogative powers and without reference to Parliament. This is a pure question of law. The court is not concerned with and does not express any view about the merits of leaving the European Union: that is a political issue.

2. It is accepted by all sides that this legal question is properly before the court and justiciable: under the UK constitution, it is one for the court to decide [5]. It turns on the extent of the Crown’s powers under its prerogative [explained at 24-29]. The Government accepts that neither the European Union Referendum Act 2015 nor any other Act of Parliament confers on it statutory authority (as distinct from the Crown’s prerogative power) to give notice under Article 50 [67-72, 76 and 105-108].

3. On 1 January 1973 the United Kingdom joined what were then the European Communities, including the European Economic Community. Parliament passed the European Communities Act 1973 (1972 Act) to allow that to happen since it was a condition of membership that Community law should be given effect in the domestic law of the United Kingdom and primary legislation was required to achieve this [1 and 36-54]. The European Communities have now become the European Union.

4. Pursuant to the European Union Referendum Act 2015 a referendum was held on 23 June 2016 on the question whether the United Kingdom should leave or remain in the European Union. The answer given was that the UK should leave [2].

 
5. The process for withdrawal is governed by Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union, which states that once a Member State gives notice to withdraw there is a two-year period in which to negotiate a withdrawal agreement. If no agreement is reached in this time then, subject only to agreement to an extension of time with the European Council acting unanimously, the EU Treaties shall cease to apply to that State. The Government accepts that a notice under Article 50 cannot be withdrawn once it has been given. It also accepts that Article 50 does not allow a conditional notice to be given: a notice cannot be qualified by stating that Parliament is required to approve any withdrawal agreement made in the course of Article 50 negotiations [9-17].

6. Therefore, once notice is given under Article 50, some rights under EU law as incorporated into domestic law by the 1972 Act would inevitably be lost once the Article 50 withdrawal process is completed [57-66].


The Constitutional principles

7. The most fundamental rule of the UK’s constitution is that Parliament is sovereign and can make and unmake any law it chooses. As an aspect of the sovereignty of Parliament it has been established for hundreds of years that the Crown – i.e. the Government of the day – cannot by exercise of prerogative powers override legislation enacted by Parliament. This principle is of critical importance and sets the context for the general rule on which the Government seeks to rely – that normally the conduct of international relations and the making and unmaking of treaties are taken to be matters falling within the scope of the Crown’s prerogative powers. That general rule exists precisely because the exercise of such prerogative powers has not effect on domestic law, including as laid down by Parliament in legislation [18-36].

8. In the present case, however, the Government accepts, and indeed positively contends, that if notice is given under Article 50 it will inevitably have the effect of changing domestic law. Those elements of EU law which Parliament has made part of domestic law by enactment of the 1972 Act will in due course cease to have effect [76-80].

9. The central contention of the Government in the present case is that Parliament must be taken to have intended when it enacted the 1972 Act that the Crown would retain its prerogative power to effect a withdrawal from the Community Treaties (now the EU Treaties), and thereby intended that the Crown should have the power to choose whether EU law should continue to have effect in the domestic law of the UK or not [76-81].

Conclusion

10. The Court does not accept the argument put forward by the Government. There is nothing in the text of the 1972 Act to support it. In the judgment of the Court the argument is contrary both to the language used by Parliament in the 1972 Act and to the fundamental constitutional principles of the sovereignty of Parliament and the absence of any entitlement on the part of the Crown to change domestic law by the exercise of its prerogative powers [82-94, 97-104]. The Court expressly accepts the principal argument of the claimants [95-96].

11. For the reasons set out in the judgment, we decide that the Government does not have power under the Crown’s prerogative to give notice pursuant to Article 50 for the UK to withdraw from the European Union.

This summary is provided to assist in understanding the Court’s decision. It does not form part of the reasons for the decision. The full judgment of the Court is the only authoritative document.”

Following the release of this Judgment there has been an attack on the political and demographic origins of the three Judges, all three of whom are the product of Labour’s Lord Derry Irvine “Reforms” to the selection and promotion of the judiciary. Lord Irvine expressly said these had been engineered to “ensure that no-one with reactionary views could be appointed or promoted within the judiciary”. This expressed objective has clearly been achieved with these three judges. The

Lord Chief Justice background as an active Europhile was amply exposed in the Daily Mail article here >>> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3903436/Enemies-people-Fury-touch-judges-defied-17-4m-Brexit-voters-trigger-constitutional-crisis.html

In the original version of the article, the Daily Mail also reported the Master of the Rolls, Sir Terence Etherton as being the first “openly gay” senior Judge and also as having married his boyfriend in “a traditional Jewish marriage ceremony”.

Lord Justice Sales was exposed as being one of Lord Irvine’s personal protégées.

So it appears that we can be reasonably confident of the personal views and political prejudices of all three judges!

From a lawyer’s point of view there was therefore, particularly with the Lord Chief Justice, good grounds for applying the approach which was adopted by the House of Lords in the Pinochet case to Lord Hoffman who had ruled based on his own political prejudices. The case can be found here>>> http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld199899/ldjudgmt/jd990115/pino01.htm

The most extraordinary aspect of this fiasco is that any reasonably competent country solicitor would have advised the Government that where a challenge was being made to legal rights to take action (in this case the Government giving notice under Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty) the obvious thing to do is to get on with it and give the Notice.

This of course would have made it pointless continuing with the court case. The Notice would already have been accepted by the European Union and the process of leaving the EU would therefore be underway regardless of what any court had to say. In such cases the courts are very unwilling to give rulings on what are described as “moot points”. It follows that the fiasco is a product of delay and incompetence within the May Government.

Turning back to the Judgment, it is a Judgment that is more dubious on previous legal authority than it sounds as it is phrased in what has been described as “muscular” language. I would also respectfully suggest it seems to be over certain of its legal position. This is however partly a result of the incompetence of the Attorney General in agreeing that the case was “justiciable”.

As an example of arguments that show that the Judgment is more dubious than it seems, see here for an academic analysis >>> https://publiclawforeveryone.com/2016/11/04/the-high-courts-judgment-in-miller-a-brief-comment/

Here is the text of the article:-

“The High Court’s judgment in Miller: A brief comment

The following short comment on the High Court’s judgment in R (Miller) v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union [2016] EWHC 2768 (Admin) was published on the Judicial Power Project’s website and is reproduced here with permission. The piece is part of a collection of short commentaries published by the Judicial Power Project; the full collection can be accessed here. I will be publishing a more detailed piece on Miller in due course.

Some of today’s press coverage of the judgment in Miller, accusing judges of acting undemocratically, is deplorable. It is entirely right and proper that the Court should determine the legal extent of executive authority. That is an axiomatic judicial function in a democracy founded on the rule of law. But what of the content of the decision?

The judgment is striking in its muscularity. The Court considered the Government case to be so weak that it judged it untenable before even considering the claimant’s arguments in detail. The Government’s case, said the Court, was ‘flawed’ at a ‘basic level’. Reading the judgment, one might be forgiven for thinking that the Government had advanced a heterodox argument of outlandish proportions. In fact, it was simply asserting that it could use a prerogative power to begin negotiations on the international plane. None of this is to deny the subtlety of the issues to which that contention gives rise concerning the relationship between EU and domestic law, and the role played by the European Communities Act 1972 in mediating that relationship. But as John Finnis has shown, the Government’s position is far from unarguable.

Once the Divisional Court had accepted — contrary to Finnis’s view — that EU law rights are to be considered domestic statutory rights enacted by Parliament, its focus inevitably shifted to the question whether the ECA was to be read as having displaced the Government’s ability to use the prerogative to begin the Article 50 process. In concluding that the ECA had indeed produced such an effect, the Court engaged in a highly creative process of statutory interpretation that involved relying upon the ECA’s status as a ‘constitutional statute’; treating the Act’s ‘constitutional status’ as evidence of Parliament’s intention — a view that is in tension with Laws LJ’s analysis in Thoburn; invoking certain ‘background constitutional principles’ that are relevant to statutory interpretation; and asserting that those principles are particularly relevant to the construction of constitutional statutes.

My point, in this short comment, is not to assess the correctness of the court’s conclusion on this matter. Rather, it is to observe that that conclusion — and the reasoning on which it is based — is highly contestable. Perhaps, therefore, the most surprising aspect of Miller is that the confident certainty of the terms in which the judgment is framed obscures almost entirely the complexity and contestability of the questions to which it gives rise, concerning the selection, content and interaction of the constitutional principles that form the prism through which the ECA falls to be examined.”

The core of the Judgment is that the central institution within the Constitution is the Crown in Parliament. Here is a section of the Judgment well worth quoting and bearing in mind.

“ The principles of constitutional law: the sovereignty of Parliament and the prerogative powers of the Crown

The United Kingdom constitution
 
18. The United Kingdom does not have a constitution to be found entirely in a written document. This does not mean there is an absence of a constitution or constitutional law. On the contrary, the United Kingdom has its own form of constitutional law, as recognised in each of the jurisdictions of the four constituent nations. Some of it is written, in the form of statutes which have particular constitutional importance (as we explain at paragraphs 43-44). Some of it is reflected in fundamental rules of law recognised by both Parliament and the courts. There are established and well-recognised legal rules which govern the exercise of public power and which distribute decision-making authority between different entities in the state and define the extent of their respective powers. The United Kingdom is a constitutional democracy framed by legal rules and subject to the rule of law. The courts have a constitutional duty fundamental to the rule of law in a democratic state to enforce rules of constitutional law in the same way as the courts enforce other laws.
 
19. In these proceedings, this court is called upon to apply the constitutional law of the United Kingdom to determine whether the Crown has prerogative powers to give notice under Article 50 to trigger the process for withdrawal from the European Union. The law we were taken to was primarily the law of England and Wales, with some reference to the position in the other jurisdictions in the United Kingdom, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Although this court only has jurisdiction to apply the law of England and Wales, we note that no-one in these proceedings has suggested that such parts of constitutional law in Scotland and Northern Ireland in relation to the interaction between statute and the Crown’s prerogative powers as are relevant to determine the outcome in this case are any different from the law of England and Wales on that topic. Accordingly, for ease of reference and in view of the general constitutional importance of this case we will refer to UK constitutional law.
 
The sovereignty of the United Kingdom Parliament
 
20. It is common ground that the most fundamental rule of UK constitutional law is that the Crown in Parliament is sovereign and that legislation enacted by the Crown with the consent of both Houses of Parliament is supreme (we will use the familiar shorthand and refer simply to Parliament). Parliament can, by enactment of primary legislation, change the law of the land in any way it chooses. There is no superior form of law than primary legislation, save only where Parliament has itself made provision to allow that to happen. The ECA 1972, which confers precedence on EU law, is the sole example of this.
 
21. But even then Parliament remains sovereign and supreme, and has continuing power to remove the authority given to other law by earlier primary legislation. Put shortly, Parliament has power to repeal the ECA 1972 if it wishes.
 
22. In what is still the leading account, An Introduction to the Law of the Constitution by the constitutional jurist Professor A.V. Dicey, he explains that the principle of Parliamentary sovereignty means that Parliament has:

“the right to make or unmake any law whatever; and, further, that no person or body is recognised by the law … as having a right to override or set aside the legislation of Parliament.”

(p. 38 of the 8th edition, 1915, the last edition by Dicey himself; and see chapter 1 generally).

Amongst other things, this has the corollary that it cannot be said that a law is invalid as being opposed to the opinion of the electorate, since as a matter of law:

“The judges know nothing about any will of the people except in so far as that will is expressed by an Act of Parliament, and would never suffer the validity of a statute to be questioned on the ground of its having been passed or being kept alive in opposition to the wishes of the electors.” (ibid. pp. 57 and 72).
 
23. The principle of Parliamentary sovereignty has been recognised many times in leading cases of the highest authority. Since the principle is common ground in these proceedings it is only necessary to cite the speech of Lord Bingham of Cornhill in R (Jackson) v Attorney General[2005] UKHL 56; [2006] 1 AC 262 at para. [9]:

“The bedrock of the British constitution is … the supremacy of the Crown in Parliament …”.
 
 The Crown’s prerogative powers
 
24. The extent of the powers of the Crown under its prerogative (often called the royal prerogative) are delineated by UK constitutional law. These prerogative powers constitute the residue of legal authority left in the hands of the Crown. As Lord Reid said in Burmah Oil Co (Burma Trading) Ltd v Lord Advocate [1965] AC 75, at 101:

“The prerogative is really a relic of a past age, not lost by disuse, but only available for a case not covered by statute.”
 
25. An important aspect of the fundamental principle of Parliamentary sovereignty is that primary legislation is not subject to displacement by the Crown through the exercise of its prerogative powers. But the constitutional limits on the prerogative powers of the Crown are more extensive than this. The Crown has only those prerogative powers recognised by the common law and their exercise only produces legal effects within boundaries so recognised. Outside those boundaries the Crown has no power to alter the law of the land, whether it be common law or contained in legislation.
 
26. This subordination of the Crown (i.e. the executive government) to law is the foundation of the rule of law in the United Kingdom. It has its roots well before the war between the Crown and Parliament in the seventeenth century but was decisively confirmed in the settlement arrived at with the Glorious Revolution in 1688 and has been recognised ever since.
 
27. Sir Edward Coke reports the considered view of himself and the senior judges of the time in The Case of Proclamations (1610) 12 Co. Rep. 74, that:

“the King by his proclamation or other ways cannot change any part of the common law, or statute law, or the customs of the realm”

and that:

“the King hath no prerogative, but that which the law of the land allows him.”
 
28. The position was confirmed in the first two parts of section 1 of the Bill of Rights 1688:

“Suspending power – That the pretended power of suspending of laws or the execution of laws by regall authority without consent of Parlyament is illegall.

Late dispensing power – That the pretended power of dispensing with laws or the execution of laws by regall authoritie as it hath beene assumed and exercised of late is illegall.”
 
29. The legal position was summarised by the Privy Council in The Zamora [1916] 2 AC 77, at 90:

“The idea that the King in Council, or indeed any branch of the Executive, has power to prescribe or alter the law to be administered by Courts of law in this country is out of harmony with the principles of our Constitution. It is true that, under a number of modern statutes, various branches of the Executive have power to make rules having the force of statutes, but all such rules derive their validity from the statute which creates the power, and not from the executive body by which they are made. No one would contend that the prerogative involves any power to prescribe or alter the law administered in Courts of Common Law or Equity…”

These principles are not only well settled but are also common ground. It is therefore not necessary to explain them further.”

This approach is, to be fair, consistent with the way our Constitution Law has developed. I have previously commented that democracy is very much a bolt-on to the oligarchic principles of the British Constitution. No clearer statement of that could really be sought from any legal Judgment.

In a genuine democracy it is the “People” and the “Nation” which is sovereign, not some constitutional construct like the “Crown in Parliament”. In a genuine democracy the “Crown in Parliament” would be seen to be the delegates of the People not their masters. The People within a democracy are “citizens” not “subjects”. The United States Constitution has a greater aspiration towards being democratic than our constitution which is why there is reference to “we the People…” and court cases are brought in the name of “the People” against the accused rather than as here “the Crown” against the accused.

So what we have in this case is a strongly worded logical Judgment based on the traditional unpinning of the Constitution arising out of the English Bill of Rights and 1689 Glorious Revolution, not on the theory of democracy or any ideas of nationhood.

It looks to me from the Judgment as if the Government may also have failed to argue a distinction between directly applicable EU rights that arise through the EU system and are directly applied as a result of the European Communities Act and have agreed that those rights are the same in essence as rights arising from either Common Law or Statute. Those are the rights which previous cases have upheld as being outside the power of the Royal prerogative to change.

That being the case it may well be that the Supreme Court next month will rule to uphold this Judgment. If that is the case then be in no doubt that the giving of notice under Article 50 will require primary legislation to go through Parliament. That is an Act to be passed by both the House of Commons and the House of Lords and to be given Royal Assent and to be implemented by an Order from the Privy Council.

Such legislation to become an Act of Parliament will be subject to all sorts of quibbles and delaying tactics by the Remainers who form a huge majority of Members of Parliament and Peers. It follows that we look like we are entering a major constitutional crisis at least equivalent to that of Lloyd George’s budget in 1911, which, combined with the Irish Question, got us perilously close to civil war with the then Leader of the Conservative Party involved in smuggling arms!

There is also the tempting question to Tories of whether the Conservatives can get electoral advantage by wrong-footing Labour into outright opposition to such a bill and then being able to get a two thirds majority in the House of Commons for a snap election under the Fixed Terms Parliament Act!

As a postscript would the Conservatives campaigning for a mandate to trigger the Article 50 notice be temptingly likely to achieve Theresa May’s aim of destroying UKIP?

It will also be interesting to see if Labour can actually survive as a Party outside of the metropolitan areas on a ticket of opposing Brexit when a vast majority of their voters in much of the rest of England voted to Leave in June’s EU Referendum!

We will hold Ed and Westminster to ransom: SNP chief boasts!

 
Following Alex Salmond’s outspoken interview on the Andrew Marr Show last Sunday there have been a spate of articles in the various newspapers making much of Alex Salmond’s “threat” to use the SNP’s likely 50+ MPs to force the next (Labour) Government to give all sorts of concessions, not only to Scottish interests, but also to “progressive politics”.


There has been much wind and fury expended on this topic, but what all the commentators do seem to miss is that this is a problem entirely of the British Establishments own making.

After all the English Democrats and the Campaign for an English Parliament have been pointing out for nearly 15 years that what needed to happen, in order to make a level playing field for all the Nations of the UK, was an English Parliament, First Minister and Government, with at least the same powers as the Scottish ones.

There were no sensible or credible arguments against this proposal ever made, merely smear tactics, because it was not seen as being in the interests of either of the three leading parties! If that proposal for a proper Federal UK had been accepted there would now be very little difficulty in accepting SNP representation for Scotland.

The effect of having such a reform would have been to create a Federal United Kingdom, in which the powers and positions of all the various levels were crystal clear and legally binding. It would follow that had that been done, Scottish MPs of whatever colour would not have been able to vote on English-only issues. They would only have had the jurisdiction over the remaining issues reserved to the United Kingdom Parliament. In just the same way it is not for the Federal United States Congress to legislate for non-Federal matters which are subject to the States’ jurisdiction. So, for example, we have just had the State of Utah legislate to re-introduce the firing squad method of execution of criminals sentenced to death by their (States) courts. This is nothing whatever to do with the Federal Government and the Federal authorities have no jurisdiction over it whatsoever.

In the same way, had there been a proper Federal UK structure created, rather than a mish mash set up and maintained for what they thought was the convenience of the Establishment parties, Mr Salmond’s MPs would not have been in a position to vote on England specific taxes, part of the product of which could then be spent in Scotland, or to influence the English Government on what it did with the English NHS or English transport policy, such as the proposed building of the HS2.

It is the very absence of an English Parliament which makes it now seem quite unlikely that the Conservatives will form part of the next Government after May 7th.

I am looking forward with interest to hear what kind of diversion tactics they get involved in, in order to try and disguise the fact that the difficulty that they are going to be in is as much as anything a product of their own incompetence and lack of forethought! But then we have been with this very much before with the Conservatives, David Cameron appears to be someone with very little strategic vision and is as one commentator rightly pointed out “slapdash and complacent”. Well now, Mr Cameron, it looks like the Caper Caillie are coming home to roost!

Here is one of the articles I was referring to:-

Salmond

holds Ed to ransom: SNP chief boasts he would dictate a first Labour budget with plans for £180bn spending spree to ‘end austerity’
 
SNP leader Alex Salmond has revealed he plans to hold Labour to ransom
A landslide for his party would allow him to dictate Ed Balls’ first Budget 
Mr Salmond also said construction of HS2 rail line must start in Scotland
Comments described as one of the ‘scariest interviews’ in political history

Alex Salmond has boasted that a SNP landslide at the General Election would allow him to demand that Ed Balls ends austerity

Alex Salmond vowed yesterday to hold a Labour minority government to ransom to secure a £180billion debt-fuelled spending spree.

Scotland’s former first minister boasted that an SNP landslide at the General Election would allow him to dictate Ed Balls’s first Budget as Chancellor – and demand that he ‘end austerity’.

Mr Salmond also declared construction of the HS2 rail line would have to start in Scotland and Britain’s nuclear defences be scaled back.

With polls pointing to a hung Parliament and the SNP on course to win dozens of seats from Labour, he said of last year’s independence referendum: ‘We haven’t lost after all. If you hold the balance, then you hold the power.’

Tory Defence Minister Anna Soubry told him he had delivered one of the ‘scariest interviews’ in modern political history.

Boris Johnson increased pressure on Labour to rule out any post-election deal with the SNP, which is predicted to take as many as 50 of Scotland’s 59 seats, up from six in 2010.

‘Labour would be drawn to feed the beast,’ he said. ‘That’s what they have always done. They have created the problems by trying to appease Scottish Nationalism. They have endlessly encouraged it rather than taking it on.’

The Conservative Mayor of London called himself an ‘absolutely fervent unionist’ and said he was ‘very worried’ the SNP was deliberately stoking resentment against the Scots in the rest of the UK. He condemned Labour for vowing to use a new levy on expensive homes in the South East of England to pay for public services north of the border.

‘I was appalled by what [Scottish Labour leader] Jim Murphy had to say about despoiling London and the South East with property taxes in order to pay for Scotland,’ Mr Johnson said. ‘That’s not going to promote good relations’.

With polls suggesting the SNP could hold the balance of power at Westminster – and fears a deal with Labour could break up the Union – Mr Miliband finally bowed to pressure from senior colleagues last week and ruled out a formal coalition with the Nationalists.

But he has refused to reject a ‘confidence and supply’ deal, which would see the SNP guarantee to vote for key legislation in the Commons in exchange for concessions. More likely still is the SNP negotiating with a minority Labour government on a vote-by-vote basis.

When asked by the BBC’s Sunday Politics yesterday, Mr Murphy declined six times to rule out such an arrangement.

Mr Miliband will today travel to Scotland in a desperate bid to shore up votes, stepping up his warnings that an SNP surge would risk keeping David Cameron in power.

The latest poll suggests Labour is failing to stem the Nationalist tide, with the SNP 21 points ahead on 47 per cent.

The Conservatives last night unveiled an animated campaign video, featuring Mr Miliband dancing a jig as Mr Salmond ‘calls the tune’.

Speaking to the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, the former first minister said he would work with Plaid Cymru and the Green Party in a ‘progressive’ alliance.

TERRIFYING! TORY ANNA LAYS BARE SNP THREAT TO BRITAIN 

Anna Soubry launches a fierce criticism of Alex Salmond on the Andrew Marr show

Alex Salmond faced an extraordinary assault yesterday by Conservative MP Anna Soubry over his plan to hold Westminster to ransom. Here are highlights of their exchange on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show:

MISS SOUBRY: I have to say, I think [Mr Salmond’s] is one of the scariest interviews I have heard for a very long time.

MR SALMOND: Scary? Come on …

MISS SOUBRY: Absolutely! It’s not personal at all. I’ve met Alex a few times – he seems a very charming man, but absolutely terrifying.

The thought that we are in a position where you could be actually controlling, in the way you have described, this United Kingdom fills me with absolute horror. The audacity is astonishing.

There was a wonderful debate in Scotland. You lost it. We are a united kingdom; that’s what the people of Scotland wanted and because of the inadequacies of Labour north of the border …

MR SALMOND: But Anna …

MISS SOUBRY: You guys are now in a position whereby you would be this power broker.

MR SALMOND: So we haven’t lost after all then …

MISS SOUBRY: Exactly! It’s a back-door way of breaking up the Union. It’s really concerning.

MR SALMOND: I wanted Scotland to be independent. I wanted to leave Anna to her own devices in the House of Commons. She wanted us in the House of Commons. Now she’s complaining that we are going to have too many seats. I mean, goodness me …

MISS SOUBRY: This is really concerning for our democracy and for the safety of our nation as well, because of his views on Trident.

MR SALMOND: This is about a gateway decision on renewing the next generation of nuclear weapons, and that would be taken next year. It’s £100billion.

Anna wouldn’t be a defence minister under my formulation [of propping up a minority Labour government]. It’s nothing personal, I just have a fundamental disagreement. She wants the poor to pay. I don’t think we need the new nukes.

MISS SOUBRY: The real problem is this: Alex has made it very clear that, as far as he is concerned, there would be no deal with Labour unless there’s no renewal of Trident.

He has made that very clear. That’s true and honest to his own beliefs…

MR SALMOND: You couldn’t have coalition or confidence and supply, but a vote-by-vote basis is what comes up in the House of Commons …

Miss Soubry: No, no, no. Hang on a moment. When you and I were doing [BBC Radio 4’s] Any Questions, you said it was a red line for the SNP.

MR SALMOND: Yes, for a coalition or confidence and supply, obviously. Vote-by-vote is vote-by-vote …

MISS SOUBRY: We now have a situation whereby Labour is in real danger. There’s an absolute possibility that they will sell out on Trident, they will sell out on our defences. What chaos. Absolute chaos! Chaos.

MR SALMOND: My view is, confidence and supply we describe as possible; I think vote-by-vote is probable.

MISS SOUBRY: God, what a way to run a country!

MR SALMOND: Listen, I ran a minority government for four years …

MISS SOUBRY: Yes, but that was in Scotland. We are are a United Kingdom [Parliament] where we do defence and do other things as well.

He suggested the SNP could support a minority Labour government on a vote-by-vote basis even if it refuses to scrap the Trident nuclear deterrent, a previous ‘red line’ issue. A ‘tartan bloc’ at Westminster would ‘move the Labour Party in a different direction’, Mr Salmond said.

‘I think there are lots of people – certainly lots of people in Scotland, but I think people across these islands – [who] are pretty fed up with the duopoly at Westminster and might want to see politics a bit more interesting, where parties have to work for their votes and justify things on a vote by vote basis,’ Mr Salmond added.

Asked if Ed Balls would have to negotiate his Budget with the SNP, Mr Salmond replied: ‘Yes, any minority government has to negotiate in order to win a majority for its proposal. That is patently obvious. To deny that is to deny reality.’

One of the SNP’s many demands is to delay plans to tackle Britain’s deficit by spending an extra £180billion over five years on the country’s credit card. Treasury chiefs have warned that it would drive up debt.

Challenged to explain how he would respond to Mr Balls if Labour told him ‘where to go’, Mr Salmond said he would demand that the Scottish phase of the HS2 rail line be built first, rather than the London section.

‘Let’s say, for example, instead of this very, very slow fast-rail coming up from London, I think we should start [building] it from Edinburgh or Glasgow to Newcastle and I put that down as a Budget amendment,’ he said. ‘It would have substantial support in the North of England from the other parties and will carry the House of Commons. What does Mr Balls do then?’

Later, he told Sky News’s Murnaghan programme: ‘What I think is possible is a confidence and supply arrangement where we have a limited number of objectives and in return we would vote for Budgets.

‘More probable is a vote-by-vote arrangement. We would move, or attempt to move, the Labour Party away from signing up to the Tory austerity agenda.’ Miss Soubry said the possibility of Mr Salmond controlling a Labour government filled her with ‘absolute horror’.

She told the Andrew Marr Show: ‘That was one of the scariest interviews I’ve heard for a very long time … absolutely terrifying.’

Confronting Mr Salmond directly, she added: ‘The audacity is astonishing. There was a wonderful debate in Scotland – you lost it. We are a united kingdom; that is what the people of Scotland wanted.’ …

Conservative Party chairman Grant Shapps said: ‘Thanks to Labour’s collapse in Scotland the only way Ed Miliband will get to Downing Street is if he does a grubby deal with Alex Salmond.’

He added: ‘In every vote … weak Ed Miliband would dance to Alex Salmond’s tune – it would cause chaos for the country.’

Scottish Labour Party leader Jim Murphy (pictured) refused six times to rule out a post-election deal with the SNP

Labour’s leader in Scotland refused six times to rule out a post-election deal with the SNP in a bruising TV interview yesterday.

The BBC’s Andrew Neil asked Jim Murphy repeatedly whether he would renounce a so-called ‘confidence and supply’ arrangement with the nationalists.

Both sides have made clear that there will not be a formal coalition with the SNP holding ministerial posts – but neither have ruled out a looser agreement, with the nationalists supporting Labour in certain votes.

Mr Murphy insisted he would ‘not get into further detail of a post-match analysis of a contest that hasn’t yet taken place’.

He said: ‘We are in this contest to win, not for a near draw.’ Asked again if he would rule out a deal with the nationalists, he said: ‘If we are the biggest party we will put our positions on the minimum wage, the living wage and much else besides, if the SNP vote for it, that’s nice.

‘If they vote against it that is their mistake because if we cannot get a majority in the House of Commons … the SNP would be responsible for bringing down a Labour government.’

He went on: ‘We are trying to win an election, we are trying to win the majority, we cannot do that when the whole debate is about what happens after the election.

‘Let’s talk about public spending, how we make the UK stronger at home, how we eradicate poverty. Let’s have those big discussions, then let’s debate after the election what happens after the election.’

Mr Murphy, the MP for East Renfrewshire, has been leader of the Labour Party in Scotland for just four months.

He took over in the shadow of the independence referendum in which Labour’s performance took a battering and its former Scottish leader, Johann Lamont, was forced to resign.

Mr Murphy is highly regarded in the party and has tried to run a unity campaign based on tackling poverty and inequality.

But he is grappling with polls suggesting Labour – which won 41 out of Scotland’s 59 seats in 2010 – could lose almost all of its MPs north of the border in May.

Click here for the original article >>> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3006926/Salmond-holds-Ed-Balls-ransom-SNP-chief-boasts-dictate-Labour-budget-plans-180bn-spending-spree-end-austerity.html

CAMERON’S ENGLISH VOTES CHESS MOVE PUTS MILIBAND AND CLEGG IN EVEL CHECK

This is our press release about Cameron’s speech today:-

CAMERON’S ENGLISH VOTES CHESS MOVE PUTS MILIBAND AND CLEGG IN EVEL CHECK

David Cameron’s speech today at the Conservative Conference in Birmingham was interesting for all those concerned with the English Question. At last a section of the British Political Establishment, which for the last 15 years has been happy to see English concerns about England’s rights dismissed, came out with a proposal which partly addressed the democratic representational part of the English Question.

The English Democrats welcome David Cameron’s English repositioning. David Cameron infamously told Andrew Marr that he would not change the unfair Barnett Formula which gives over £1600 extra to the average man, woman and child in Scotland compared to those in England (or £6,600 more to the average family). He said that his attitude was because “I’m a Cameron (and) there is quite a lot of Scottish blood flowing through these veins.”

EVEL may be a very little move which constitutionally speaking is unlikely to work very well. Significantly it only starts to answer the least important part (representation) of the English question because it does nothing about providing an English First Minister or Government for all the English only departments which are currently controlled exclusively from the British legislature at Westminster.

Robin Tilbrook, the Chairman of the English Democrats said:- “I welcome the fact that even a politician as hostile to English national feelings, as Dave Donald Cameron, who infamously said previously he would not even encourage English people to celebrate St George’s Day since he wanted to be the “Prime Minister of Great Britain and not just England” and who said he would “fight the little Englanders wherever he found them”. Even he has nevertheless been driven by however unworthy motives of political careerism to partially address the English Question.”

Robin, who is a senior litigation Solicitor with extensive experience of Constitutional Law, continued:- “The English Democrats are confident that, as a solution, English votes for English laws will not work for the reasons set out below in the annex to this press release, nevertheless David Cameron’s move will start a dynamic process in which we hope that the British Establishment’s united hostility to England and their attempts to break England up into “Regions” will be ultimately check-mated.”

“David Cameron is a spinner not a conviction politician and his interest in making this move is entirely as part of the political chess game within the Westminster elite.”

“David Cameron has done this not because he has any genuine conviction about the need to improve English democracy, but as a canny chess move to put Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg into political check. The legislative process will require their Parties to either come out in favour of this move which will damage their Party position in the House of Commons or to oppose it risking a significant political backlash from the 60.4% or 32 million adults in England that identified themselves in the 2011 Census as being English only and not British.”

Robin Tilbrook

Chairman, 
The English Democrats

English Votes for English Laws (“EVEL”) is a Westminster focussed political gimmick not a constitutionally valid solution to the “English Question” and cannot work for the following reasons:-

1. If EVEL is introduced without legislation it would probably be merely a procedural Convention, without the force of law. It is much easier for politicians to change Conventions than to repeal Acts of Parliament.

2. EVEL does not address who governs England (The English Question) and would lead to a situation whereby a non-English Minister could propose legislation but be unable to speak or vote in support of it. The Prime Minister (“PM”) appoints Ministers for English Departments. These appointees may be, and have been, from parts of the UK that are devolved and such Ministers are thus unaccountable to those whom their policies and actions affect. Similarly a PM can, and has had, control of all English matters even though they do not affect his own constituents.

3. EVEL does not address the issue of who scrutinises and revises laws for England. Uniquely in the UK it is only English domestic law that is passed to the House of Lords, many of the members of which are not from England.

4. (As in 1964) EVEL will create problems if a government is elected without a majority in England, in any such case the UK government would find it very difficult to pass legislation on matters that only affect England and would be impelled to break the EVEL Convention.

5. EVEL will not provide a voice for England either with regard to “Reserved matters” concerning, for instance, the distribution within the UK of Treasury funds nor in international fora such as the British/Irish Council or the EU. In contrast, each of the devolved administrations has both UK Secretaries of State and also Ministers within the devolved Executives to champion the interests of their citizens in these meetings and to influence the outcomes in their own countries’ favour.

6. All Members of Parliament (“MPs”) at Westminster should be elected equally across the UK to represent their constituents in the UK Parliament. EVEL will create two classes of MPs in Westminster. However since devolution Westminster MPs do not equally represent their constituents in all matters as they should do. There are now two categories of MP with reference to devolved matters; accountable and unaccountable. Some are accountable to the electorate that voted for them in all matters and some are not, namely those that have the power to debate and vote on English matters that do not concern their constituents.

7. EVEL is an unequal and short-term fix for a long-term problem. The constitution of the United Kingdom was unbalanced by Devolution and only a rational, coherent and logically defensible Federal system can realistically be expected to halt the slide towards the dissolution of the UK.

England to be allowed its own national identity?

Today there is an interesting article, published in “The Scotsman”, which shows an encouraging glimmer of understanding that there is the potential for a winning synergy between Scottish and English Nationalism:-

“Reform requires us to address a crisis of identity”
By George Kerevan

“Lasting constitutional change will need co-operation from a sovereign, confident England – which does not exist”

REGULAR readers will know that I occasionally tilt against the failure of the SNP to hold a public debate on key aspects of post-independence policy. So you might think I sympathise with the recent call by Michael Moore, the mild-mannered Liberal Democrat Secretary of State for Scotland, for the SNP to say “exactly what independence would involve”. Indeed, the first question Mr Moore wants the SNP to answer is: “What regulation would be applied to our banks and who would enforce it?”

But Mr Moore speaks with a very forked tongue. For a start, he gave his speech on the day his party colleague, Vince Cable, was fulminating over Chancellor George Osborne’s decision to kick bank reform into the long grass. So Michael, can I ask what financial regulation your coalition agrees on, and when will it happen?

In the recent (lost) AV referendum, the tactic used successfully by the opponents of a fairer voting system was to harp on that the alternate vote system had not been fully explained. Rather than argue their own case, they implied the other side was not coming clean about theirs. Sadly, Mr Moore has adopted the same cynical tactic.

However, Mr Moore commits an even bigger sin – he can’t see the political wood for the trees. For the issue before the Scottish electorate is not independence. Alex Salmond is shouting through a political megaphone that he wants a referendum with three questions: the break-up of the UK, fiscal autonomy (de facto Home Rule), or the creaking status quo. Does anyone disagree on the likely outcome?

The SNP has stated unambiguously that in any constitutional settlement it will keep the pound sterling and share common (but non-nuclear) defence arrangements with England. What is that but Home Rule as the Liberal government defined it in 1914, when it enacted a Scottish Home Rule Bill at Westminster (only to see it shelved when the Great War broke out)?

So why is Mr Moore fixated by independence? Because he and his ilk view the SNP in isolation rather than as part of a general crisis of Britishness. The rise of the SNP and Plaid Cymru, the savage Troubles in Northern Ireland and the growth of populist and semi-fascist currents in England are all part of the same political mosaic. The British state, its economy and civic identity were the product of Empire. Two world wars, ensuing bankruptcy and de-colonialisation demolished this imperial project and, with it, a common notion of Britishness.

In Scotland, the end of Empire led a new generation in the 1960s to reinvent themselves as Scottish rather than British. This was accelerated by the indifference of London to the collapse of Scottish heavy industry. A similar, if diluted, process began in Wales.

In the forgotten Bantustan of Northern Ireland, the economic decline of the old Protestant ascendancy combined with the blind ignorance of Westminster to ensure a violent reaction by the Orange “British” working class.

In only one part of the UK was the appearance of a modern, post-imperial national identity thwarted – England. The big London parties allied to brand any manifestation of Englishness as culturally regressive, politically irrelevant or borderline racist. Why? The Tories were reluctant to recognise the end of Empire, while Labour feared a loss of electoral influence. This is a great shame, for the roots of Englishness lie in the rule of law and individual freedom.

By ignoring Englishness, the big parties grew blind to the need to reform the British constitution at root. Yet the evolution of politics, culture and economics over the past 50 years means that our national identities – Scots, Welsh, Irish and English – are not going to fuse into a homogeneous whole – quite the opposite. Which implies that we still need a new, post-imperial compact between these sovereign peoples if we are to make the British Isles congenial. The SNP is offering such a compact, if only Mr Moore and others will listen.

Of course, Mr Salmond does not use the words Home Rule or confederation. Spotting this, some Unionist politicians, including the normally sensible Menzies Campbell, have called on Mr Salmond to come clean that he has abandoned the SNP’s long-cherished goal in favour of “diet-independence”. But Mr Salmond is never going to use this formulation, and asking him to is tantamount to rejecting the SNP’s offer of Home Rule. First, Mr Salmond is too smart a politician to give up the threat of separation before he gets what he really wants. Second, he will not risk any division in the SNP’s ranks before he has delivered something tangible by way of fiscal autonomy.

But can Mr Salmond deliver Home Rule or will the SNP split? My reckoning is that the majority of party members view fiscal autonomy as the litmus test of sovereignty, not embassies or flags. The keeper of the fundamentalist flame, Jim Sillars, has already shifted to a more pragmatic position, preferring to remove any implied threats to English interests that might hinder the transfer of de facto sovereignty to Holyrood. Besides, internal resistance to Mr Salmond has long since been dissipated by the massed phalanx of MSPs and their paid advisers.

There are those in the SNP – like me – who doubt if a workable confederation with England will emerge, though I’m willing to give it a try. My view is that the Unionist political establishment – witness Mr Moore – is totally capable of looking a gift horse in the mouth. Even if Mr Salmond wins fiscal autonomy, lasting constitutional reform can only work inside an agreed framework of co-operation – on interest rates and security policy – between the sovereign nations of these British Isles.

But that implies a sovereign English parliament as equal partner rather than a grudging, dominant Westminster. And a sovereign, confident England does not exist. For the same Unionist parties that have put up a fighting retreat in front of Scottish nationalism are the very ones that have also refused to develop a modern, liberal English nationalism.”

Here is the Article on the Scotsman’s site
http://www.scotsman.com/politics/George-Kerevan-Reform-requires-us.6829467.jp?articlepage=1

A brief biopic of the author is here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Kerevan

I think that you will agree at least a glimmer of hope there but unfortunately still in the media conditioned mindset of thinking of English Nationalism as a threat.

Meanwhile, on the BBC News Politics site,we can see how very limited is the British Establishment’s interest in fair treatment for England.

Mark D’Arcy, the BBC’s Parliamentary correspondent in his “Viewing guide: The pick of the week ahead in Parliament” says:-

“Friday is private members bill day in the Commons, and topping the bill is the Report Stage debate on the Conservative backbencher Harriet Baldwin’s Legislation (Territorial Extent) Bill. This takes a stab at giving a partial answer to the West Lothian Question by requiring that in future all bills put before Parliament should contain a clear statement of how they affect each of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – including knock-on financial implications. She hopes that this would allow it to become accepted practice that Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs would not vote on England-only Bills. The Government attitude is interesting, to put it mildly. The Coalition Agreement includes a promise to set up a commission to look at the West Lothian Question (the issue of MPs from devolved parts of the UK being able to vote on English issues, when English MPs can’t vote on the same issues in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) but that commission has yet to be set up. Ministers clearly don’t want the Baldwin bill, and she can expect pressure to withdraw it.

Having, somewhat to her own surprise, piloted the Bill through the the most perilous stage of the parliamentary life-cycle, the Second Reading debate, and through Committee where it was unamended, (although that may owe something to the broken leg suffered by Labour constitutional affairs spokesman Chris Bryant) Harriet Baldwin can now hope to send it off to the Lords. The main way of preventing this would be for opponents to put down a deluge of amendments at Report Stage – and talk out the available debating time. We shall see.”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-14737976

Which all goes to show that if England and the English Nation are ever to get fair treatment it will only be because there is a credible English Nationalist party forcing the pace!

Eddie Bone: A sensible prescription for an English Parliament

This article was published in The Yorkshire Evening Post on Saturday 27th August. Eddie Bone is a good friend of mine and a fellow campaigner for an English Parliament. The article makes compelling reading and it is nice to see the mainstream press allowing debate on such an important issue.

A DECADE ago, the people of England would not have been discussing the prospect of independence for Scotland.

However, independence is now clearly on the horizon following the historic and game changing Scottish National Party victory in May.

Most people when they’re asked about Scottish independence will say that the unfair system now operating in the UK needs to change and they highlight the Barnett formula which gives Scotland a bigger share of public spending. They might not understand this formula, but they see its effects.

They see things like free prescriptions in Scotland, while in England they have to pay.

They see the Scottish elderly getting subsidised care; they see free university education for Scottish students when English students are landed with thousands of pounds worth of debt.

The Campaign for an English Parliament (CEP) knows a key concern for the English is the establishment of a different style of NHS created by unfair cutbacks being implemented on them. They now realise that the health service is being protected in Wales and Scotland but not in their communities.

The CEP has been campaigning for over a decade and in the early days most people viewed themselves as British and not English.

What we’re now realising is that more people in England are identifying themselves as English than British and, as national identities evolve, it becomes inevitable that the British identity will become less attractive.

If the Unionist parties fail to show the value of Britishness, then it will disappear.

Although the Union has given us all constitutional stability over the past 300 years, it now means that England doesn’t have a democratic voice.

This has meant most people are rekindling their love of England out of both want and necessity.

They do not want their children to suffer with tuition fees or their elderly relatives to suffer for the sake of feeling British. The chain that interlocks Englishness and Britishness will be broken altogether if it is twisted too hard.

This should make us all reflect on a line in a Rudyard Kipling’s poem when he writes “he never means anything serious till he talks about justice and right”.

Although he is talking about a different time period, everyone in England is now awake to devolution and the talk of injustice.

People appear to accept that Scotland always had national institutional recognition, so when Scotland talks about independence, you’ll find that people are coming round to the idea that it might break away.

Yet it is a different scenario for Wales. It is seen as having more of a cultural nationality. The CEP has noticed an uneasy feeling since the Welsh were given more powers through the Assembly.

It seems to have unnerved the people of England and for the first time they are able to see that the break-up of the Union might actually impact on their lives. The domino effect of devolution has finally penetrated English consciousness.

We’re only beginning to feel the real impact of public spending cuts which will accentuate the problems.

Already 64 per cent of people in England are saying “give us a Parliament for England”. Yet what is more surprising is the quickly achieved percentage jump of people in England willing to discuss independence. It appears that the English just did not want to take responsibility for the break-up of the Union.

Now they can place it at the feet of the Scottish they appear happier to express their Englishness.

Our union of nations needs discussion not from a Scottish view as the British Broadcasting Corporation appears to want, but it also needs to be discussed from an English and Welsh perception.

The writing is now on the wall; the English are starting to enjoy Englishness again.

Most British MPs make the mistake that when they initially mention devolution to people in England, their eyes glaze over.

But if you mention the effects of not having a Parliament on issues like prescription charges, all of a sudden they become very vocal, their eyes become bright and they quickly say, we need an English government. And they’re right.

Eddie Bone is chairman of the Campaign for an English Parliament.

http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/debate/columnists/eddie_bone_a_sensible_prescription_for_an_english_parliament_1_3714541

Make St. George’s Day our National Holiday – Sign our Petition

Today the English Democrats launch their biggest ever online campaign. Our main website is now collecting the 100,000 signatures needed to force a debate in the Houses of Parliament on St George’s Day being officially recognised as England’s national day.

We set up one of the most successful Facebook Causes:- ‘Make St. George’s Day a Bank holiday! I am English & Proud! (English Democrats’ Cause)’. We now have over 705,000 Cause members! Our Cause calls for St George’s Day to be officially recognised as the National Holiday for the English. There is huge national support in England for this issue!

We are now collecting signatures for our E-Petition with the aim of forcing a debate in Parliament. We need 100,000 signatures to make it happen.

You can sign our petition by clicking here or following the link below:

http://www.voteenglish.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=220&Itemid=586

You can also join our Facebook Cause by clicking the link below, please make sure you’ve already signed up to Facebook causes first.

http://www.causes.com/causes/181031-make-st-george-s-day-a-bank-holiday-i-m-english-proud-english-democrats-cause?recruiter_id=150860020

There is massive public support for this issue but we need your signature on our petition to help build up pressure on the politicians to give the English the same rights as the Scots, Irish and Welsh nations enjoy to celebrate their Patron Saints’ Days.